Do we really need the archives?
Sure it’s fun sometimes. Most people enjoy looking up old posts of theirs. Or somebody in a thread mentions something, and you think"hey I know we’ve discussed that before"…and sure enough, you find the old thread.
It’s fun. But not really necessary.
The archive contains a million posts…But how often do you personally need to read any of them?
I enjoy this site, but I spend my time reading the current posts, not the old ones from years past.
We need to create a Plan B, for “the day after”.
. I suggested reddit, somebody else suggested giraffeboards, which may be a better idea.
But whatever it is, let’s do it!!
And if we lose a million old posts , that’s not the end of the world
Judging by the number of zombie threads that have been resurrected because of Google searches, the archives are a major source of new users, even if they don’t stick around.
I enjoy them at times, the book and movie recommendations threads which are definitely still relevant. I’ll also go back and read a thread from a film released in 2010 that I’m just now going to see.
I also enjoy the political threads over the years, interesting to look back at events, Obama’s 2004 keynote speech, for example.
Yes, it’s the end of the world. If that happens, I doubt I’ll turn up in whatever the replacement is, and my history here isn’t even that long. So I do hope there’s a way to preserve that million (only a million?) with or without the assistance/blessing of Trib Media.
(Also, as a certain late night host has been trying to get at what I write/have written off of Social Media “for free”, he might have to think twice about stealing/plagiarizing what I’ve written that’s now owned by NPR. It might just not go over so well with CBS. )
Perhaps the best thing would be to create a non-profit company and make an offer to the new owners. We’d all have to chip in to get the money to make the buyout and then some more for current operations. How much we’d need and could we raise that much money would be the big questions.