the impermanence of the net

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Peregrinus, Jun 25, 2014.

  1. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    I had quite the fright last night when I started getting server errors with WR (wordreference.com). I use it every day for German and have the German and Spanish dictionaries bookmarked (pairs with English). I just figured out that they apparently changed the url from wordreference.com/de to like wordreference.com/deen, and the similarly for Spanish. So all I had to do was adjust my bookmarks to reflect that. Since I didn't have the main site bookmarked, I didn't notice until I thought to back up the url in my address bar to just the main url.

    While I doubt such a source would disappear, others we often use may. My general rule is to "get all you can get while you can get it." Thus for any smaller sites I save pages that I would hate to lose. I use the Scrapbook addon for Firefox to do this. I have done this with a lot of HTLAL pages, though unfortunately there is no way to save an entire thread in one go with Scrapbook. For smaller sites, I have sometimes just spidered the site and saved the entire thing with a different program.

    There is a thread on HTLAL by user "random review" where he bemoans the loss of a Memrise deck online, but which he had actually saved (he just prefers the Memrise interface). So such user generated content can also disappear (here apparently due to copyright concerns).

    Some sites can later be found archived by Internet Archive and one can pull up versions from previous years. But if a site owner lets the domain expire, often a placeholder page with a "no follow" tag will be put up, which prevents IA from storing the older versions. But you have to know the url first, since currently there is no way to search IA.

    So my advice again regarding internet sources is to get all you can get while you can get it.
    Wise owl chick likes this.
  2. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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  3. hrhenry

    hrhenry Member VIP member

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    I hate to admit such as "low tech" option for saving valuable content, but I use it all the time and it works well for me: Print a webpage to PDF, then upload it to my Google Drive. I can then search via GDrive (which is often faster than my desktop search), and I still have a local copy of the PDF, too.

    R.
    ==
  4. Bjorn

    Bjorn Active Member VIP member

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    I'm using Evernote, that is my archive.
  5. newyorkeric

    newyorkeric New Member

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    Most language learners collect too much material that they would never get to in two lifetimes much less one. I wonder why that is.
  6. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Guilty as charged, especially in relation to physical media. I am a language learning hoarder who has collected an assembly of most unused material. But when I have begun to use some material for a language, I can pick the best material, even if a small part of the whole. However that mostly was collected from used book shops in the days before the net, or when it was not as fully developed. Granted that these days, it is fairly easy to find via online purchasing options, almost any material again, so there is less of a need to collect physical media.

    But in regards to helpful material online, that does not comprise a complete course, maybe for instance a certain grammar chart, one may never be able to find that again if it disappears. Hard drive space is relatively cheap these days, and if I don't actually use something I collect, there is little detriment, assuming that I can find something when I need it.

    With the example of HTLAL again, if it disappeared (which is quite possible even if not extremely likely), would you regret the loss of the ability to revisit some old threads for the information they contain, as for example the super vocab thread, or the postings of Dr. Arguelles, Linguamor and others? I would, and hence why I prefer to take 2 seconds to save various pages as I come across them.
  7. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

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    This also relates to what I was saying elsewhere about granting proper reuse/redistribution licenses on any material published here. If there's no explicit permission to copy and redistribute, it all dies when the site dies, and the next lot start again from zero, instead of building on what's already been done.
  8. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Cainntear,

    I you mean that this site's TOS are such for example, that it would not be permissible for it to be donated to and available at the Internet Archive, then I too would support such changes necessary to allow that to happen.
  9. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Be specific and I'll try to take care of it. I'm super busy right now with other projects. I have no intention of hoarding anything, but I haven't had time to research internet copyright licenses.
  10. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

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    I'm not talking about site posts, but I'm referring to any specific resources -- eg the suggested "polydog assimil", or my suggested phrasebank, or even just conjugation/declension tables.

    The licensing should be explicit on every file wherever possible, so it doesn't have to be a site-wide policy. If PDF says at the bottom "CC-BY-ND" or whatever, then it's clear that it can be redistributed, and that's enough.

    The choice of a specific license would only be a collective issue for collective works, individuals can use whatever license they like on their personal works.
  11. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    Some sages say you get a more permanent happiness by hoarding experiences, but obviously they don't know the secret pleasure of picking up a mint condition used Tajik grammar that normally sells for $150 for a mere $16 when a seller didn't know what they had. I treasure that book that hasn't left the shelf since acquisition, how's that for an enduring experience? What are some of your treasures, fellow hoarders ?

    [​IMG]
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2014
    Peregrinus likes this.
  12. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Looks like a book about water.
    invictus likes this.

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