wp-content folder
April 22nd, 2006 at 09:34am
As many of you would have noticed, just about every image you see here is buried somewhere in the /wp-content/ folder. Up until recently it was possible to browse this folder without hassle, which is something I don’t mind as I like people to be able to sift through the files in there, after all, it is all on the blog somewhere.
When I upgraded to version 2 of WordPress, the upgrade script added an index.php file to the /wp-content/ folder which produced a blank page instead of a directory listing. I noticed this the other day and it has now been removed.
Apart from people being able to peruse the files in there, it is also important to have this folder accessable so that the National Library of Australia’s PANDORA project can gather not only the posts and files I link to, but also an accurate a full collection and index of the files on the site. Back in January when the site was last archived by PANDORA they were able to do that because I had linked to one of the many Blog View Stats folders, and as such, were able to follow the links through to the rest of the directories. Having a blank index page on /wp-content/ would have made that task impossible.
Anyway, if you’re feeling curious, feel free to take a look around inside /wp-content/
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Blog News
6 Comments
1. John B1_B5 | April 22nd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Can the National Library pick up on ordinary RSS stuff ?
2. Samuel | April 22nd, 2006 at 2:36 pm
They can read the RSS files, but I don’t think they follow links in them, as they only index sites periodically (anually in the case of this site).
3. John B1_B5 | April 22nd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Ok . So how would I know if they were ‘picking up’ any info from “John B1_B5s Place” ?
4. Samuel | April 22nd, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Unless they’ve contacted you, they’re not.
Basically the copyright act has a legal deposit section which requires printed works (eg. books & newspapers) to have one copy sent to the National Library of Australia. The same is not true for electronic publication (Internet, CD-ROMs etc), and as such the National Library need permission from the copyright holder to gather those materials.
There are a few little exceptions to all of that, but “John B1_B5s Place” is a .com site, and has therefore not been picked up in any .com.au domain sweeps, and even if it were a .com.au site, NLA would not be able to show it publically in their collection without your permission.
That being said, Legal Deposit legislation for electronic publications does exist in the Northern Territory (or so I’m led to believe), and NLA are lobbying to have it extended to all of Australia.
I don’t want to go much further into this here as I will be discussing this topic, among others, with the National Library’s Director of Digital Archiving on Samuel’s Persiflage #5.
However if you still have unanswered questions John, send me an email and I’ll do my best to sort them out.
5. John B1_B5 | April 22nd, 2006 at 3:49 pm
That answered it pretty well thanks Samuel .
6. Samuel | April 22nd, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Not a problem.