[HN Gopher] Thinking About Internet History
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Thinking About Internet History
Author : dbelson
Score : 29 points
Date : 2023-12-30 20:19 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (content.cooperate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (content.cooperate.com)
| stl_fan wrote:
| I think Archive.org wayback machine and archive.today are going
| to be extremely valuable resources for "historical research" in
| the future. I hope they can continue their work via donor
| funding.
| chaxor wrote:
| Are there any developments towards helping these efforts out by
| decentralizing / backing up parts of the archive and way back
| machine data? I know torrents are hugely important in helping
| to decentralize and maintain many important files in academia
| and such (e.g. NN weights and CERN data) but I think cephfs is
| also trying to allow decentralized data storage with
| redundancy.
|
| It seems like there is some solution which can provide a huge
| data source to be decentralized over arbitrary number of nodes,
| where each node can hold or back up just some part of the data,
| and allow for a dashboard view that shows the level of
| redundancy over all of the data for each of its parts.
| Mizza wrote:
| I've been thinking a lot about this too. I was thinking people
| should start collecting written histories of their recollections
| of the internet, so future historians can understand the dynamics
| which shaped their future-present, like the "Great Digg
| Migration" and the "Tumblr Exodus", etc.
| DougEiffel wrote:
| Even with written recollections and archives, it's going to be
| so difficult to follow. Things just change so quickly. The
| irony and memes that require you to understand 5 other memes
| are just going to be so difficult to capture in any meaningful
| way.
|
| I also think people might not care that much. They'll have an
| even more sophisticated and oversaturated version of the
| internet and I'm thinking they'll only really care about a few
| big highlights from our time. Whatever is contained in the
| Wikipedia page for Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook will probably
| be enough for most future people.
| apantel wrote:
| This is true for most people regarding any part of history.
| But for any part of history there are those who take a deep
| interest and want to piece together the minutia of what
| happened. The limit case of that is an actual trained
| historian who specializes in that part of history.
| bongripper wrote:
| I much rather think about real history, there is more to learn
| from it for the future.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| "real"? If it's not archived or documented on the Internet
| somewhere, did it really happen?
| oldnetguy wrote:
| Internet history is one part of the history of technology and you
| have people already trying to preserve it. Look at all the
| vintage computer groups that talk about the history of computers
| and computing. Some even talk about the history of BBS systems.
| They are the groups already involved and would enjoy the support
| of others who are interested
| ggm wrote:
| I have come to the conclusion this will best be left to
| professionals, and a significant amount of oral history has in
| fact already been collected and curated, by professionals.
|
| I wanted it to be me. The more I thought about it, the less
| equipped I felt. In some ways, it's the technologists curse, to
| believe your meta sense informs "the best way" when in fact,
| you're disrespecting another disciplines praxis assuming your
| amateur spider sense is the way.
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