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True, but filling the records with so much noise that finding the interesting ones amounts to concentrating gold from seawater, you’re no longer doing the job a
by QAPereo 9y ago
True, but filling the records with so much noise that finding the interesting ones amounts to concentrating gold from seawater, you’re no longer doing the job an archivist should.
- allenz 9y agoIf you have the firehose, it is easy to derive the selective archive by filtering on the list of noteworthy accounts. Ignoring monetary costs, archiving the firehose is strictly better than selective archival. It enables future researchers to examine trends on a societal scale.
- WorldMaker 9y agoOr find things that seemed insignificant at the time but became significant later with hindsight.
- optimuspaul 9y agonot to mention the fact that twitter is basically millions of monkeys banging away at keyboards, eventually they will produce some great works.
- QAPereo 9y agoFor values of “eventually” which include timescales on the order of proton decay...
- nasredin 9y ago...like a particular painter and WW1 veteran in Germany that the than current art world dismissed...
- QAPereo 9y agoIt does, at the cost of preserving the firehose, through endless format and media shifts, and at the cost and under the assumption that future historians will want an archive they need a strong AI to manage. There is also the cost, as in paying people and buying equipment, drawn from an already overextended budget.
- tarboreus 9y agoFrankly, the firehose will be considered priceless in 100 years. The accounts and tweets that we care about now will also probably be the least valuable. Historians and archaeologists will generally take one grocery list over a thousand sweet nothings from politicians and celebrities.
- QAPereo 9y agoPreserving minutiae for future archaeologists is a bold and exciting idea which should be funded and pursued. It is not however, the mission of the LoC. Edit: not to mention that I think you have a far too rosy view of the world we’ll be leaving for people 100 years from now.
- iamatworknow 9y agoAgreed. Hell, I've recovered old hard drive backups from ~10 years ago and have been fascinated by by what I've found. Old e-mails and chat logs and stuff can be very entertaining to dig through.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]