Can't open LexJansen.com

[tracyedinger]

I am trying to access a paper on the Lex Jansen site, but I can't open the site (error message says the server can't be found). The internet archive does not contain the papers.

Has anyone else had trouble with this site? Are there other locations where SAS conference papers are archived?

[ChrisHemedinger]

Hi @tracyedinger,

There is a very sad reason for this. We learned just recently that Lex Jansen, the community volunteer who built and ran this popular site, passed away unexpectedly this week. The site has been down/gone; we don't know the full story as to why. This is very fresh news.

lexjansen.com is/was a tremendous service to index all of this published SAS content to make it easily searchable.  But most of the actual published papers are hosted elsewhere. For example, you can find links to all SUGI/SGF/Innovate sessions here:
https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/SUGI-SAS-Global-Forum-SAS-Innovate-Past-Confe...

PharmaSUG proceedings are at the PharmaSUG site:
https://pharmasug.org/past-conference-proceedings/

Many of the other regional/large conferences are also self-hosting their papers. However, I know Lex did host content for many of the smaller conferences who don't have their own sites.

It's a reminder that the SAS community is so much about the people, not just the technology, and when we lose an active community member like Lex, we all feel the impact. We are very grateful for all that Lex has done for us (and personally, he was just a super nice human being). 

Chris

[tracyedinger]

@ChrisHemedinger , thank you for the update. That is really sad news. I never met Lex, but he was clearly dedicated to SAS and promoting education through his site.

Unfortunately in this case, the paper I'm looking for is from a 2012 WUSS conference, and the proceedings link points to the Lex Jansen site. Do you know if there is a way to bring his site back or put the content on a new site?

[ChrisHemedinger]

You may have luck with this recent archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260110121252/https://www.lexjansen.com/

Specifically:

Western Users of SAS Software 2012 proceedings: (archive)

What paper are you interested in? We may be able to find a resource that's newer than 14 years old.

[tracyedinger]

I am looking for Overlapping Date Segments: How to Clean Up the Mess, from 4/12/2002. I am trying to combine potentially overlapping date ranges (for example, 1/1/2026 - 2/3/2026 and 2/2/2026 - 5/31/2026 would be combined into 1/1/2026 - 5/31/2026). I then want to calculate the number of gaps and gap days between spans. I looked at this paper a few days ago and liked that it used one data step to accomplish the date-range compression, the first part of what I am trying to do. If you have suggestions of where else to look, especially if it also includes the gap calculation, I would really appreciate it!

[tracyedinger]

I forgot to add that I was able to open documents on the link you posted for the Wayback machine. When I tried to find proceedings from 2002, the link unfortunately pointed to the Lex Jansen site.

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
Not the same paper, and perhaps you've already found it. This 2009 paper is hosted on the SAS/SGF site:
Paper 079-2009
Playing Favorites: How to Manage Date Conflicts When Some Date Ranges are Preferred Over Others

Eric C. Wong, Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA

https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings09/079-2009.pdf

Cynthia

[Tom]

Here is a paper (with code) from 2020.

https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings20/5155-2020.pdf

"In this presentation, a flexible SAS® program is introduced that rolls up multi-record date fields to establish continuous segments, segment lengths, and segment gap lengths, and to calculate the number of segments and gaps for an individual ID variable."

[NinaLWerner]

Lex Jansen was a trusted resource and a respected colleague who will be missed.  

[Linkachu1]

So sad to hear about this! That website has been essential for me.

Can anyone find this paper? "Rank Based Alternatives to Normal Least Squares"
https://www.lexjansen.com/nesug/nesug95/NESUG95153.pdf

[Quentin]

---

@Linkachu1 wrote:
So sad to hear about this! That website has been essential for me.

Can anyone find this paper? "Rank Based Alternatives to Normal Least Squares"
https://www.lexjansen.com/nesug/nesug95/NESUG95153.pdf

---

That might be hard to find. NESUG went away years ago.  It's possible for NESUG, Lex's site was the only remaining repository.  I hope that's not the case.

When I used the way-back machine to look for some old papers, some of the links worked, but others failed.  I'm not sure if that's because the wayback machine didn't archive them, or if the key differenc is that some of Lex's paper links pointed to other repositories, but some of them he stored himself.

[clinyun]

Please see: PPI - The Pharmaceutical Proceedings Index, we found this old paper for you.

[Quentin]

---

@clinyun wrote:

Please see: PPI - The Pharmaceutical Proceedings Index, we found this old paper for you.

---

That's great to know that web archive did capture some of the old NESUG papers that lex hosted himself.  That makes me optimistic that it may be possible to recreate his full index.