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Hmm. Some of these sites look like genuine losses, but most are just promo sites for BBC series, at least some of which have been cancelled for years (and some

Hmm. Some of these sites look like genuine losses, but most are just promo sites for BBC series, at least some of which have been cancelled for years (and some of those looked to have only lasted a few episodes). I think fairly few of these deletions can really be compared to erasing and re-using the master tapes for those shows. I'm ambivalent. I'm generally pro-preservation, even of ephemera, but I feel rather worse for the people getting the axe than, say, the sunsetting of the pages promoting the Concert for Diana. (After all, do we gain anything more than mild amusement that http://goo.gl/sd4xD http://goo.gl/sd4xD is still up after ~15 years?) As for the worthier sites, it looks like people should take it up with the BBC that those sites are vanishing while BBC promo fluff like http://www.badwolf.org.uk http://www.badwolf.org.uk (warning: may still have sound) isn't on the list, yet.

chc 16y ago
Actually, I do think there's something to be gained by keeping the Space Jam site up. Just look at it: That's what a professionally made website looked like back then! I still remember the day, but I think for the fast-approaching generation of designers who were born after that site (remember, this year's Web Design 101 students were born in 1993), it will be an interesting history lesson with some insight into how the Web evolved.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Fair point, though aren't archival services better for that sort of thing than hoping nobody at Warner says, "I don't think we need to keep the Space Jam site after the next upgrade." or "Make that a redirect to http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam " (or some future updated page for the site)?
mechanical_fish 16y ago
To me, this is what separates those of us with the souls of librarians from others. Sure, the sites may be fluff. But they are someone's work. Promo designers are people too. They have mothers. It's the trivial bits of history that you end up missing the most. And I might not be making this argument if we were talking about an old building taking up valuable space in a city, or even a shelf of books taking up space in my city library. It's a bunch of websites. Unlikely that the lot of them add up to a whole terabyte. Spend three hundred bucks on backup drives and twenty bucks a month on a Dreamhost account. [1] --- [1] Sorry that I can't reliably translate "twenty bucks worth of hosting" into equivalent UK units. ;)
- Semiapies 16y ago
  I'd be on your side, except that I've never been to a library that kept copies of every promotional sheet, advertisement, review, etc. for every book that they had. Curation implies some degree of selectivity to the process.

chc 16y ago

Actually, I do think there's something to be gained by keeping the Space Jam site up. Just look at it: That's what a professionally made website looked like back then! I still remember the day, but I think for the fast-approaching generation of designers who were born after that site (remember, this year's Web Design 101 students were born in 1993), it will be an interesting history lesson with some insight into how the Web evolved.

Semiapies 16y ago
Fair point, though aren't archival services better for that sort of thing than hoping nobody at Warner says, "I don't think we need to keep the Space Jam site after the next upgrade." or "Make that a redirect to http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam " (or some future updated page for the site)?

mechanical_fish 16y ago

To me, this is what separates those of us with the souls of librarians from others. Sure, the sites may be fluff. But they are someone's work. Promo designers are people too. They have mothers. It's the trivial bits of history that you end up missing the most. And I might not be making this argument if we were talking about an old building taking up valuable space in a city, or even a shelf of books taking up space in my city library. It's a bunch of websites. Unlikely that the lot of them add up to a whole terabyte. Spend three hundred bucks on backup drives and twenty bucks a month on a Dreamhost account. [1] --- [1] Sorry that I can't reliably translate "twenty bucks worth of hosting" into equivalent UK units. ;)

Semiapies 16y ago
I'd be on your side, except that I've never been to a library that kept copies of every promotional sheet, advertisement, review, etc. for every book that they had. Curation implies some degree of selectivity to the process.