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This Page is Designed to Last

jeffhuang.com

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Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#121

Post by reificator »

shasheene wrote: post #7

There's no reason why a web browser bookmark action doesn't automatically create a WARC (web archive) format. Heck, with the cost of storage so low, recording every webpage you ever visit in searchable format is also very realistic. Imagine having the last 30 years of web browsing history saved on your local machine. This would especially be useful when in research mode and deep diving a topic. [1] https://github.com…

This is what started me clipping everything to OneNote instead of bookmarking. Unfortunately, it becomes difficult to maintain, the formatting is off, things subtly break, pages clipped on mobile use different fonts for god knows what reason, some content is discarded silently because the clipper deems it's not part of the main article, I could go on.

It's better than nothing but it's also increasingly frustrating to deal with.

Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#122

Post by zzo38computer »

tjchear wrote: post #119
zzo38computer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

O, yes, we forgot that. Footnotes, lists, and tables, are good too.

What about img? It's not inconceivable that an article or a reference manual should have images of some kind.

You could just link to them I think, possibly with a hint to specify inlining; the client decides whether to obey that hint or to ignore that hint. (This would be done the same whether the picture is part of the document or is a separate file, I should think. It makes many considerations easier to work with.)

Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#124

Post by whack »

Let's be honest with ourselves. The best way to make your content last for a long time is to host it on a platform that is free and very successful. For example, whatever photos I posted on Facebook 12 years ago? Still alive and kicking. The articles I've published on wordpress.com 7 years ago? Still in mint condition, with 0 maintenance required.

In comparison, the websites that I've built and hosted or deployed myself, have constantly required periodic work just to "keep the lights on". I went out of my way to make this as minimal and cheap as possible, but even then, it hasn't been nearly as simple as the content I've published on wordpress.

At some point, people's priorities change. Perhaps due to new additions to the family, medical circumstances, or even prolonged unemployment. And when that happens, even the smallest amount of upkeep, whether it is financial, technical or simply logistical, becomes something they have no interest in engaging with.

If we really want our content to last, not just for 10 years but for a generation, our best bet is to publish it on a platform like wordpress.com. One which requires literally zero maintenance, and where all tech infrastructure is completely abstracted away from you. I know this isn't going to be a popular idea with the HN crowd, and I do not blame anyone at all for wanting to keep control over their content. People are free to optimize along whatever dimensions they wish. But if I had to bet on longevity, I would bet every time on the wordpress article over the self-hosted one.

Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#125

Post by shakna »

fouc wrote: post #13
shasheene wrote: post #7

There's no reason why a web browser bookmark action doesn't automatically create a WARC (web archive) format. Heck, with the cost of storage so low, recording every webpage you ever visit in searchable format is also very realistic. Imagine having the last 30 years of web browsing history saved on your local machine. This would especially be useful when in research mode and deep diving a topic. [1] https://github.com…

How is viewing the WARC after? Is it the same quality as archive.is/ or archive.org/ ?

archive.org use WARC if I remember correctly, and offer guides on creating and reading the format.

Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#126

Post by _fbpt »

shasheene wrote: post #7

There's no reason why a web browser bookmark action doesn't automatically create a WARC (web archive) format. Heck, with the cost of storage so low, recording every webpage you ever visit in searchable format is also very realistic. Imagine having the last 30 years of web browsing history saved on your local machine. This would especially be useful when in research mode and deep diving a topic. [1] https://github.com…

WorldBrain's Memex (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/worldbrain/) has an option to perform a full-text index (not archive) of bookmarks, or pages you visited for 5 seconds (default) down to 1 second (no option to index all pages). It stores this stuff into a giant Local Storage (etc) database, which Firefox implements as a sqlite file.

Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#127

Post by every »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #88
every wrote: post #47

With the exceptions of my root index.html generated by the tree command and the subdirectory listings handled by apache, my entire site is plain .txt files. Should be good for a while...

Kinda sounds like you don't link to any other content, though (I guess you can include links in plain text, but that's a bit of a pain for your readers) which means your site doesn't really fit the use case.

Yes, it's a dead end, a cul de sac that links to nowhere. And that's exactly what I intended. But if you see something that is of further interest, highlight it and search. That will almost always produce topical results...

Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#128

Post by shakna »

notatoad wrote: post #79
fyp wrote: post #69

I don't think there's any good solution to the dead link problem. For example there are 11 links in this article: https://jeffhuang.com/ https://gomakethings.com/the-web-is-not-dying/ https://archivebox.io/ https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/25315/hotlinking-what-is-it-and-why-shouldnt-people-do-it https://goaccess.io/ https://victorzhou.com/blog/minify-svgs/ https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/images-don…

I think the Stack Overflow guidelines have "solved" this problem in about the cleanest way currently possible: expect links to die, and include the relevant information in your answer. If the link still works when it gets clicked on that's a bonus, but it shouldn't need to be available for the content you're reading to be understandable.

And directly quoting the information has been endangered by modern copyright directives.

Will you still be allowed to do that in ten years? Or will aggressive takedown policies have forced a shift?

Re: This Page is Designed to Last

#129

Post by SamPatt »

xwowsersx wrote: post #64

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm having trouble understanding what is so difficult about keeping content around. It seems like the issue of webpack and node and all the other things he mentions on the article aren't really problems with content per se. You can just publish your thoughts as a plain text file or markdown or whatever and you're good to go. I'm having a hard time thinking of types of content that are really tied…

Onionshare has this feature, but the website is only accessible over Tor.
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