Date   : Sun, 28 Feb 2016 12:19:45 +0000
From   : darren.grant@... (Darren Grant)
Subject: Loss of BBC / Acorn sites

> On 28 Feb 2016,@10:30, John <blip@...> wrote:
> 
>  Just thought I?d mention that whilst the loss of individual sites is extensive
although sadly predictable ?

This is part of a much larger issue of digital obsolescence that people 
have been grappling with for a long time. The British Library and National 
Archives in particular have been very active in this area. I?m not sure 
that consolidating information into a central location is necessarily the 
answer or particularly worthwhile endeavour. http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/ 
<http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/> is a project by the British Library
to create archives of internet sites but these kinds of projects are far
from perfect especially withe the way many sites have some interactive elements.

The problem gets even worse when you take into account that technology changes 
file formats change and often the software required to read them stops functioning
on modern systems requiring the maintaining of emulators and format convertors
that often have a number of quirks that can result.

One thing that would make a difference is if people who create their own 
web sites publish it using one of the open licences like Creative Commons
Attribution license so that things don?t fall into the copyright black hole.
People knowing they can copy and re-distribute the content as long as the
original source is credited.

Of course the copyright issues were by far the biggest challenge rather than
technical with the Domesday project.