Pressure from DFES to rewrite history

The DFES is pressuring me to remove historical information from the web

I have helped administrate a mailing list covering issues around ICT development in the Burngreave Area of Sheffield.

Back in June 8, 2001. A message was posted to it giving information on the Computers Within Reach Scheme. This was a scheme where second hand PC's were refurbished and redistributed to people for £50 ( you got a copy of win98 word 2000 a modem and a printer ).

Now funded organisations associated with the project are receiving email from the DFES asking them to take down the archive page of the messsage.

here is the archive page

http://cgi.inetd.force9.co.uk/cgi-bin/bitpart/showmsg.pl?193

Its clearly dated, is titled "message archive" and is clearly not associated with the DFES

and here is the a copy of the message recd from DFES (with names removed to protect the guilty )

> Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 14:58:12 -0000
> From:

XXXXXXXX@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
> Reply-To:

XXXXXXXX@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
> Subject: RE: FW: Your website...
> To:

XXXXXX@burngreave.net
>
>
> XXXXX, many thanks for your help. Deleting the old archive page from
your
> website will considerably reduce the number of enquiries we are
receiving at
>
> the Department for Education on the now defunct "Computers within
Reach"
> scheme...
>
> XXXXX
> Department for Education and Skills
> Caxton House, Tothill Street
> Westminster
> LONDON SW1H 9NA
>

Can anybody suggest a strategy ?

Bone_Idol

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Ignore them...

28.11.2003 15:05

I suggest that you ignore them -- on what basis could they start threatening legal action?

Librarian

yes but ..

28.11.2003 15:16

.. the people actually asking me are the small local regeneration organisations that I need to maintain good relationships with. I wish they weren't so spineless..

Quoting

xxxxxxx@yyySheffield.org.uk>:

> xxxx,
>
> Just a couple of things before I disappear on leave.
>
> 1. The computers in reach pages appear on a page that is clearly
linked
> with the Bitpart project. Given that we technically are responsible as
a
> Trust for this project I do not wish to cause upset for the DFES. I
> understand your point about being old and it is a useful record.
> However, unfortunately people misunderstand information. It would be
> helpful therefore to label the material as historical or if that is
not
> possible in order to keep the peace move it to an internet address not
> specifically identified as "BITPart".

bone_idol

OK then...

28.11.2003 21:34

The robots.txt file is the best bet, they are concerned that people get to that page via google and think it's up to date -- add this page and any other specific one that there is an issue over to the robots.txt, request that google reindexes the site and your are sorted.

The message is still there for the historians of the future and people can only find if they know what they are looking for...

The only draw back is that sites such as the Internet Archive,

http://archive.org/ won't get a copy of it because they obey robots.txt ...

http://www.robotstxt.org/

http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion.html#robotstxt

spiderbot

Edit the message...?

30.11.2003 18:04

You could always explicitly state that the computers within reach scheme is no longer operational by editing the message. It seems a reasonable request from the DfES as they are probably overworked enough (from what I know of this government dept) and it isn't as if they are threatening action, just asking for co-operation.

That said the robots.txt thing is a good idea (a full guide on google here:

http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/3.html#B2), it doesn't always work but should keep the main sites like google off the page (indeed you can stop it from indexing the whole archive if wanted). If the DfES hassle you any more you can point out that Google takes a while to update all it's servers so the info will remain cached for a while. They are a mostly good bunch of people and their hearts are in the right place, even if they are willling pawns in the goverments game.

Peace n love n chilled gubbins

Jase

UK Indymedia