Re: Removing old news from webpages

On Mon Jul 21, 2025 at 5:01 PM BST, Thomas Lange wrote:
> Set up a web server on a new domain, restore the old news there.

Thanks, work on this has already started.

> Provide a generic apache redirect rule for www.d.org
>
> The current redirect rules can be found in
> https://salsa.debian.org/dsa-team/mirror/dsa-puppet.git
> in the file
> ./modules/roles/templates/apache-www.debian.org.erb
> A diff or MR for this file can than be reviewed by the web team, but
> the DSA team has to apply it.

Thank you for the hint on where to put the configuration.

As I keep stressing, restoring the URIs fast is critically important to 
many (even if not to the current webteam) so my first few MRs will be to 
put in place temporary (HTTP 302) redirects to the corresponding mail in 
the list archives; the new Debian web service will follow later.

Once we have stable hosting the redirects can be replaced with permanent 
HTTP 301 ones.

> It should be a redirecton rule, that only redirects from /news to the
> new domain, if the directory (/news/<year>/) is not found on the local
> disk.

This can't be done with a Redirect (from mod_alias) but could be done 
with mod_rewrite and RewriteCond. There are already some mod_rewrite 
stuff in there so that shouldn't be a problem.

However, I don't think e.g. www.debian.org/News/2000/this-never-existed 
should redirect to anywhere; the 404 should be served from 
www.debian.org. Otherwise we are delegating too much decision making 
about what is a valid page or not to the still-to-come web service.

Therefore the rule-set is going to have to encode the specific files you 
deleted (and, I guess going forward, will continue to delete); not just 
the parent year.

Unless we're lucky and a shorter pattern can be written to match what 
needs to be, I expect we will end up with a relatively long list of 
static entries, which could be handled by mod_alias Redirect.

> On #debian-www rhonda already tought about setting up an archive for
> old news but after we talked to each other she said that she may drop
> this effort. But maybe she still likes to help.

I've reached out to Rhonda over mail to see what she was thinking but I 
haven't yet had a reply.

I'm currently working on this on my own but in the fullness of time this 
shall require the normal team maintenance stuff (configuration in VCS, 
place to file bugs, more than one DD access to relevant systems, agreed 
place to discuss the service, etc.).  It seems to me, that the most 
sensible team for this to live would in fact be the webteam. And so once 
I have the service up, I anticipate requesting to join the webteam.

> I hope that the people that felt disappointed about the removal of old
> news can drive the work of setting up this archive in the near future.

Was it in any doubt that we (I) would work on this? Even after I stated 
so explicitly? Is it concern that nobody would do anything the reason 
behind your refusal to restore the content, even temporarily? I'm not 
going to continue to try and convince you to change your mind, but I'd 
appreciate it if the team could clearly state your reasoning, otherwise 
there's a shadow hanging over me.


-- 

👱🏻	Jonathan Dowland
✎	 [email protected]
🔗	https://jmtd.net