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Although I'm not exactly opposed to the archiving, I personally think this is a waste of bytes. Reddit is not like a regular web forum. Posts/threads are desi

Although I'm not exactly opposed to the archiving, I personally think this is a waste of bytes. Reddit is not like a regular web forum. Posts/threads are designed to be short-lived and quickly forgotten. Because threads can't be bumped, many communities are a dumping ground of rehashed ideas, memes, sanctimony, and "im new here how do i get started". Many people like(d) Reddit because one can easily sign up, post some stuff anonymously, and not have it effectively hang around in the high consciousness of the internet. Although there are niche subreddits with some good information in them, this doesn't mean that the vast-vast majority of Reddit posts reflect that quality. I can't say there's anything I've ever posted on Reddit that I've wanted to continue existing in perpetuity, and there's nothing I've ever read on there that I've wanted or expected to last forever. IMO, the archive team should do what it's doing but keep the archive and stay out of the issue to give negative sentiment towards Reddit enough of a chance to create some actual change. I don't have much confidence said change will take place, but I don't think what the archive team has done here will do anything but subvert the energy to fight back against Reddit. Only when Reddit has been defeated should they expose their archive of Reddit posts. Then again, the money needed to store Reddit links would be better spent on the archive team's legal budget right now.

capableweb 3y ago
> Posts/threads are designed to be short-lived and quickly forgotten No matter what they are designed for, the fact is that links around the net links to them, some of them 10 days old, others 10 years old. All those links might stop working, which sucks, no matter what the content itself is.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  That's fair, but I don't think it sucks, personally. Just because it exists doesn't mean it necessarily has the universal value to be archived. Others will disagree, and perhaps most will, but the way I see it is that there's better things to spend time and effort on than backing up Reddit. As an alternative, I think it would be better for there to be good tools for individual Reddit communities to back up their own content, which would also allow them the control to archive what's valuable and leave behind the flotsam. Perhaps such a tool would even support migrating to other forum systems. If no one would be willing to use such a tool, then that would essentially prove my point that most Reddit content isn't highly worthy of being archived. Like I tried to suggest in my first sentence in my original comment, I don't necessarily think there's no argument for or no value at all in archiving Reddit. It just doesn't seem like the best choice, especially for an organization like the Archive Team who could be spending that time and effort to fight for their own existence, even if it's only costing them $20 in total. The effort would be better left to communities and individuals to decide what should be archived and how to host it.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    > Just because it exists doesn't mean it necessarily has the universal value to be archived. Others will disagree, and perhaps most will Most specifically, Archive Team disagrees with this, as they'll aggressively will go ahead and archive the internet, even if the hosters of said content don't want the content to be archived. Figuring out what's worth keeping around is a lot easier to do after you've archived it, rather than before. > especially for an organization like the Archive Team who could be spending that time and effort to fight for their own existence The Archive Team's goal is to archive content of the internet that others won't archive. It's the explicit and only goal of the organization. That's basically fight for their own existence, without the goal of archiving, Archive Team wouldn't exists. And there is nothing that is working against their existence, are you maybe confusing them for Internet Archive which is under a bit of legal fire right now? Because they're separate organizations.
tivert 3y ago
> Although there are niche subreddits with some good information in them, this doesn't mean that the vast-vast majority of Reddit posts reflect that quality. Even if that's true, you're left with the problem of figuring out which is which. That's going to be hell of a lot harder and time-consuming that throwing a bunch of volunteer bandwidth at the problem. It's not like the ArchiveTeam has an office staffed with a thousand people working 9 to 5 to make case by case archival decisions.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  That seems less like an argument for this being a job of Archive Team and more like one for individual Reddit communities and individuals to handle. If the content really matters to people, and the tools to archive that content are available, then it's those entities that are in a better position to archive. Yet, if very few communities manage to take on this task, then that speaks to the lack of actual value that most Reddit content represents.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > That seems less like an argument for this being a job of Archive Team and more like one for individual Reddit communities and individuals to handle. If the content really matters to people, and the tools to archive that content are available, then it's those entities that are in a better position to archive. Honestly, you're just letting the perfect be the enemy of the good so the job just won't get done. Everyone can't be competent at and focused on everything, but that seems to be what you're asking. > Yet, if very few communities manage to take on this task, then that speaks to the lack of actual value that most Reddit content represents. No, it does not. That's trivially demonstrated by an example where someone had a problem that they got solved in some thread, and then everyone moved on because their problem was solved. Later, maybe years later, someone else has the same problem. By your thinking, because the content ceased to be valuable to someone arbitrarily close to its generation, it doesn't have any "actual value," which is false. Frequently, the "actual value" is found later, by other people.
    - 3y ago

