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Directory
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Oh it's a school we all are proud to own
And our teachers join us too
In the dim and distant years to come
To our motto we'll be true |
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— excerpt from an anthem
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How it Works
The directory serves the primary purpose of the web site — to bring old
batchmates together. What
happens after that is up to you. The recall of someone's name may
bring back a flood of memories. Or you may find that your next
door
neighbour, boss, prospective father-in-law, etc, is also an alumnus of
this fine institution.
This bears a bit of explaining, because it isn't as smooth as
commercial alumni registration sites (nor is it intended to be).
To Contact your Batchmates
E-mail: Names in gold are e-mail links. Just click to send
a
message. If your settings are right, the e-mail software will
pop up with the recipient's name
in the To field (delete the trailing X, which is appended to each
address to spoof spammers). To view the address, pass the mouse
over the name and read the status line (bottom of the browser
window). In Netscape it will read
“mailto:address@whateverX”. Clever lads could search the source
code of the page to harvest addresses. That's fine, but please
consult
the privacy policy first.
Snail mail: Where a suburb/city appears next to a name,
it often means there are more complete details on file, available to
bonafide card-carrying Abuites. Full address, phone numbers
and personal notes (profession etc) are not published on the web, in
the interests of privacy.
Suburban cities (e.g. Mississauga, suburb of Toronto) may sound
unfamiliar. There are various search facilities
on the web, from Google
Maps to MapQuest,
that will help you locate place names worldwide.
How the Directory is Generated and Maintained
In 1996 when launching the web site I entered about 100 names and
addresses I happened to
know. Visitors started to contribute and the list grew. A
year later, the Brothers dusted down school records and keypunched
names
for all the graduating classes since 1914. That took the list
from 100 to 3000. Also in 1997, Marlon Menezes set up the on-line
signup form. The entries from there go into a database. I
periodically check
and clean, and incorporate them into the master
database which generates the web pages.
There's still a significant manual component involved for the sake of
quality and consistency, so this happens every so
many
months — most recently 18 months.
Conventions and House Rules
- Anybody who ever attended SMS is eligible to appear on the class
roll. An alumnus is placed with his most recent batchmates,
whether or not he
graduated.
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ICSE classes (1986 and later) are listed against the year of the
March/April/May
in which they wrote the final exam.
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Nicknames are included only when they're reasonably polite. They
are deleted
on request.
- I take some trouble and ask the same of visitors. It's not
practical to edit or
program around every possible keystroke. Submissions that are entered
carelessly may be deleted. Formatting
instructions are explained in detail on the signup form. Please
follow them faithfully.
- Please do not e-mail me updates as in “Joe Bloe
is at Castle Grove, Australia, and I think his phone number is ... ” or
“I've moved, please change my address as follows ...” Use the
signup
form for everything.
How to Submit Updates
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Please check your class list and send updates (using the form) for
- Those who dropped out prior to graduation, hence not on the list
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Address/contact details if missing or out of date
- How to send them in? Use the on-line
form.
It's easy, and you can send in as many records as you like: yours, your
brothers', etc.
The web site has become what it is because many have contributed.
Pass the baton.