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BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

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Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#11

Post by zinekeller »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #10
zinekeller wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having the BBC release code for free to commercial use is often deemed to be a "market distortion", and thus not allowed to happen, as such the lawyers will often err on the side of caution. People outside the UK: this isn't just theoretical, please look at the history of BBC Micro. That's how the corporation was structured at the time, and it should be read with this in mind. There are a lot of very fine pieces of…

Very true. I've mentioned in another comment the "Other are available" disclaimer, that used to be tacked onto any content mentioning The Radio Times or any of the BBC Gardening/Good Food/Sport products from BBC Enterprises or licensees. It's now a running joke, but the disclaimer about The Radio Times really did emerge out of a market distortion legal complaint by a competitor, TV Times. These market distortion comp…

It's a little bit complicated but before 1991-1994 (where there are large-scale changes outside of BBC), Radio Times were exclusively for the BBC while TV Times were exclusively for the ITV companies (yes, ITV wasn't just a single company those days!), Channel 4, and S4C (technically there is a third one, Channel Times, but that's for the Channel Islands which has a very interesting ITV setup at that time).

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#12

Post by samwillis »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #10
zinekeller wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having the BBC release code for free to commercial use is often deemed to be a "market distortion", and thus not allowed to happen, as such the lawyers will often err on the side of caution. People outside the UK: this isn't just theoretical, please look at the history of BBC Micro. That's how the corporation was structured at the time, and it should be read with this in mind. There are a lot of very fine pieces of…

Very true. I've mentioned in another comment the "Other are available" disclaimer, that used to be tacked onto any content mentioning The Radio Times or any of the BBC Gardening/Good Food/Sport products from BBC Enterprises or licensees. It's now a running joke, but the disclaimer about The Radio Times really did emerge out of a market distortion legal complaint by a competitor, TV Times. These market distortion comp…

> I've mentioned in another comment the "Other are available" disclaimer

And the tape over product logos and labels to hide them.

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#13

Post by unfocussed_mike »

zinekeller wrote: post #11
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. I've mentioned in another comment the "Other are available" disclaimer, that used to be tacked onto any content mentioning The Radio Times or any of the BBC Gardening/Good Food/Sport products from BBC Enterprises or licensees. It's now a running joke, but the disclaimer about The Radio Times really did emerge out of a market distortion legal complaint by a competitor, TV Times. These market distortion comp…

It's a little bit complicated but before 1991-1994 (where there are large-scale changes outside of BBC), Radio Times were exclusively for the BBC while TV Times were exclusively for the ITV companie s (yes, ITV wasn't just a single company those days!), Channel 4, and S4C (technically there is a third one, Channel Times, but that's for the Channel Islands which has a very interesting ITV setup at that time).

Yeah -- I remember more than a full decade of two listings magazines per week!

To break it down a little for non-British HNers (it is very confusing and messy):

The BBC does not run adverts, but it does have a carve-out from that to mention its own associated products in limited circumstances. Most significantly the listings magazine, The Radio Times.

We start out in the situation zinekeller mentions where the BBC listed BBC TV/radio channels in The Radio Times, and TV Times listed programmes from the ITA (Independent Television Association - ITV/C4/S4C/London Weekend Television etc.)

But then you get a situation where TV viewers are buying two increasingly competitive magazines each week just to get the full listings. As satellite and cable TV appears, this becomes unfair on the consumer (to the benefit of the BBC) and it has to change.

The disclaimer came in part from those publications seeking and being granted access to the listings data that the others were publishing. TV Times got access to BBC listing data, and Radio Times published the ITA channel listings.

But the BBC was and still is able to mention the Radio Times, whereas TV Times cannot advertise on the BBC. A market distortion.

I suppose there must have been calls to ask the BBC to get out of the listings magazine market (I don't remember anything specific) but ultimately the disclaimer ("Other listings magazines are available") was imposed on the BBC.

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#14

Post by mmaunder »

samwillis wrote: post #2

I posted this as I think it’s fun to look back at how some “early” web stuff was done and a bit of a trip down memory lane on a Saturday morning. When I was experimenting making websites as a teenager 20 (ouch!) years ago I would love to investigate how other sites worked. The BBC had this little “Text Only” link on all pages of the site that redirected to a version stripped of all images and tables (tables were used…

I worked for the BBC in 2002. I created OneMusic which showcased unsigned bands. You can see an archived version here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050416110703/http://www.bbc.co...

Within 2 weeks we managed to get our first band signed. A Swedish band called Maas. I worked with a producer Andrew Barron, who takes a lot of credit for seeing the project past the finish line. Andrew sat with me over a weekend and deep into a Sunday night to get it finally launched.

The project was written in mod_perl and was designed to be extrememly high performance because Radio 1 at the time (and perhaps still is) the most popular radio station in the UK. And we expected a surge of traffic every time the DJ mentioned OneMusic, which is exactly what we got.

I was based in Oxford Circus and I worked with the ops team which - at the time, and I'm not sure if this is still the case - was based out in some mansion in the country somewhere. They had a kind of Bletchley Park vibe about them - this team of absolute gurus who you only got to speak with over the phone, and who would somehow make your application handle the massive amounts of traffic that would be thrown at it. They did a great job hosting that application on Apache/mod_perl in the dark days before Nginx was invented.

One of the absolute worst design decisions I made was to design the application so that it would support sessions for users without cookies enabled. Which is why that Archive.org link has the OMSID query string parameter in it. The app would dynamically modify all URLs on the page to embed that assigned session ID so it stuck, even if you didn't have cookies enabled. It would follow you around the site as a query string param. I stupidly suggested the idea to Andrew and he was like "Hell yes, lets do that!" and so I did. But it had big performance implications as the URLs had to be dynamically generated for every pageview, and it added significantly to the time it to for me to create the project. But hey, we did it, and got it launched, and it actually worked and provided sessions for users who had cookies disabled.

