<story><title>One day left to help Internet Archive reach its donation goal</title><url>https://archive.org/donate/?1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>unicornporn</author><text>I really dig the basic idea of the IA and I&amp;#x27;m an avid user of the site. But, it kind of scares me that they in one sentence say that they will &amp;quot;make our cultural treasures accessible to everyone. Forever.&amp;quot; and in the next one asks for money to make it happen. &amp;quot;Forever&amp;quot; is a bold statement and I can&amp;#x27;t be the only one that sees a contradiction in this. I guess what they&amp;#x27;re saying is: if the money runs out the data will disappear.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve worked closely with archivists and preservationists in the cultural heritage sector and I know that to keep the sacred promise of saving something for an eternity you have to have strategies for what you save in the first place. However, I don&amp;#x27;t see a clear strategy with the IA. The Internet Archive (not the Wayback Machine part of it) is basically a site where I can upload whatever digital litter I like as long as it&amp;#x27;s not protected by copyright and they (without questions asked) store it &amp;quot;forever&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s fantastic in a sense. But is it sustainable in the long run?&lt;p&gt;For the the Wayback Machine I can force a snapshot of a site whenever I like and as often as I please. I stumbled across the snapshot for this page today [ &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20140415000000*/http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/02/economist-explains-16&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20140415000000*&amp;#x2F;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.econo...&lt;/a&gt; ] and I think it illustrates what I&amp;#x27;m trying to say. During march 2014 there was up to 4 snapshots a day, while august did not have a single snapshot. I guess people where trigger happy with the &amp;quot;Save Page Now&amp;quot; [ &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/web/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; ] feature when the article got publicity. Could it perhaps be a better idea to snapshot at certain times and find smart algos that can detect important changes in the page?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love to hear some replies to my criticism. I say what I say because I love the IA and I hope it&amp;#x27;s being taken care of in a way that will truly make it be there forever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>HackinOut</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;make our cultural treasures accessible to everyone. Forever.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re stating their mission and then asking for donations. At least that&amp;#x27;s how I see it. There is no endeavor that is guaranteed to succeed. Money isn&amp;#x27;t the only problem they are facing.&lt;p&gt;I personally greatly prefer that statement to something like &amp;quot;if the money runs out, we&amp;#x27;ll have to close IA. Please donate.&amp;quot; which somehow sounds like blackmailing. EDIT: The former doesn&amp;#x27;t feel like marketing to me, might lead more people to donate and I would expect most of us (like you and me) to understand that they do not make any promises, except doing their best.</text></comment>
<story><title>One day left to help Internet Archive reach its donation goal</title><url>https://archive.org/donate/?1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>unicornporn</author><text>I really dig the basic idea of the IA and I&amp;#x27;m an avid user of the site. But, it kind of scares me that they in one sentence say that they will &amp;quot;make our cultural treasures accessible to everyone. Forever.&amp;quot; and in the next one asks for money to make it happen. &amp;quot;Forever&amp;quot; is a bold statement and I can&amp;#x27;t be the only one that sees a contradiction in this. I guess what they&amp;#x27;re saying is: if the money runs out the data will disappear.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve worked closely with archivists and preservationists in the cultural heritage sector and I know that to keep the sacred promise of saving something for an eternity you have to have strategies for what you save in the first place. However, I don&amp;#x27;t see a clear strategy with the IA. The Internet Archive (not the Wayback Machine part of it) is basically a site where I can upload whatever digital litter I like as long as it&amp;#x27;s not protected by copyright and they (without questions asked) store it &amp;quot;forever&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s fantastic in a sense. But is it sustainable in the long run?&lt;p&gt;For the the Wayback Machine I can force a snapshot of a site whenever I like and as often as I please. I stumbled across the snapshot for this page today [ &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20140415000000*/http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/02/economist-explains-16&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20140415000000*&amp;#x2F;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.econo...&lt;/a&gt; ] and I think it illustrates what I&amp;#x27;m trying to say. During march 2014 there was up to 4 snapshots a day, while august did not have a single snapshot. I guess people where trigger happy with the &amp;quot;Save Page Now&amp;quot; [ &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/web/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; ] feature when the article got publicity. Could it perhaps be a better idea to snapshot at certain times and find smart algos that can detect important changes in the page?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love to hear some replies to my criticism. I say what I say because I love the IA and I hope it&amp;#x27;s being taken care of in a way that will truly make it be there forever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spacefight</author><text>&amp;quot;if the money runs out the data will disappear.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t expect anything else - data storage is cheap these days but not free.&lt;p&gt;The same can happen when physical archives (private and&amp;#x2F;or state run) are not properly maintained because of lack of funds.</text></comment>