Wednesday August 14, 2019; 9:25 AM EDT
I've been on a private email thread among tech experts discussing how to preserve the Linux Journal site. It's mostly general ideas because none of us has the power to move the domain or the content.#- The site is still accessible through the original URLs, but there's a big question about whether it will remain there much longer. Here's the background via Doc Searls. #
- There's a consensus that porting the sit to archive.org is the answer. Jon Udell, a highly respected developer says on Twitter that redirecting to archive.org, as Doug Kaye does, is the "gold standard" for preserving sites. #
- I've always resisted this, instead preferring that we take steps to make the web itself more permanent. An analogy. Recently I visited the Vanderbilt Mansion on the Hudson River. I didn't visit an archive.org snapshot of it in 1940 when it was given to the government by the Vanderbilt family. There was value to me that it was in the original location, with the same view of the river and the mountains off in the distance. That it wasn't air conditioned. That the same roads that went there when the Vanderbilts were in residence still go there today. It was the same place the elite played on Saturday nights in spring and fall during the Gilded Age. #
- I feel the same about the web. But people seem to feel that an archive.org snapshot and redirected URLs is the best we can do. Maybe we should change our idea of what the web is. Maybe archive.org is the permanent version of the web. And then of course the next question is why not just publish originally to archive.org? I'm sure they've thought of this at the Internet Archive. #