Ask HN: What to do with text from old, unarchived, online forums?

I have a stack of printouts of various discussion forums from between 1991-4. Mostly chatter, but several interview transcriptions, news reports, and magazine articles that no longer appear to be online.

They vary from Billboard charts, to Associated Press reports on Michael Jackson's wealth, and Debbie Gibson discussion groups!

Are they useful/interesting as pieces of Internet history?

Are the copyright/privacy issues too onerous to scan/publish?

Do I simply send a box of paper to archive.org to worry about?

>Do I simply send a box of paper to archive.org to worry about?

That's what I would do, although I'd probably scan it for them, or at least would send an email first. Also, good on you for trying to preserve early internet history. You have my admiration.

I remember printing out USENET posts on fan-fold perforated paper that had green and white stipes circa 1990. I think I got rid of all of them when I moved to Germany in 1999 and really pared down my possessions.

It would be really cool if this became a trend. I'm sure tons of people have printouts from back then.

I have a few copy/paste text files from AOL forums from the 90s, of which sadly the other 99.99% was lost unless AOL (or the clients to whom they subcontracted maintenance of forums at individual keywords) still has them on a tape drive somewhere.