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To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

niemanlab.org

31–40 of 94 posts

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#31

> “Thank goodness she did that because [otherwise] we would have no records of the early years of the first Women’s Hockey League in Canada,” Azzi said. A few years ago, Canada digitized many older television shows, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35716982 With the help of many industry partners, the [Canada Media Fund] CMF team unearthed Canadian gems buried in analog catalogues. Once discovered, we worked to s…

Archive.org is such a godsend.- The entire information 'substrate' of society is ephemeral , if digital, and none (at least not enough) seem to have noticed .-

I wrote a book in 2010. It had a references section with links to about 100 websites. When I wrote the second edition only about five years later, 50% of those links no longer worked.

What we're doing right now is borderline insane. We're putting all of this information on the web, but almost each individual bit of information is dependent on either a company or a human being keeping it online. It's inevitable that companies change their minds, and humans die, so almost all of the information that is online right now will just disappear in the next 80 years.

And we essentially only have one single entity that tries to retain that information.

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#32

> “Thank goodness she did that because [otherwise] we would have no records of the early years of the first Women’s Hockey League in Canada,” Azzi said. A few years ago, Canada digitized many older television shows, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35716982 With the help of many industry partners, the [Canada Media Fund] CMF team unearthed Canadian gems buried in analog catalogues. Once discovered, we worked to s…

Archive.org is such a godsend.- The entire information 'substrate' of society is ephemeral , if digital, and none (at least not enough) seem to have noticed .-

Two big issues with Archive.org are that 1. it's a single point of failure, they don't encourage mirror sites to emerge, and 2. they keep using the "brand" to fight unwinnable battles like hosting books they don't own online, risking the whole endeavor.

I still appreciate it, but just imagine if it goes down due to a lawsuit. Now that Google no longer shows cached results, an entire historical record would be gone.

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#33
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Archive.org is such a godsend.- The entire information 'substrate' of society is ephemeral , if digital, and none (at least not enough) seem to have noticed .-

Two big issues with Archive.org are that 1. it's a single point of failure, they don't encourage mirror sites to emerge, and 2. they keep using the "brand" to fight unwinnable battles like hosting books they don't own online, risking the whole endeavor. I still appreciate it, but just imagine if it goes down due to a lawsuit. Now that Google no longer shows cached results, an entire historical record would be gone.

[deleted]

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#34

I fully support the efforts. but are there not legal problems with this? (No I dont thik legal issues should prevent this) If I worked for CorporateMediaNews as a columnist and reporter for 10 years and they decide ot remove all of it. Does not CMN own the work and can (unfortunately) dispose of it if they so wish? I would not have any rights for the work? Thinking about my own career. I have written a hell of a lot…

So if there was a hub where a reporter can send the url of their article when it’s published and the hub then saves that page as text (lynx —dump or whatever) if it’s not paywalled. That would be ok I guess until the hub makes it accessible. Or would it be ok since it was publicly available on the net at one time if the hub only publishes when the original url goes dark?

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#35
post #30

A nice social attack is to create an internet archive looking website call it archive.newtld and use it to create social proof of things you didn't actually do. "Oh yeah the Washington Post did a redesign but here are my past 10 posts which I saved in archive: link " In post truth internet, proving archives is going to be tough and unless there's some other form of verification it's going to be useless fast for "prov…

Could this be solved by digital signatures on web content? (Or, a way to store those)

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#36
post #17

Good thing I’m a hoarder. If I like something, I archive it and back it up locally. For example, a couple of days ago, I needed some digital assets for an Adobe program that I had downloaded a few months ago because I liked them and thought I might need them in the future. When I went back to the company page a couple days ago, everything had vanished! I'm glad I had downloaded them before and checked my backup to re…

Many many years ago I read a Fred Wilson (avc.com) blog post about a founder who vented that a tech journalist's article on the founder's company was a hit piece. The tech journalist was recommended by Fred Wilson who was an investor in the founder's company. Fred wrote the tech journalist rarely ever does their own independent research. The article's position must have come from the founder himself. I can't find tha…

A lot of the most interesting things are contentious and likely to be deleted. It's almost a law of the internet.

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Archive.org is such a godsend.- The entire information 'substrate' of society is ephemeral , if digital, and none (at least not enough) seem to have noticed .-

I wrote a book in 2010. It had a references section with links to about 100 websites. When I wrote the second edition only about five years later, 50% of those links no longer worked. What we're doing right now is borderline insane. We're putting all of this information on the web, but almost each individual bit of information is dependent on either a company or a human being keeping it online. It's inevitable that c…

That entity goes out of its way to hide information if you're friends with the owners.

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#38
post #30

A nice social attack is to create an internet archive looking website call it archive.newtld and use it to create social proof of things you didn't actually do. "Oh yeah the Washington Post did a redesign but here are my past 10 posts which I saved in archive: link " In post truth internet, proving archives is going to be tough and unless there's some other form of verification it's going to be useless fast for "prov…

Could this be solved by digital signatures on web content? (Or, a way to store those)

A content addressed network, yes.

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this be solved by digital signatures on web content? (Or, a way to store those)

A content addressed network, yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-addressable_network

Re: To preserve their work journalists take archiving into their own hands

#40

I fully support the efforts. but are there not legal problems with this? (No I dont thik legal issues should prevent this) If I worked for CorporateMediaNews as a columnist and reporter for 10 years and they decide ot remove all of it. Does not CMN own the work and can (unfortunately) dispose of it if they so wish? I would not have any rights for the work? Thinking about my own career. I have written a hell of a lot…

So if there was a hub where a reporter can send the url of their article when it’s published and the hub then saves that page as text (lynx —dump or whatever) if it’s not paywalled. That would be ok I guess until the hub makes it accessible. Or would it be ok since it was publicly available on the net at one time if the hub only publishes when the original url goes dark?

- https://archive.today (works with some paywall content)

- https://web.archive.org

etc

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