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Latest update: 2011 May 22
Chapter 34
1998 March
Index with links to the other chapters
[As of 6:00pm 9 March 1998, fifteen days before the election, that's the online status of the Nova Scotia Election.]
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Note: On May 22, 2011 (long after the 1998 election), I discovered the following candidate's website archived in the Wayback Machine. It had been available during the 1998 election campaign, but I was unable to find it at the time. This "unfindability" condition was not all that uncommon in these early days of the WWW, when many people were not well-informed about how to make a new website findable – that is, how to make it visible to the search engines of the day (remember, this was years before Google was invented):
Hinrich Bitter-Suermann, PC Candidate Chester-St. Margaret's (archived 23 July 1997) This was the best candidate's website during the 1998 election in Nova Scotia (and, for relevant political information, it compares favourably against most candidates' websites a decade later). |
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[ICS comment (written in mid-March 1998)]: The PC Party has made one of the most fundamental mistakes in organizing their new website — they have not set up an adequate management structure for the site.
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| Browser | Total Requests |
|---|---|
| Netscape 3.x | 30.6% |
| Microsoft IE 3.x | 20.4% |
| Netscape 4.x | 17.9% |
| Microsoft IE 4.x | 8.8% |
| Netscape 2.x | 7.0% |
| WiseWire-Widow-1.0r | 5.4% |
| Scooter/1.0 scooter@pa.dec.com |
3.6% |
| Gulliver/1.2 | 2.9% |
| Microsoft IE 2.x | 1.9% |
| WiseWire-Spider-1.0 | 1.5% |
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This report of recent browser usage tells me that my Netscape 4.0 is about as modern as there is right now, at least among widely-used browsers. But there are some features of the PC Party website that do not work properly with my browser. If my Netscape 4.0 is not able to cope with some features of the PC Party website, perhaps the problem is with the website design.
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[ICS (webmaster) comment: And I thought the PC Party website was badly managed! (See above) At least I can look at the PC site. But this new Liberal website is so far gone in the direction of "Look ma, what I can do" that I cannot even view the entry page (remember, I'm using Netscape Navigator 4.0, one of the most advanced browsers now generally available). If you can believe it — the Liberal website is heavy with numerous graphics, and Java crap, and Applets running crawlers — as if this was the kind of stuff the average citizen is looking for in a political party website in the middle of a close election campaign.
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At this point, the Liberal website again crashed my browser. Apparently the site designer assumed that all viewers have pretty much the latest in computer technology, such as a 150 megahertz Pentium, with 56k modem on a T1 line, and with high-level plug-ins. The website explicitly states:
"To find out who the Liberal Candidate is for your constituency, click on one of the corresponding ridings below or find it on our riding map by clicking on the icon to the right. (map requires the "macromedia flash" plug-in to operate in your browser... Note: If the words on the map are too small to read, try hiding some toolbars in your browser using the View menu at the top of your screen. The map will scale to a larger size." There is no mention of what hardware capabilities are necessary to make this "macromedia flash" plug-in operate in my browser, so I have no idea whether my system is capable of accomodating it. Apparently the Liberal Party is happy to exclude from its website all those who have computer systems that are a bit less than brand new, even though they still work fine on all the other party websites. They are also happy to require that viewers all be comfortable with the arcane inner workings of complex software ("...try hiding some toolbars..."). They seem to be blissfully unaware that there is a substantial proportion of people who can get around on the Net if things do not get too hairy, but who are likely to be scared away by such rigid (and unnecessary) technical skill requirements.My question is — Is this a smart way to design a website for a political party? Obviously, my answer to that question is No. My main concern is that the political leaders have allowed themselves to be misled by a few people who put flashy technical gimmicks first, and making the site widely accessible second. Here's a quote from Jim Carroll's Ten Things to Watch Out for in the Future (see below for an archived copy of this item). Mr. Carroll was making a general comment, which was written a year before the three Nova Scotia political parties got their websites running. But his comment is so close to the bone, and so apt for those in charge of these political websites, that I quote it here. IMHO, this should be printed in large type, framed, and displayed prominently in the office of each of the three political party leaders, along with the offices of their most influential advisors.
