[LINK] What's a website (was Welcome to our new website)

[Adam Todd]

At 04:47 PM 5/06/2007, Tom Worthington wrote:
>At 10:55 AM 5/06/2007, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>
>
>The definition I used was from the Oxford English Dictionary Online, 
>Oxford University Press, 2004, NEW EDITION: draft entry June 
>2001  http://dictionary.oed.com/
>
>>There are many websites with no linked documents ...
>
>If there were no links it would be difficult to navigate from one 
>web page to another, or know the web pages existed.

Actually this is all moote.  "Web" is the non technical term.  The 
truth is ther is no such thing as a web server.  It's an HTML server.

All servers deliver HTML.  The Protocol is about service of 
HTML.  It's not a "web"

The expression "web" came from the linking of one site to another 
from one html page to one or more html pages elsewhere.

An HTML server might in fact provide other protocols too, like FTP, 
SMTP, Streaming Video.  These are not "web" they are unconnected.

So really, to define a "web page" means you need to define the 
protocol, not the colloquial name.

It has nothing to do with documents.  Documents aren't specifically 
web.  A Word file may contain HTML resource links embedded into it, 
but that doesn't make the file a Web Page.  Ditto with a PDF.

>>what's a document, anyway? ...
>
>I use a definition from the High Court of Australia 
><http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/ecommerce/index.shtml#law>:
>
>'104. The ordinary dictionary meaning of "document" is a printed or 
>written paper containing information. ... No violence is done to the 
>object or language of s 418(3) by holding that "document" includes 
>information that is stored in a computer or a fax machine and which 
>can be printed out by pressing one or more keys or buttons. ...'
>
>They go on to discuss what electronic documents are. Essentially the 
>High Court said if what is in the computer looks like a document 
>when printed out, then it is a document, even if it has never been 
>printed out. This is one reason I suggest organisations produce web 
>pages which print well, as these are more likely to be accepted by a court.

Hey Link archived e-mails have regularly been accepted by the court :)


>>And relatedness is arbitrary. ...
>
>Yes: what is a web site is subjective. What makes a collection of 
>web pages a web site is not that they are all on the same server, 
>but that someone thinks that the pages have something in common.

I guess the use of the term "web page" and "web site" has 
broadened.  Like many words in our society.

"worker" for example has a very broad meaning in some instances and a 
very narrow meaning in others. (State V Todd, Industrial Magistrates 
Court 2007)

"rent" has a very restricted meaning in law, but in society it's used 
very broadly and in fact often in ways that could be seen as illegal. 
(Todd V Todd, NSW Court of Appeal 2007)


A Web Page, I guess by my definition (and I can't find the one I used 
in the court, the transcript isn't published) is a page of 
information sent from a server that contains within it, links to 
other pages stored on other servers.  I don't think I'd go so far as 
saying that files linked to files within a single server are "web"

A Web Site, in my definition is a collection of files that are sent 
to an end user individually, where at least one file has an active 
link to another file of some kind.

Since 1995, the term has just bee applied to general use to the 
public.  It just means anything you access on the Internet.

I hear people calling streaming video "web pages". Although YouTube 
has become a common word now to mean "Internet Video"  some people 
don't realise there are other video mechanisms on the Internet.

Actually YouTube is just a Flash stream :)  It's not even a "web" 
thing.  It has no links, and it's not an HTML page.