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The sad reality is that much of what is "lost" wasn't worth keeping. There's a world of difference between being a curator and a hoarder. You don't remember ev
by jmyeet 5y ago
The sad reality is that much of what is "lost" wasn't worth keeping. There's a world of difference between being a curator and a hoarder.
You don't remember everything that happens to you. You remember things that are noteworthy for some reason. There is a natural process for the brain to preserve certain memories. The Internet is really no different. Things get preserved largely because they're worth preserving. Things that aren't... don't.
As for forums, IMHO they've largely disappeared because they're a terrible format for maintaining information. I mean how many times have you done a search for "how do you do X?" and the first search result is a forum title asking exactly that... with no replies (side note: why doesn't Google downrank these scenarios?).
Or someone asks a question and there are a bunch of irrelevant responses (eg "first!"), outdated information, sidetracks, personal attacks over some long-forgotten beef, etc. A chronological thread is almost never useful for finding information. Pinned comments are just bandaids. Stackoverflow's ranked answer system is better but still has issues with stale information. It also relies on moderation.
As for Facebook, IMHO this whole hiding information in a walled garden I tend to find completely overblown for much the same reasons why forums are mostly useless.
The trend I absolutely hate however is using Discord as the primary repository for, say, an open source project. This is something that is meant to be available yet the discoverability is absolutely horrendous. Even if you're on the right Discord, the search is woefully abysmal.
- cxr 5y ago> You don't remember everything that happens to you. You remember things that are noteworthy for some reason. There is a natural process for the brain to preserve certain memories. The Internet is really no different. Things get preserved largely because they're worth preserving. Things that aren't... don't. This line of thinking seems insightful. Its flawed, though, in more ways than one. For one thing, it's glib. There's an attempt to respond to an question of ought by gesturing at what is, as if that settles it. It doesn't, even if the premises are granted. Which brings us to the second thing: they shouldn't be. People can and do forget things that are worth remembering. People remember things that are inconsequential.