There was a website that I had quoted a long time ago. The author said something like "when the robots are taking over the world, don't panic. Buy a robot." I loved it. So I linked to it on my old blog. Then years later, I went to the source only to find that the page returned a 404. So I linked to the wayback machine instead. But then, it was removed from the archive.org. I can't even remember the name of the website at this point, just that it had the word "café" in it.
Anyway, all this to say that since there are no sources for this quote, then I'm the new original source. You can quote me on that.
Long ago in Seattle there was a network of BBSs and the head board was called Rat City. They had a lot of work by local artists (mostly tracker files and digital artwork IIRC).
I have not been able to find a single hint of their existence. Everything about what was once a collection of artistic works, wiped from the earth.
We really need to do a better job managing our historical legacy.
I used to google my unique internet aliases from my preteen/teenage years and find a trove of my posts across forums and websites.
In my mid 20s I’d remember to do it especially when stoned for that nostalgia hit but also for that sentimental hit you feel when viewing your younger self’s writings.
Those same google searches two decades later have almost zero results. All the forums and websites are dead except a few odd ends like Newgrounds and WickedFire.
On the other hand, when I was a teenager, some friends posted content referring to me with pictures on a popular local platform at the time.
I either lost contact with those friends or they lost access to their account, so I tried multiple times to get the platform to remove the content about me, they wouldn't do it, despite all the proofs I could provide them with.
The day I heard that they were finally going out of business was quite a relief.
But contrary to you I made copies of this content, part of it during my attempts to get the platform taking it down...
206-246-6647
White Center, VA RaT City BBS
(1993-1997) Dude Renegade
"Primarily a demoscene board with a vast collection of Impulse Tracker music and ANSI art.
Used to meet IRL at Seattle Center to take field recordings for use as samples.
Members included Dude, Catspaw, Geo, and Infamouse." - Dude
In modern times, archive.org is an international treasure.
Which of course means it's facing major opposition from capital interests.
Apparently no one ever thought an incoming presidential administration would literally wipe gigabytes of government funded research results off the web.
Now we see in bold type how precarious is our democracy...
I often run a linkchecker on my blog and substitute broken URL with links to the Wayback machine. Unfortunately, this is becoming quite difficult to detect broken URL as everybody is fighting bots. I am using linkchecker <https://github.com/linkchecker/linkchecker/> and it respects robots.txt but many sites are now serving 503 or various other codes.
I'll take a contrarian view and probably get downvoted for it, but many people are adamant about the benefits of indiscriminate archiving, and I just don't see it. Do we have a moral right to keep a copy of everything that's ever been written on the internet, basically just for the sake of it?
Sure, there's a variety of official and quasi-officials resources that should be treated as public record and preserved. And arguably, there are things that rise to the level of a cultural phenomenon and where the benefit of keeping receipts outweighs the jerk factor of never asking for permission and not respecting the wishes of private individuals.
But if it's some family blog from 30 years ago that's been deliberately taken down and lives on archive.org unbeknownst to the original owner? Do we have a right to that? To what end, other than "well, future historians may need it"? A historian won't look at it. A person trying to doxx you or shame you will.
In the pre-digital era, the norm was that content was preserved. Simply because it was printed in newspapers, magazines, books, alsbums, etc.. in thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of copies, so merely by inertia, many copies survived squirreled away in libraries, attics and other storage.
Also, once printed and distributed, it couldn't be taken back and altered since countless original copies existed.
Sure, a lot of it wasn't that important, but only in hindsight of history does it become apparent what was important. So it was possible to go back and research those old unaltered originals.
I fear for history in the digital era. Everything is fleeting, everything is erased and everything can be retroactively altered when the powers-that-be don't like what was said. Thinking centuries ahead, reliable historical records basically stop around 2000-2020 or so.
I have also restored the very first articles I wrote in the 90s when I was young <https://vincent.bernat.ch/en/blog/2026-old-web-articles>. At the time, they were not "great," but now I think they have some limited historical values. For example, one of them is about how the national phone operator was billing minutes. The information was easy to find in the past but is pretty scarce now.
I didn't use the wayback machine because it didn't archive everything I needed and because I still had the files on my hard drive, but if I didn't, I would have been happy to recover them.
Archives have not taken a consistent stance on this. Preservation, removal, restricted access, de-indexing, and “right to be forgotten” sit on a spectrum.
Good archival practice has to include judgment, context, and humility.
