Here are a list of commonly-asked questions about archival Websites hosted at http://www.dpsinfo.com.
2017: I'm taking a break from updating the Websites, but here's what I've said in the past.
Q. You should add X to Dead People Server (where "X" is someone really obvious) --- usually, a request from an AOL user
A. I probably already have (unless the person is...oh well, check the Guidelines). If you're an AOL user, and you think DPS is missing someone really obvious, you may be a victim of the AOL file caching system. To "improve network download speed," AOL makes copies of millions of Internet files and stores them locally on their network. I'm not sure how often AOL bothers to update their local copies. I'm pretty sure if you press SHIFT on the keyboard and the RELOAD icon on the browser every time you access a new page, you'll get "the real page" and not AOL's local copy of the page. (This is just one of many reasons why I'm not an AOL user.)
Q. Why haven't you added X to your site after I told you to?
A. Read the Guidelines. I only work on my sites in my "spare time." As a result, Dead People Server is not all-inclusive (nor does it pretend to be).
Q. What time did X die?
A. I really have no idea. This information is almost never released (unless we're talkin' presidents or queens or someone like that). Dead pools participants have this dumb idea that they can really find out what time someone died so that if two famous people die on the same day, they can declare a "winner." Dead pools should acknowledge that, sometimes, multiple celebs die on the same day and that a tie will be declared in those cases.
Q. Why do you have four types of website s?
A. I've been building websites since late 1994 and have found that I just can't keep up with all of them any more. However, I really hate to take them down since I have the space for them. So I've classified my sites into four groups:
Sites that were current until early 2017. These included Dead People Server.
Archive sites, WorcesterWeb and AwardWeb are no longer being updated but are stored here because I have the space and the sites may still be useful even if they are dated.
Family sites are personal and genealogy Web pages.
Other sites are sites that really don't fit into another category. I added a page for Sandy's Book Shoppe because I was very impressed by the store, volunteered to create a small Web page for her and she said, "Sure."
Q.Why does validation matter?
A. HTML is a great language because it's extremely easy to learn and a number of browsers and other products have evolved to take advantage of it. But, in the long run, valid documents are more useful than text files with presentation tags.
When Web pages are tagged structurally, it is easier to convert the pages for use by other types of devices - cell phones, PDAs, etc.
I am working on completely validating my site for HTML 5, CSS 3 and making it more accessible. Every page has a link back to the dpsinfo.com Complete Sitemap, and, for users who keep JavaScript turned on, there are additional navigation and search options on every page. While none of the pages require the use of JavaScript, running JavaScript provides some helpful extras.