The project taught me a lot about high performance websites, delivering a critical project on-time to a big audience, and I went on to create WorkZoo (Time Mag top 50 website of 2005) which I sold, Feedjit (live traffic feed on over a million sites) and my current cybersecurity business Wordfence which employs 40 and is the best available security product for WordPress. I think creating all those projects set me up to create a WordPress plugin that is high performance, widely compatible, very stable, and delivers on user satisfaction.

When I left the BBC, the team bought me a bottle of Gran Centenario Reposado tequila out of their own money. I'll never forget that and I'll never forget them. Such a great group of people.

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#15

Post by quesomaster9000 »

Wow this brings back memories. While it was tedious it's something which has humbled me over the years.

Due to various laws we had to guarantee accessibility of most if not all 'official communication' to native speakers of several languages and various (dis)abilities. With some minor structural tweaks and guidance from an 'accessibility coordinator' who worked at a college we were able to realistically make it very accessible to the 1% (or lower) of the population who rely on it for their own independence, but the changes and influence permeated from the ground up and IMO made everything better for everybody.

Remember when websites let you choose the font size? Actually sitting down with people who have difficulty seeing was insightful, most of them found the font size adjuster widgets were useless, poorly located, too small or had low contrast (so as to not annoy the sighted visitors, the irony) - instead preferring to switch over to the text-only version (if available) and using keyboard shortcuts or browser settings to adjust font size.

Likewise with screen readers, we spent a lot of time annotating images and structuring links, content & context so that it made more sense and was generally predictable. We had to use them ourselves in the same way that you'd check a design across various tablet / mobile devices and browsers.

Unfortunately this kind of effort isn't made very often outside of government and charity websites these days, but accessibility software has also gotten much better over time (I was absolutely blown away when a blind guy showed me how he used is iPhone, it's much more efficient than normal visual use for core functionality).

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#16

Post by cnorthwood »

mmaunder wrote: post #14
samwillis wrote: post #2

I posted this as I think it’s fun to look back at how some “early” web stuff was done and a bit of a trip down memory lane on a Saturday morning. When I was experimenting making websites as a teenager 20 (ouch!) years ago I would love to investigate how other sites worked. The BBC had this little “Text Only” link on all pages of the site that redirected to a version stripped of all images and tables (tables were used…

I worked for the BBC in 2002. I created OneMusic which showcased unsigned bands. You can see an archived version here: https://web.archive.org/web/20050416110703/http://www.bbc.co... Within 2 weeks we managed to get our first band signed. A Swedish band called Maas. I worked with a producer Andrew Barron, who takes a lot of credit for seeing the project past the finish line. Andrew sat with me over a weekend and deep…

I'm guessing the mansion was Kingswood Warren, where BBC Research was based before cuts relocated them to London: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#17

Post by tragomaskhalos »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #6
pxeger1 wrote: post #3

> the BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites Wow, they still use this exact disclaimer 23 years later, to the letter. (I wonder why they need it...)

They've used it from day one, more or less. Disclaimers like this used to be a little more common on the web, as I recall. But the BBC is a national broadcaster and news organisation. I think you have to keep in mind the volume, nature and often bad-faith unfairness of the kinds of complaints it receives. It's not difficult to imagine the "I was on the BBC website and two clicks later I was looking at bestiality mate…

I'm sure non-British HNers have nothing but a positive impression of the BBC, are aware that it showcases Britain in a positive light, and therefore find it beyond baffling that it is the target of so much vitriol at home from, ahem, certain quarters.

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#18

Post by unfocussed_mike »

mmaunder wrote: post #14
samwillis wrote: post #2

I posted this as I think it’s fun to look back at how some “early” web stuff was done and a bit of a trip down memory lane on a Saturday morning. When I was experimenting making websites as a teenager 20 (ouch!) years ago I would love to investigate how other sites worked. The BBC had this little “Text Only” link on all pages of the site that redirected to a version stripped of all images and tables (tables were used…

I worked for the BBC in 2002. I created OneMusic which showcased unsigned bands. You can see an archived version here: https://web.archive.org/web/20050416110703/http://www.bbc.co... Within 2 weeks we managed to get our first band signed. A Swedish band called Maas. I worked with a producer Andrew Barron, who takes a lot of credit for seeing the project past the finish line. Andrew sat with me over a weekend and deep…

> One of the absolute worst design decisions I made was to design the application so that it would support sessions for users without cookies enabled.

I think we all did this at least once back then and all regret it for the same reasons...

Re: BBC Betsie: Perl program to create an automatic text-only website version (1999)

#20

Post by adw »

zinekeller wrote: post #11
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. I've mentioned in another comment the "Other are available" disclaimer, that used to be tacked onto any content mentioning The Radio Times or any of the BBC Gardening/Good Food/Sport products from BBC Enterprises or licensees. It's now a running joke, but the disclaimer about The Radio Times really did emerge out of a market distortion legal complaint by a competitor, TV Times. These market distortion comp…

It's a little bit complicated but before 1991-1994 (where there are large-scale changes outside of BBC), Radio Times were exclusively for the BBC while TV Times were exclusively for the ITV companie s (yes, ITV wasn't just a single company those days!), Channel 4, and S4C (technically there is a third one, Channel Times, but that's for the Channel Islands which has a very interesting ITV setup at that time).

The ITV network still isn’t a single company! STV (Scotland) is not owned by ITV plc.
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