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The Wayback Machine has archived copies of this document:
Archived: 1998 February 15
Archived: 1999 February 03
Archived: 1999 April 27
These links were accessed and found to be valid on 28 June 2010. |
| As far as I know, this is the first time in history that there has been a website for the purpose of promoting any candidate, or credible potential candidate, for the position of a national leader of any Canadian political party. |
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Thursday 12 March — Questions submitted Monday 16 March — Answer 1 Tuesday 17 March — Rebuttal 1 Wednesday 18 March — Answer 2 Thursday 19 March — Rebuttal 2 Friday 20 March — Wrap up |
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Dan Bunbury wrote the following introduction:
NS-POLITICS is an e-list which is the participatory heartbeat of the Nova Scotia Electronic Democracy Forum. The forum is hosted and supported by the Centre for Community & Enterprise Networking (CCEN) of the University College of Cape Breton (UCCB). This list is open to all Nova Scotians, and those beyond its borders, who are interested in political issues and electronic democracy. The purpose of this list is to provide an electronic forum for the discussion of all matters political and social pertaining, first to Nova Scotia, and as they relate directly or indirectly to Nova Scotia, matters more national in scope. By 19 March, the list had more than a hundred subscribers. If you want to subscribe to this list, just send an ordinary e-mail To: listserv@ccen.uccb.ns.ca leave the subject line blank, and in the body of the message subscribe NS-Politics Napoleon Bonaparte except, instead of "Napoleon Bonaparte" insert your name. |
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The Wayback Machine has archived copies of this document:
Archived: 1998 April 29
This link was accessed and found to be valid on 28 June 2010. |
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The Wayback Machine has archived copies of this document:
Archived: 1998 July 13
This link was accessed and found to be valid on 28 June 2010. |
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The Wayback Machine has archived copies of this document:
Archived: 1998 July 13
This link was accessed and found to be valid on 28 June 2010. |
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ICS (webmaster) comment — None of the three party leaders — Chisholm, Hamm, and MacLellan — has a personal or campaign website. Remarkably, neither the current Minister of Technology, Bruce Holland, nor the immediately preceding Minister of Technology, Gerald O'Malley, has a personal or campaign website, although both are candidates in this election. The current Minister of Education, Robbie Harrison, does not have a personal or campaign website, even though he is the driving force behind the $30,000,000 "Harrison High", a new high school currently under construction in his riding which has for years been promoted as a showcase of modern educational technology, with up-to-date electronic communications and information technology playing a prominent part in the plans.
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[ICS (webmaster) — In the history of communications in Nova Scotia, I put this development in the same category as the first advertising to include a telephone number. In future elections, there is no doubt that party and candidate advertising will routinely include Internet and WWW contact information, in the way that, now, it is taken for granted by everyone that contact information includes a telephone number. Nowadays, it is understood that candidates and political parties have to have a telephone number and they have to tell people what it is, but it was not always thus. In the history of electric communications, one of the significant milestones is the time when the telephone reached a level of acceptance that it was thought to be of sufficient importance that businesses and other organizations began to include a telephone number in newspaper advertising. The earliest Nova Scotia newspaper ad I have found that included a telephone number was printed in 1888 — that is the earliest I have found so far, but my research in that area has barely begun and it is highly likely that earlier examples exist.] |
| There may be additional material of interest in the CCTA website at http://www.ccta.com/ but, for some reason, the CCTA entry page is blank. All I get is a solid black background, with no text or graphics, thus there is no way to proceed. The link (above), using a URL I got from a search engine, works okay, but that's all. Attempts to parse that URL don't work because Access Is Denied to the directories. Thus entry to the website is not possible unless you first have the complete URL of the destination file. It is a very strange way to design a website, but that's how it is, as of 18 August 1998. (I was using an up-to-date browser, Netscape 4.0, during my attempts to obtain access, but the CCTA website wasn't cooperative.) |
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The Wayback Machine has archived copies of
Date: 26 Jan 1998 Chernobyling
Date: 26 Jan 1998 Chernobyling
Date: 29 Mar 1998 Michelin loans forgiven
Date: 9 Apr 1998 Michelin loans are forgiven !
Date: 4 Apr 1998 Child Welfare in N.S./Cape Breton
Date: 22 Apr 1998 Virginia a New IT Development Pole, IT development in NS?
Date: 29 May 1998 Counterculture Is Over – Is a Backlash Next?
Date: 31 May 1998 LA Times column, 5/25/98 The Next Big Thing
Date: 30 Mar 1999 Business chooses Metro Hfx over CB 19-0
Date: 12 Jun 1999 Study paints bleak job scene in Canada
These links were accessed and found to be valid on 01 July 2010. |
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Note: Because of a deficiency in the source server
Date: 13 Mar 1998 Nova Scotia Election E-Debate - Education
Date: 13 Mar 1998 Nova Scotia Election E-Debate - Education
Date: 6 Apr 1998 Power To The People: These links were accessed and found to be valid on 01 July 2010. |
It is often stated (even by knowledgeable engineers, analysts, and reporters) that year 2000 bugs are caused by programs written in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. This misperception is dangerous, as it encourages people who depend only on modern programs to think that they are not at risk. In fact, year 2000 bugs abound in programs from all eras, including programs written during the 1990s...
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The Wayback Machine has an archived copy of this document:
Date: 31 March 1998 Y2K-bugs-are-not-just-a-legacy-problem
This link was accessed and found to be valid on 01 July 2010. |
Index with links to the other chapters
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