Comment by unicornporn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by unicornporn | Hacker News Reader

I really dig the basic idea of the IA and I'm an avid user of the site. But, it kind of scares me that they in one sentence say that they will "make our cultural treasures accessible to everyone. Forever." and in the next one asks for money to make it happen. "Forever" is a bold statement and I can't be the only one that sees a contradiction in this. I guess what they're saying is: if the money runs out the data will disappear.

I've worked closely with archivists and preservationists in the cultural heritage sector and I know that to keep the sacred promise of saving something for an eternity you have to have strategies for what you save in the first place. However, I don't see a clear strategy with the IA. The Internet Archive (not the Wayback Machine part of it) is basically a site where I can upload whatever digital litter I like as long as it's not protected by copyright and they (without questions asked) store it "forever". It's fantastic in a sense. But is it sustainable in the long run?

For the the Wayback Machine I can force a snapshot of a site whenever I like and as often as I please. I stumbled across the snapshot for this page today [ https://web.archive.org/web/20140415000000*/http://www.econo... ] and I think it illustrates what I'm trying to say. During march 2014 there was up to 4 snapshots a day, while august did not have a single snapshot. I guess people where trigger happy with the "Save Page Now" [ https://archive.org/web/ ] feature when the article got publicity. Could it perhaps be a better idea to snapshot at certain times and find smart algos that can detect important changes in the page?

I'd love to hear some replies to my criticism. I say what I say because I love the IA and I hope it's being taken care of in a way that will truly make it be there forever.

"make our cultural treasures accessible to everyone. Forever."

They're stating their mission and then asking for donations. At least that's how I see it. There is no endeavor that is guaranteed to succeed. Money isn't the only problem they are facing.

I personally greatly prefer that statement to something like "if the money runs out, we'll have to close IA. Please donate." which somehow sounds like blackmailing. EDIT: The former doesn't feel like marketing to me, might lead more people to donate and I would expect most of us (like you and me) to understand that they do not make any promises, except doing their best.

Yes, compare with recent discussion about Wikipedia fundraising language, http://www.quora.com/Are-donations-instead-of-ads-or-chargin...

"The Wikimedia Foundation recently raised $20 million. Assuming a generous $3 million to keep the projects online per year, that's over six _years_ that the projects could continue operating before needing to ask for money again. Contrast with e-mails and in-site donation advertising that suggest that the lights will go off soon if readers don't donate today."

"if the money runs out the data will disappear."

I wouldn't expect anything else - data storage is cheap these days but not free.

The same can happen when physical archives (private and/or state run) are not properly maintained because of lack of funds.

> But, it kind of scares me that they in one sentence say that they will "make our cultural treasures accessible to everyone. Forever." and in the next one asks for money to make it happen. "Forever" is a bold statement and I can't be the only one that sees a contradiction in this. I guess what they're saying is: if the money runs out the data will disappear.

It's not really a contradiction. It's simply an indication that, to reach their goal, they need financial support. In this sense, it's no different from any other organization - no matter what your storage model is, it's never going to be truly free in the end, so the money will have to come from somewhere.

> I've worked closely with archivists and preservationists in the cultural heritage sector and I know that to keep the sacred promise of saving something for an eternity you have to have strategies for what you save in the first place.

I'd like to see a well-argued source on this. Selective saving is exactly why old archives are often so incomplete. It seems to me like solving a problem that doesn't exist, and with severe consequences.

The Archive is trying to be a sort of modern library of Alexandria, and in today's society, that means taking in content from anybody and everybody. Creation of culture and information has become significantly more decentralized than it has been historically, and archives need to adapt to this new reality.

>It's fantastic in a sense. But is it sustainable in the long run?

I don't worry about it that much, when that becomes a problem then a solution can be investigated. In the meantime I extract material benefit from archive.org on a regular basis so I donate.

More worrying (to me, anyway) than the potential to run out of money is the Wayback Machine's policy of permanent, retroactive exclusions.

A copyright holder, rogue admin or anyone who buys a used domain can immediately destroy the entire history of a URL they control. This isn't "accessible to everyone" and it definitely isn't "forever."

I understand that rights holders, etc need a certain amount of protection but this policy hamstrings the project. If content can be removed, the archive fundamentally can't be trusted.

It's like the perpetual "going out of business" sale.

The issue is that any free service needs a revenue model to stay afloat, and folks like wikipedia will turn their site into a PBS pledge-break begging platform when they don't actually need the cash. (Ivy league universities always cut back budgets and layoff people in bad economic times, even when the endowment can fund the school indefinitely because keeping donations coming and being seen as "doing their part (even though it's unnecessary)" are the primary goals.)

PS: Does anyone know IA's financial position?

It would work if they have capital to the point where they can run the site on the interest/dividends paid out on investing that capital. I highly doubt they are in that position but there is a scheme where that will work.

That would likely require a very substantial amount of capital. I too doubt they are in such a position.

List of sponsors: http://archive.org/about/credits.php

Made me very happy to see Library of Congress there.

Until the next 2008. It seems like a financial crisis would put that plan into a tailspin. And there have been a bunch of those in my lifetime. I wonder if there's anything with more permanence?

2008 was a non-event in those terms. I'm not much of a stock buff but if you're going to be in for the long haul you should evaluate the stock market over the long haul.

Well, no. In 2008 the endowment payout would be much lower. The foundation would have to choose to grant a significant amount of the principle to the operating fund.

That's the same as every donor having investments and just paying the site some dividends instead. In fact, I would rather have $1000 and pay the site $10 a year than give the site $1000 and trust it invests it wisely.

Can IA be mirrored like Wikipedia?

It seems like there might be all kinds of copyright problems when mirroring IA. With Wikipedia, everything is licensed under Creative Commons. But IA is a copy of all kinds of websites with all kinds of licenses. It's a big effort for them simply to remove content that companies rightfully request be removed.

Much (all?) of IA content already has metadata for licensing, e.g. out-of-copyright books. It should be legally ok to mirror the CC and public domain content, but I don't know if there's an easy way to extract a dump or torrent.

Check out robots.txt -- most companies use it (in this case) because it's easier than dmca takedowns.

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