News:

Welcome to the new (and now only) Fora!

Main Menu

Can we access the old forum?

Started by brixton, October 23, 2020, 09:56:12 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

brixton

Hi all, This is a quick techie question.  Is it possible to access the old forum?

Some of the answers to commonly asked questions were priceless.  I wonder if they still exist in some ghostly region of the Internet, or are they like newly fallen snow -- lovely in memory, but gone forever.

Parasaurolophus

Alas, not. They were supposed to get archived, but... that didn't work, and their new IT people didn't get the memo, or something.

On the plus side, the data still exists, and I believe it's been transferred to eigen. What we can or should do with it all is another question.
I know it's a genus.

eigen

No, there was an offer to transfer data to me that.... went nowhere. My guess was the IT person thought it would be fine to do, and then legal stepped in and told them no for some reason, which was the original reason we weren't able to get a copy of the data.

Through some miracle we might get access to it again down the road, but given the continued trainwreck of this process, I'm not hopeful.
Quote from: Caracal
Actually reading posts before responding to them seems to be a problem for a number of people on here...

Parasaurolophus

Curses, I didn't realize that fell through, too.

Whelp, there we have it. We're on our own! A clean break.
I know it's a genus.

Anselm

Welcome to the digital dark ages.   Future researches will know about the CHE Fora only from the fragments which we quote or paraphrase here on the new forum. 
I am Dr. Thunderdome and I run Bartertown.

Katrina Gulliver

I wish I'd known to save all my DMs

aside

Damn.  All my former brilliance gone.

ergative

Oh, the saga of Fake Jake. Of Oseph and Nee (which is not his name). Of the job applicant who couldn't eat rice. Of the other job applicant who was irresistable to the department secretary. Those were some good times.

marshwiggle

Quote from: Anselm on October 23, 2020, 02:03:59 PM
Welcome to the digital dark ages.   Future researches will know about the CHE Fora only from the fragments which we quote or paraphrase here on the new forum.

This has been talked about for decades. Think of all the electronic media formats (videotapes, hard drives from obsolete computers, etc.) that will be (or in some cases, already are) unreadable because the technology no longer exists. Even if the media themselves are intact, they will be effectively gone.
It takes so little to be above average.

Hibush

Gawker/Gizmodo is a web-based publisher that has a vigorous commentariate. Following a labor/editorial dispute at one of their publications, Deadspin, the entire editorial staff resigned.
They have started their own site, with an interesting subscription model that is different from CHE and IHE's approach.

  • Defector operates on a subscription business model. Subscriptions for $8 a month includes unlimited access to articles, while $12 a month includes unlimited articles and commenting privileges; annual discounts are available for either plan.

OT: You may be tempted to plagiarize Defector's tagline.

Anselm

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2020, 07:29:45 AM
Quote from: Anselm on October 23, 2020, 02:03:59 PM
Welcome to the digital dark ages.   Future researches will know about the CHE Fora only from the fragments which we quote or paraphrase here on the new forum.

This has been talked about for decades. Think of all the electronic media formats (videotapes, hard drives from obsolete computers, etc.) that will be (or in some cases, already are) unreadable because the technology no longer exists. Even if the media themselves are intact, they will be effectively gone.

The other concern is that the media does have a short shelf life.   This is why so many old classic movies are gone forever.  The stats I got 30 years ago said that half of all feature length films from before 1950 are gone.  For those made before 1920, 80% are lost forever.
I am Dr. Thunderdome and I run Bartertown.

brixton

Quote from: Anselm on October 24, 2020, 07:11:08 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 24, 2020, 07:29:45 AM
Quote from: Anselm on October 23, 2020, 02:03:59 PM
Welcome to the digital dark ages.   Future researches will know about the CHE Fora only from the fragments which we quote or paraphrase here on the new forum.

This has been talked about for decades. Think of all the electronic media formats (videotapes, hard drives from obsolete computers, etc.) that will be (or in some cases, already are) unreadable because the technology no longer exists. Even if the media themselves are intact, they will be effectively gone.

The other concern is that the media does have a short shelf life.   This is why so many old classic movies are gone forever.  The stats I got 30 years ago said that half of all feature length films from before 1950 are gone.  For those made before 1920, 80% are lost forever.

Although it is funny.  We are taught that the Internet is "forever."  Post a picture there and it will never go away.  But brilliance from the former forum.  Gone forever.  Like a penny dropped in a deep well. Like bubbles blown over a weed-infested field...

Other trite examples of impermanence?

spork

Quote from: brixton on October 29, 2020, 03:44:31 PM

[. . . ]

Other trite examples of impermanence?

My dissertation in digital form, written in Word 6.0.1 and stored on 3.5" floppy disks. Probably no one besides my committee members and me ever read it, so it's no great loss.
It's terrible writing, used to obfuscate the fact that the authors actually have nothing to say.

smallcleanrat

Quote from: eigen on October 23, 2020, 10:55:55 AM
No, there was an offer to transfer data to me that.... went nowhere. My guess was the IT person thought it would be fine to do, and then legal stepped in and told them no for some reason, which was the original reason we weren't able to get a copy of the data.

Through some miracle we might get access to it again down the road, but given the continued trainwreck of this process, I'm not hopeful.

Any possibility some sort of group effort would help? Kicking in funds for the IT work, writing/petitioning to...someone?

I am rather sad about losing those archives.

Katrina Gulliver

I'm sad too but it sounds like it might be too late