capableweb 3y ago

> Posts/threads are designed to be short-lived and quickly forgotten No matter what they are designed for, the fact is that links around the net links to them, some of them 10 days old, others 10 years old. All those links might stop working, which sucks, no matter what the content itself is.

ravenstine 3y ago
That's fair, but I don't think it sucks, personally. Just because it exists doesn't mean it necessarily has the universal value to be archived. Others will disagree, and perhaps most will, but the way I see it is that there's better things to spend time and effort on than backing up Reddit. As an alternative, I think it would be better for there to be good tools for individual Reddit communities to back up their own content, which would also allow them the control to archive what's valuable and leave behind the flotsam. Perhaps such a tool would even support migrating to other forum systems. If no one would be willing to use such a tool, then that would essentially prove my point that most Reddit content isn't highly worthy of being archived. Like I tried to suggest in my first sentence in my original comment, I don't necessarily think there's no argument for or no value at all in archiving Reddit. It just doesn't seem like the best choice, especially for an organization like the Archive Team who could be spending that time and effort to fight for their own existence, even if it's only costing them $20 in total. The effort would be better left to communities and individuals to decide what should be archived and how to host it.
- capableweb 3y ago
  > Just because it exists doesn't mean it necessarily has the universal value to be archived. Others will disagree, and perhaps most will Most specifically, Archive Team disagrees with this, as they'll aggressively will go ahead and archive the internet, even if the hosters of said content don't want the content to be archived. Figuring out what's worth keeping around is a lot easier to do after you've archived it, rather than before. > especially for an organization like the Archive Team who could be spending that time and effort to fight for their own existence The Archive Team's goal is to archive content of the internet that others won't archive. It's the explicit and only goal of the organization. That's basically fight for their own existence, without the goal of archiving, Archive Team wouldn't exists. And there is nothing that is working against their existence, are you maybe confusing them for Internet Archive which is under a bit of legal fire right now? Because they're separate organizations.

tivert 3y ago

> Although there are niche subreddits with some good information in them, this doesn't mean that the vast-vast majority of Reddit posts reflect that quality. Even if that's true, you're left with the problem of figuring out which is which. That's going to be hell of a lot harder and time-consuming that throwing a bunch of volunteer bandwidth at the problem. It's not like the ArchiveTeam has an office staffed with a thousand people working 9 to 5 to make case by case archival decisions.

ravenstine 3y ago
That seems less like an argument for this being a job of Archive Team and more like one for individual Reddit communities and individuals to handle. If the content really matters to people, and the tools to archive that content are available, then it's those entities that are in a better position to archive. Yet, if very few communities manage to take on this task, then that speaks to the lack of actual value that most Reddit content represents.
- tivert 3y ago
  > That seems less like an argument for this being a job of Archive Team and more like one for individual Reddit communities and individuals to handle. If the content really matters to people, and the tools to archive that content are available, then it's those entities that are in a better position to archive. Honestly, you're just letting the perfect be the enemy of the good so the job just won't get done. Everyone can't be competent at and focused on everything, but that seems to be what you're asking. > Yet, if very few communities manage to take on this task, then that speaks to the lack of actual value that most Reddit content represents. No, it does not. That's trivially demonstrated by an example where someone had a problem that they got solved in some thread, and then everyone moved on because their problem was solved. Later, maybe years later, someone else has the same problem. By your thinking, because the content ceased to be valuable to someone arbitrarily close to its generation, it doesn't have any "actual value," which is false. Frequently, the "actual value" is found later, by other people.
  - 3y ago