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Some old sites are valuable for archeology, some because they contain information that’s still true and not replicated anywhere else, some simply because they a

Some old sites are valuable for archeology, some because they contain information that’s still true and not replicated anywhere else, some simply because they are interesting culturally. To say it’s ok to bail on all old sites is to say that it’s ok to bail on all old books. Someone put time and effort in to freely sharing these things for a reason, and it’s a loss for us all to throw it out in the name of “new”.

princekolt 6y ago
Books, under normal conditions, will not decay by themselves either. However a librarian is still very much needed to preserve and organize them. The main issue is that HTTPS as it is developing right now is the antithesis of HTTP1. Everything that HTTP1 relies on is defines as bad by HTTPS. Either we change the direction of HTTPS or we drop HTTP. We can't have both. Of course, if the server is up and connected to the internet, it will always be accessible by browsers that can be configured to ignore the missing HTTPS features, as it is now. But as I said on a different comment we should not rely on this being here for much longer.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Definitely agree. I’m glad we’re having these discussions and that these points are being brought up.
UncleMeat 6y ago
The problems with archiving the web are numerous but I find it frustrating when this argument is used without getting historians involved. It feels like people use the idea of archiving as a cudgel rather than actually supporting real work in this area.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Though it seems counter to my argument, I agree with you. We need to stop using cudgels and just focus on the real work needed.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Funding is the core problem. My wife is a historian and every time the potential of things like digitization or archiving digital content comes up it always comes back to "grants are so incredibly small and archives don't have enough money to just maintain the books they already have, let alone expand". There's a lot of interesting research in this area but it isn't being put into practice because there is no funding.

princekolt 6y ago

Books, under normal conditions, will not decay by themselves either. However a librarian is still very much needed to preserve and organize them. The main issue is that HTTPS as it is developing right now is the antithesis of HTTP1. Everything that HTTP1 relies on is defines as bad by HTTPS. Either we change the direction of HTTPS or we drop HTTP. We can't have both. Of course, if the server is up and connected to the internet, it will always be accessible by browsers that can be configured to ignore the missing HTTPS features, as it is now. But as I said on a different comment we should not rely on this being here for much longer.

joshspankit 6y ago
Definitely agree. I’m glad we’re having these discussions and that these points are being brought up.

UncleMeat 6y ago

The problems with archiving the web are numerous but I find it frustrating when this argument is used without getting historians involved. It feels like people use the idea of archiving as a cudgel rather than actually supporting real work in this area.

joshspankit 6y ago
Though it seems counter to my argument, I agree with you. We need to stop using cudgels and just focus on the real work needed.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Funding is the core problem. My wife is a historian and every time the potential of things like digitization or archiving digital content comes up it always comes back to "grants are so incredibly small and archives don't have enough money to just maintain the books they already have, let alone expand". There's a lot of interesting research in this area but it isn't being put into practice because there is no funding.