Notes from the departing Webmaster

I'm stopping my involvement with the AUE Web site effective immediately, except for certain things I'll tend to by way of tidying up before leaving. Some of these things are:

I've removed the file that gave definitions of the language terms that are in a list in Mark Israel's FAQ.  My reason for removing it is that it contained several definitions from The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, and I was given permission by Oxford University Press (OUP) to use those definitions for only three years.  I don't want to rely on an unknown webmaster to honor my commitment to abide by that requirement.   If a future webmaster wants to request the necessary permission from OUP to use the definitions, thus transferring the responsibility from me to him or her, I will make the file available to be reinstalled.  (At the time the arrangement was made, OUP didn't predict any difficulty with renewing the permission at the end of the three-year period.)

I've been echoing indexes from several sites so that the items in the indexes were included in the Concordance indexes and in the Perlfect Search index.  I've been updating the echoed indexes once a week.  I've e-mailed the owner of each index asking instruction on whether to leave the index in a dormant state, so that it would fall further behind each time the source is upated, or to remove the index.  So far, two owners have opted for removal, one has said he doesn't care, and one has said to let his index remain.  I've left the last one and removed the other three.  I haven't heard from the owners of four other lists.  If I hear from them eventually, I'll take appropriate action, if I still have the password to the Web site.  The Random House Mavins recently announced that their Word of the Day would no longer be updated, so I'm leaving that echoed index in place, since it won't fall behind.

I've been keeping a current HTML version of each of Donna Richoux's Intro documents (mini-FAQs) at the Web site.  In accordance with Donna's expressed wish, I will leave the documents in place at their present revision level.  To make sure of seeing the latest version, readers should look for Donna's fortnightly posting of each Intro document in the newsgroup.

During the next few days I may think of other things I want to bring into better order before the site password is changed.  If so, I'll make appropriate additions to this file.

When a new manager takes over the site, I'll be available to answer any questions he or she may have about the site contents.  :Don't wait too long to ask, though: I'll be 80 years old in March.

-- Bob Cunningham, [email protected]