I am the Alumnae Web/Tech Consultant for Delta Zeta Sorority. Basically my "job" is to make sure that all alumnae sites are upated, have working links, no spelling errors, and that all information in correct and current.
DZ also has a College Technology Committee that takes care of the college chapters. We do our best to stay in contact with webmasters and Presidents to make sure that all web sites follow Delta Zeta Policies.
The major problems we run into are sites that have been abandoned. These are sites where the web master graduated and didn't leave information on how to update the site (like the password, etc), or with my alumnae chapter sites, webmasters moved to a different state, or the chapter couldn't find a replacement for the webmaster, and the site just sits there until the provider takes it down.
For a site (XYZ) to be taken down (for example, using a free service like yahoo), people have to stop visiting it. After a few years of no traffic, yahoo would probably take XYZ site down. But since other sites have links the XYZ site, people continue to visite. It's a nasty cycle. If you don't have the password for XYZ site, yahoo won't just take it down on someone's word that the site is old and useless.
I have come up with suggestions for my webmasters, for example, always leaving records with the current president about passwords, ftp information, web providers, etc. Usually President files are passed down more complete than say a webmaster's files are...so the information would hopefully stay available if the webmaster leaves or abandons the position.
It really is a sorry state when you do a google search and come up with a site that hasn't been updated since 1994.
All we can do is keep working with the active sites to make sure it doesn't happen again and again.
Turtle Hugs,
Tracy
Great ideas :)
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