Can we access the old forum?

[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.

[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.

[Parasaurolophus]

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

Whelp, there we have it. We're on our own! A clean break.

[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. 

[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]

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.

[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]

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.

[brixton]

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]

[. . . ]

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.

[smallcleanrat]

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