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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

> There is a large chunk of software history prior to pre-cloud services that has died in someone's hard drive, floppy, CD.

Sure but I don't see how being on a UN list helps fix that. Seems to me like efforts from people behind eg scene.org, archive.org (hat tip to jscott) etc are substantially more valuable to preservation efforts than convincing some folk dance geeks who work at the UN that rotating nipple balls are also cool (which of course they are)

EDIT: To be clear, I don't mean to dismiss the effort. The entire point of the demoscene is "because we can!", so obviously this also holds for getting our hobby listed by the UN.

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UNESCO has funding available to use on heritage projects, which could support the existing archive efforts.

The IA is closing in on 30 years, has UNESCO done anything to help the IA during that time?

Have they ever applied?

I don't know, but shouldn't UNESCO when marking something of significance do this kind of research, and reaching out to organizations that are trying (and have been trying) to do essentially what they want to protect?

It is a great way of spreading the word ... many small organizations don't have the man power to do "other things" (like looking up how to apply for strange grants, let alone maybe know about them).

the IA is great for hosting demos too, including running in in-browser emulation. For example see: https://archive.org/details/@deater78

What has UNESCO done to assist with that?

GP answered why the UNESCO lists help, in their first sentence:

> The biggest benefit is in bringing legitimacy to preservation efforts and curation of historic records (photos, videos, data, binaries, sources) on the history of the Demoscene.

It's not necessarily about "effort" but perhaps more about "appearances" - it's easier to say "This history is important enough to be recognized by UNESCO: give us money to preserve it!"

It helps when talking to politicians.

Officially proclaiming it part of the Cultural Heritage of your country means you can write letters like this:

Hello, person who controls government funding for the arts! The demoscene is now a UNESCO cultural heritage property in three different countries, including ours. We are a group dedicated to (preserving/documenting/continuing) this wonderful and unique expression of the artistic urge. You should give us a lot of money to keep doing this.

...in much more polite language, and with descriptions of exactly what you'll be doing with that money, of course.

You could apply for a grant big enough for your group to take a year off your day jobs and spend it hacking the hell out of your submission for a major party. You could get a chunk of money to keep your site full of demos running. You could get the state helping to pay the expenses for the party you run.

All of these things obviously have existing ways to pay their expenses or the scene would have died off long ago, but why not add another one?

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