Sometimes that means preserving. Sometimes it means limiting access. And sometimes it may mean "honoring" a removal request or court order, even if you're just setting a flag.
I agree, indiscriminate archival is doomed to fail. Spending all of your resources backing things up leaves you with no resources to curate. This is where archive.org goes wrong I think. I think identifying information that is valuable and distilling, reformatting, and republishing it is much more important.
That's a good point, and AI makes this worse unfortunately. I realized a while ago I spend more time taking pictures than I even do looking at them, and quit worrying so much about saving everything. As they say, all these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. On the other hand, it's a memory of an internet that no longer exists, and that I think a lot of people (myself included) miss dearly.
I do suspect a lot of things weren't deliberately taken down so much as just not maintained, though.
Anyway, all this to say that since there are no sources for this quote, then I'm the new original source. You can quote me on that.
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/117370206/You-made-thisI-m...
I think I had it in my Usenet sig for a while,and eventually they became the oldest records people could find of it.
wtf
I know I'm not crazy. Someone else mentioned this as well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/uxojh5/ezboard...
Edit: wait, it's back now? I need to go look up the old communities I used to be in .
https://forums.mfgg.net/thread-2932.html
John Gonzalez, Internet Archive infrastructure lead, replied:
"We have done experiments to confirm that we can back up large portions of our corpus... but this is not a regular practice for us at this time."
https://blog.archive.org/2016/10/25/20000-hard-drives-on-a-m...
I have not been able to find a single hint of their existence. Everything about what was once a collection of artistic works, wiped from the earth.
We really need to do a better job managing our historical legacy.
In my mid 20s I’d remember to do it especially when stoned for that nostalgia hit but also for that sentimental hit you feel when viewing your younger self’s writings.
Those same google searches two decades later have almost zero results. All the forums and websites are dead except a few odd ends like Newgrounds and WickedFire.
Wish I saved them when I had the chance.
I either lost contact with those friends or they lost access to their account, so I tried multiple times to get the platform to remove the content about me, they wouldn't do it, despite all the proofs I could provide them with.
The day I heard that they were finally going out of business was quite a relief.
But contrary to you I made copies of this content, part of it during my attempts to get the platform taking it down...
My pre Internet alias was comkid but that was super common online and not available when I first signed to for AOL back in 1995!
Perhaps Dude is among us.
Which of course means it's facing major opposition from capital interests.
Apparently no one ever thought an incoming presidential administration would literally wipe gigabytes of government funded research results off the web.
Now we see in bold type how precarious is our democracy...
Sure, there's a variety of official and quasi-officials resources that should be treated as public record and preserved. And arguably, there are things that rise to the level of a cultural phenomenon and where the benefit of keeping receipts outweighs the jerk factor of never asking for permission and not respecting the wishes of private individuals.
But if it's some family blog from 30 years ago that's been deliberately taken down and lives on archive.org unbeknownst to the original owner? Do we have a right to that? To what end, other than "well, future historians may need it"? A historian won't look at it. A person trying to doxx you or shame you will.
Also, once printed and distributed, it couldn't be taken back and altered since countless original copies existed.
Sure, a lot of it wasn't that important, but only in hindsight of history does it become apparent what was important. So it was possible to go back and research those old unaltered originals.
I fear for history in the digital era. Everything is fleeting, everything is erased and everything can be retroactively altered when the powers-that-be don't like what was said. Thinking centuries ahead, reliable historical records basically stop around 2000-2020 or so.
So pre-digital, no books, publications, photographic prints, scrolls, tablets, or clay etchings we lost to time?
> Thinking centuries ahead, reliable historical records basically stop around 2000-2020 or so.
That’s basically backwards.
We’re making a stink because people are identifying one needle in a giant pile of needles that they can’t find anymore.
And people point to thousand-year old physical writings that persist, because they persist, and don’t know what was lost because it was lost.
Digital records are far far more long-lived — in the statistical average — than physical.
I didn't use the wayback machine because it didn't archive everything I needed and because I still had the files on my hard drive, but if I didn't, I would have been happy to recover them.
Good archival practice has to include judgment, context, and humility.
Sometimes that means preserving. Sometimes it means limiting access. And sometimes it may mean "honoring" a removal request or court order, even if you're just setting a flag.
I do suspect a lot of things weren't deliberately taken down so much as just not maintained, though.
Those who want a "right to be forgotten" are really advocating for the "right to rewrite history".
And it's still around! 27 years!! and doesn't seem to be enshittified..