3 ms·

Isn't keeping history the job of the waybackmachine? Or an archival service in general.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
"job" is putting it a bit harsh, they're providing a voluntary / community service, and it's not cheap. I'd like webpages to be pretty eternal, that is, statically rendered in a html file, put on a webserver somewhere that is maintained until perpetuity - you know, like the now famous Space Jam website. But in practice that doesn't happen because Reasons. I'm glad there's the Internet Archive, and I hope there's others, but at the same time I'm aware that an operation like that is really expensive and not profitable. Edit: I just got a 'thank you' mail from the IA for donating; apparently it only has 4000 sponsors. If you consider the IA an essential part of the internet, consider pushing a few dollars a month their way. If you work for an internet company, consider a corporate sponsorship. Let that dank investor money flow to something that isn't focused on optimizing engagement and ad impressions. For other archiving, I know of some people who have accumulated vast caches of data and information, for example about Playstation games. Amateur archivists. I know one guy who's been obsessed with an old PS2 game for years now, he doesn't even like the game and the game is objectively bad, but he's spent a ton of time on getting all the data out of there; unused content, the content no longer accessible that used to be an online mode, and getting all the rules and things out. To the point where he taught himself coding and wrote a save file editor, I mean the code looks crude, crammed into a single file and very literal, but it works, it can be followed, and it fulfils a purpose. Tl;dr don't underestimate individuals with singular, near obsessive interests on the internets. I'm sure some of you will feel seen.
solstice 6y ago
That should be the last resort. Companies deliberately chucking their own history down the drain is a problem. Another example is wizards of the coast infuriating treatment of their web properties for Magic the Gathering. (Link rot, content reshuffles hiding older content etc)
- kjakm 6y ago
  >> Companies deliberately chucking their own history down the drain is a problem ...why? How many people ever looked at Sony's pages of game releases from the 90's? If a person who relies on that content wants to preserve it they should make their own copy (or a physical copy).
  - solstice 6y ago
    Yeah well, but what happens if that person isn't born yet, such as future historians. In the case of Sony's game catalogue I agree that this is a tiny bit contrived example but the general case still stands IMO. The current generation stands too close to things to appreciate the bigger picture (if they even can). That's why I think it's sad that such kind of information is just deemed useless and deleted, especially if it's in an easily archiveable format like static html and images.
    - kjakm 6y ago
      I agree it's useful for historians but current historians should be responsible for cataloguing the data rather than the company in my opinion. That way when the company goes out of business that data isn't lost.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

"job" is putting it a bit harsh, they're providing a voluntary / community service, and it's not cheap. I'd like webpages to be pretty eternal, that is, statically rendered in a html file, put on a webserver somewhere that is maintained until perpetuity - you know, like the now famous Space Jam website. But in practice that doesn't happen because Reasons. I'm glad there's the Internet Archive, and I hope there's others, but at the same time I'm aware that an operation like that is really expensive and not profitable. Edit: I just got a 'thank you' mail from the IA for donating; apparently it only has 4000 sponsors. If you consider the IA an essential part of the internet, consider pushing a few dollars a month their way. If you work for an internet company, consider a corporate sponsorship. Let that dank investor money flow to something that isn't focused on optimizing engagement and ad impressions. For other archiving, I know of some people who have accumulated vast caches of data and information, for example about Playstation games. Amateur archivists. I know one guy who's been obsessed with an old PS2 game for years now, he doesn't even like the game and the game is objectively bad, but he's spent a ton of time on getting all the data out of there; unused content, the content no longer accessible that used to be an online mode, and getting all the rules and things out. To the point where he taught himself coding and wrote a save file editor, I mean the code looks crude, crammed into a single file and very literal, but it works, it can be followed, and it fulfils a purpose. Tl;dr don't underestimate individuals with singular, near obsessive interests on the internets. I'm sure some of you will feel seen.

solstice 6y ago

That should be the last resort. Companies deliberately chucking their own history down the drain is a problem. Another example is wizards of the coast infuriating treatment of their web properties for Magic the Gathering. (Link rot, content reshuffles hiding older content etc)

kjakm 6y ago
>> Companies deliberately chucking their own history down the drain is a problem ...why? How many people ever looked at Sony's pages of game releases from the 90's? If a person who relies on that content wants to preserve it they should make their own copy (or a physical copy).
- solstice 6y ago
  Yeah well, but what happens if that person isn't born yet, such as future historians. In the case of Sony's game catalogue I agree that this is a tiny bit contrived example but the general case still stands IMO. The current generation stands too close to things to appreciate the bigger picture (if they even can). That's why I think it's sad that such kind of information is just deemed useless and deleted, especially if it's in an easily archiveable format like static html and images.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    I agree it's useful for historians but current historians should be responsible for cataloguing the data rather than the company in my opinion. That way when the company goes out of business that data isn't lost.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]