[Note: Please consider this post, and the initial one a couple of days ago, to be rescinded. I was wrong. Well, mostly and essentially wrong. It’s a short story.
Sometimes when you “make A,” it’s possible to hide out for a while and, after a little time passes, assume that no one is going to notice. I don’t think this is one of those times.
Instead, I’m chowing down on a big serving of humble pie. And I’ve learned a lesson in “sometimes you can overthink these things.”
Case in point–my mystery of the linked reports (or my failure to find them).
I did, after feedback provided here, discover the problem. It wasn’t in the department’s documents, or in the capitol’s computer system and online retrieval. It was in my assumption of how it worked. And I see exactly how it happened.
So I started at the list of reports to the 2020 legislature. I clicked on the link marked “pdf.” And, on my laptop screen, was displayed the transmittal letter submitting the document to the members of the legislature.
And that letter contained an active link to the document.
It turns out that was my problem! Bear with me here. Seeing the active link in the letter, I clicked on it and, in most cases, I got an error message instead of the pdf document.
But…my face is red here…if I had scrolled down past the transmittal letter, it was followed by the document itself. I just never got there because I was following that link in the transmittal letter, which turns out to have been a red herring!
Had I been using a desktop computer with larger screen, this would probably have been apparent. But with my 13″ laptop, the transmittal letter and red herring of a link filed the screen and kept the document safely hidden from my view.
It obviously pains me to disclose my ineptness in this case, but it’s good to know the system isn’t deeply broken.]
Before reading further, see note above.
In a post here on Sunday regarding legislative documents available online through the capitol website (https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov), I mentioned that the link provided to a DLNR report was broken.
It didn’t take long before a response was received from Lawrence Agcaoili
of DLNR’s Information Technology Services Office.
… Not sure where you got the link for the report because the correct link below was sent to Speaker Saiki and Members of the Legislature:
a report from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, “Identification Of Rivers And Streams Worthy Of Protection.”
http://files.hawaii.gov/dlnr/reports-to-the-legislature/2020/CW20-River-and-Streams-Rpt-FY19.pdf
Please update your article. Thank You!
So I went back and repeated the steps taken while writing the original post. I’m using a MacBook Pro and the Safari browser.
First: Starting at the capitol website’s main page, and selected the link to “Reports and Lists.” There, under “Measure Introduction,” the last item is a link to “Reports to the Legislature.”
Once there, you can locate the streams report from DLNR, which appears as DC106. Then I clicked on the provided link to a pdf of the transmittal letter.
The transmittal letter appears to have an active link to the same URL provided by Agcaoili.
I just clicked the link…and got the “404 Not Found” error message. So I tried copying the link in the letter and pasting it into my browser. Again, it went directly to the error message.
Then I went back and repeated the sequence using Firefox. It led to the same error message.
However, if I use the direct link provided in Agcaoili’s reply, which appears to be identical, it works and opens the report.
So I need to apologize to DLNR. It does appear that their transmittal letter accompanying the report included the proper URL that should have led directly to the report. However, once it appeared on the capitol website, the link was broken.
Okay, one of the tech folks out there must have an explanation for why this is happening. Please chime in!
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It appears the link on the Capitol website is corrected, now. I had no trouble downloading the document. (Unless you are clicking somewhere else that I did not.).
It could have been that a stray space-bar was inserted into the original link, which would not appear on the page but would insert an extra “%20” in the url once clicked or copied and pasted.
And for the record, Lawrence Agcaoili is a good dude! 🙂 (I used to work with him.)
Good work Blaine??
Lawrence’s link works because it is to the pdf file. All reports uploaded to the Lege required that it be in pdf format. Click on the pdf file icon to review the report.
For Bills, the text link [HB1611] and pdf icon link works for both.
Try, HB1611 is a prefiled Bill for the 2020 Leg. session.