The struggles of an archivist.

If you asked young me to right-click save as every page they visited, they would've called you nuts.

Now here I am sitting at 18, thinking about how much I regret not having that mindset up until now.

I'm a data-hoarder, big time, archivist to the extreme, but one thing that bothers me is when I delve into my past, half of it is missing.
I disagree that everything should be kept but some things are definitely worth keeping.
It's weird seeing websites related to modding be taken down via DMCA or a lawsuit.
It's weird to see forums run out of money and stop completely.
It's weird to go down a rabbit hole of dead links through archive.org just to find something you need from way back when.
It's weird to see romhacking/hacking websites gone. Erased vanished.
Hardware documentation for emulation/reverse engineering? Now just a distant memory in a sea of obscurity.
A Site that was once popular...nobody even remembers anymore.

It's offputting frankly.
I find it disturbing.

What I find more disturbing is that I have contributed to this phenomenon, just by being a user of the internet and putting something up and taking it down/having it taken down at a later date.

If someone liked what was once there or had seen it before. It is too late now, it's completely gone by the time I remove it.
That person or user will search for it to no avail.

I've watched others disappear.
I've watched people have their legacy taken down against their will.
I've watched people take massive projects and huge discoveries down.
It's a very weird phenomenon.

But I don't see it stopping, such as life.

"Once on the internet, always on the internet."
is only true for so little.

10 Kudos

Comments

Displaying 1 of 1 comments ( View all | Add Comment )

GRIFFEN

1655319220

don't worry i already saved this bulletin! forever!

Report Comment

It's a blog post but yey.

by Tarentaze; 1655328137; Report