404 page process

Problem statement

People will include new tools and techniques in their people profiles. When rendered into HTML, these point to pages which don't exist. Visitors following the link will see a 404.

update: partly solved - see 404

Possible Solutions

Automated template-driven page creation (to investigate)

Whenever a page is uploaded with a link to a non-existent page (for example, "tool5"), that page is created (eg tool5.md) using a template. It will therefore include:

  • title (tool5)
  • description: this simply includes a short text explaining that this page is missing a description and type ("is it a tool? is it a template?)", so volunteers are welcome to contribute one (see How to contribute).
  • People using this: will include, by definition, an except from all the people who submitted a profile mentioning the new tool or technique. These are the people who should be asked first to submit a description, and define its type.

A better 404 page (implemented 20/10/22)

done - see 404.

At the very least, the 404 page should:

  • explain why the page is missing
  • suggest the visitor read How to contribute and contribute a description
  • provide a download link for the .md file