4 ms·

The internet archive is a universal archive of the internet rather than just what is exposed trough their wayback machine. You are comparing a quantifiable well

The internet archive is a universal archive of the internet rather than just what is exposed trough their wayback machine. You are comparing a quantifiable well indexed archive of any online with one which is not quantifiable due to being lost to history. There are similarities between the efforts of the Library at Alexandria and the internet archive which make them comparable, so lets. >'size' is really not that important. [...] each one a historical artifact. The uniqueness of content in the internet archive is significantly greater by virtue of there simply being more unique knowledge at this point. Knowledge which would be lost (often intentionally) if not for efforts such as the internet archive, or that of the Library at Alexandria. The library made copies of the knowledge for the original owners rather than having the only copy. making every copy most likely non-unique. The value in its indexing is immense especially when you realize that useful information is only useful within a context where it can be applied and cannot be valued outside of it. >Losing the Library at Alexandria would be like ... This did not happen. >If the Library continued to exist in its fullest form, we may very well have much more of our history [...] orbital physics. Imagine if a similar effort to archive exists today and in a few thousand years we would be able to use it, this is how I see the internet archive. The archive and efforts like it are used as a first source of knowledge by wikipedia, students, developers, researchers, anyone needing to verify a business existing prior to the investor call. If there was not an archive of the Feynman lectures I would know nothing about orbital physics now, if the current hosts are lost I am very very glad that the internet archive has a copy. >If the contents of IA [...] important). Personally I would like to know if homedepot existed 14 years ago if I wanted to do business with them and they claimed so, or if they tried to censor anything (that case of the US government having honeypot sites archives with code comes to mind). Things which would be lost if not for the specific functionality you are mentioning. Also there are many many other efforts, unlike you seem to state (e.g. archive.is, ipfs, the-eye.eu). Perhaps the most powerful argument: https://web.archive.org/web/*/news.ycombinator.com https://web.archive.org/web/*/news.ycombinator.com edit: I have archived our comments for historical context for anyone studying internet discussion in the year 3020 https://web.archive.org/web/20200611105240/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23487004 https://web.archive.org/web/20200611105240/https://news.ycom... https://web.archive.org/web/20200611105414/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23487419 https://web.archive.org/web/20200611105414/https://news.ycom...

jariel 6y ago
1) "virtue of there simply being more unique knowledge at this point." >>>>>>> the IA is not 'knowledge' it's 'information' and most of it is irrelevant to anything - more importantly: All of the important information in the IA is well documented elsewhere. We don't need the IA for much at all. 2) Losing the Library at Alexandria would be like ... This did not happen. >>>>>>> Of course it did! Lucio Russo / "Forgotten revolution" argues that a large part of the scientific knowledge of the Hellenistic era was lost. 3) "Personally I would like to know if homedepot existed 14 years ago if I wanted to do business with them and they claimed so, or if they tried to censor anything (that case of the US government having honeypot sites archives with code comes to mind)." >>>>>>> If that's a good example use case - then you've proven my point because there are exactly 0 people in this world using IA to see if 'some business existed 10 years ago in order that they might do business with them due to concerns of honey potting'. 4) "Imagine if a similar effort to archive exists today and in a few thousand years we would be able to use it, this is how I see the internet archive." >>>>>> Some contents IA might be a little bit useful to a few historians, but beyond that, it will have no meaning. The IA could be cut down to 1/1000000 it's size, and still, maintain it's historical relevance. If the IA were vaporized today, it wouldn't really matter that much, there's nothing in there we need, and the important content is saved elsewhere. The NYT has a great archive. The internet is mostly noise and babble, most of it is not important at all. Some of it is.
- kalium-xyz 6y ago
  1. All of the important information at Library at Alexandria is documented elsewhere by definition. 2. Sure, 15% of all academics going poof is the exact same thing as the Library at Alexandria burning down. 3. Those are two separate examples 4. You are replying in a thread about how the internet archive making copies of books and allow people access to those is getting them shut down, would you then argue that the Library at Alexandria is also largely meaningless?
- Joeri 6y ago
  We can’t judge what is important and what is not. This is a job for the future historians in a millenium. What historians really need is accounts of how regular people went about their business, without a filter applied by the one recording that account. The internet archive is an excellent resource for this, but only if it is preserved. Previous ages failed to record what was needed to properly understand that age, not because they lacked the capacity to do so, but because they didn’t consider mundane things worth recording.

jariel 6y ago

1) "virtue of there simply being more unique knowledge at this point." >>>>>>> the IA is not 'knowledge' it's 'information' and most of it is irrelevant to anything - more importantly: All of the important information in the IA is well documented elsewhere. We don't need the IA for much at all. 2) Losing the Library at Alexandria would be like ... This did not happen. >>>>>>> Of course it did! Lucio Russo / "Forgotten revolution" argues that a large part of the scientific knowledge of the Hellenistic era was lost. 3) "Personally I would like to know if homedepot existed 14 years ago if I wanted to do business with them and they claimed so, or if they tried to censor anything (that case of the US government having honeypot sites archives with code comes to mind)." >>>>>>> If that's a good example use case - then you've proven my point because there are exactly 0 people in this world using IA to see if 'some business existed 10 years ago in order that they might do business with them due to concerns of honey potting'. 4) "Imagine if a similar effort to archive exists today and in a few thousand years we would be able to use it, this is how I see the internet archive." >>>>>> Some contents IA might be a little bit useful to a few historians, but beyond that, it will have no meaning. The IA could be cut down to 1/1000000 it's size, and still, maintain it's historical relevance. If the IA were vaporized today, it wouldn't really matter that much, there's nothing in there we need, and the important content is saved elsewhere. The NYT has a great archive. The internet is mostly noise and babble, most of it is not important at all. Some of it is.

kalium-xyz 6y ago
1. All of the important information at Library at Alexandria is documented elsewhere by definition. 2. Sure, 15% of all academics going poof is the exact same thing as the Library at Alexandria burning down. 3. Those are two separate examples 4. You are replying in a thread about how the internet archive making copies of books and allow people access to those is getting them shut down, would you then argue that the Library at Alexandria is also largely meaningless?
Joeri 6y ago
We can’t judge what is important and what is not. This is a job for the future historians in a millenium. What historians really need is accounts of how regular people went about their business, without a filter applied by the one recording that account. The internet archive is an excellent resource for this, but only if it is preserved. Previous ages failed to record what was needed to properly understand that age, not because they lacked the capacity to do so, but because they didn’t consider mundane things worth recording.