[LINK] TooManyWebsites.gov

[Tom Koltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of 
> Marghanita da Cruz
> Sent: Tuesday, 14 June 2011 8:25 AM
> To: Link list
> Subject: [LINK] TooManyWebsites.gov
> 
> 
> > As the President points out in this video, our government 
> doesn't need 
> > a website dedicated to foresters who play the fiddle. We 
> also don't need multiple sites dealing with invasive plants 
> (here and here).  And I'm pretty sure the website dedicated 
> to the Centennial of Flight can come down... particularly 
> since the Centennial was in 2003.
> ...
> >  Today, there are nearly 2,000 top-level federal .gov domains (this 
> > means a top-level url, [WEBSITENAME].gov, that links to a distinct 
> > website). This includes WhiteHouse.gov, as well as others like 
> > USDA.gov, USASpending.gov, NOAA.gov and USA.gov. Under many 
> of these 
> > domains are smaller sub-sites and microsites resulting in 
> an estimated 
> > 24,000 websites of varying purpose, design, navigation, 
> usability, and 
> > accessibility.
> > 
> > While many government websites each deliver value to the taxpayer 
> > through easy-to-use services and information, an overall online 
> > landscape of literally thousands of websites -- each focusing on a 
> > specific topic or organization -- can create confusion and 
> > inefficiency.
> > 
> <http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/06/13/toomanywebsitesgov>

This is very similar to the old discussion... Dictionary or Encyclopedia
?

The web-sites are in fact Government by a discrete form of crowd sourced
public approbation (polling).

There is an argument in Government that you only receive funding
allocation if the minister/congressman/senator thinks you're a hot
electioneering issue.
Most of those websites are actually attempts at Departmental heads in
insuring their existence next year by placing the PR in front of the
public and letting Google Page Rank, Alexa etc speak for them. 

On the other hand, if no-one looks at the web pages, then that
Department/division/body is probably not going to be in next years
budget.

To me it would seem the perfect way to make Departmental budget cuts, or
for politicians to understand what is important to their voters. Polls
are easy to fix using loaded questions. Unique IP numbers by geolocation
cross reference are not so easy to "cook".

Besides, who can find information on a Government web site without
Google. (Definitely not John D. Citizen.)

The old "But we told them on the 2498th page down the tree hidden behind
the Wheelbarrow-cornflakes word that the public don't associate with
this topic" is not actually open Government.

I think the web sites need to stay up. For Budgetary purposes, possibly
their management could be amalgamated (/hosting/archiving/statistics) to
save costs.
But in reality, once a web site is up, what costs are there apart from
the occassional update? (The host [disk, bandwidth, power, backup] is
probably shared.)

With 4GL the updates should be almost automatic from the departmental
policy manual, providing the field has been updated.

TomK