Post by gungadout on Mar 6, 2015 23:57:35 GMT -5
The Retenion of Wisdom
I have noticed that as time passes, older boards and older posts are often lost, along with the accumulated wisdom they contain.
Would it be possible for a confederation of Bible Student groups to organise (and perhaps fund) a centralised function, the brief of which would be to take over and preserve web sites and forums that were in danger of disappearing? That would include both the preserving of data on websites disappearing because the host organisation was closing a site, and the saving of individual posts that were being lost because of age.
I fear that so much is in danger of joining former wisdom that has been lost.
Has anyone addressed this issue before?
The Easy Access To Wisdom
I have noticed some forums are organised by subject, and others are not. This particular forum appears to remove threads over 12 months old, only some of which are archived. It seems that the archiving process does not preserve the original classification structure.
I float the thought that generally speaking, it would be advantageous for people who wish to study the threads within a particular classification, to have older material archived according to the original classifications. I have personally found the reviewing of older material to be enlightening, in both positive and negative senses – resulting in a (hopefully) broader, more informed perspective.
A Third Alternative
Another alternative would be, with the agreement of individual forum owners, to preserve read-only copies of Bible Student forums, possibly converted to a common page format for technical reasons. Such conversions could be done programmatically, with a format conversion program written by a knowledgeable person for each forum being preserved. The programming would need to be done only once for each forum.
Conclusion
I have floated a couple of thoughts for what they are worth. (I understand they may be worth nothing.)
But I do believe the loss of accumulated wisdom to be both lamentable and counter-productive in the maturing of the saints.
I have noticed that as time passes, older boards and older posts are often lost, along with the accumulated wisdom they contain.
Would it be possible for a confederation of Bible Student groups to organise (and perhaps fund) a centralised function, the brief of which would be to take over and preserve web sites and forums that were in danger of disappearing? That would include both the preserving of data on websites disappearing because the host organisation was closing a site, and the saving of individual posts that were being lost because of age.
I fear that so much is in danger of joining former wisdom that has been lost.
Has anyone addressed this issue before?
The Easy Access To Wisdom
I have noticed some forums are organised by subject, and others are not. This particular forum appears to remove threads over 12 months old, only some of which are archived. It seems that the archiving process does not preserve the original classification structure.
I float the thought that generally speaking, it would be advantageous for people who wish to study the threads within a particular classification, to have older material archived according to the original classifications. I have personally found the reviewing of older material to be enlightening, in both positive and negative senses – resulting in a (hopefully) broader, more informed perspective.
A Third Alternative
Another alternative would be, with the agreement of individual forum owners, to preserve read-only copies of Bible Student forums, possibly converted to a common page format for technical reasons. Such conversions could be done programmatically, with a format conversion program written by a knowledgeable person for each forum being preserved. The programming would need to be done only once for each forum.
Conclusion
I have floated a couple of thoughts for what they are worth. (I understand they may be worth nothing.)
But I do believe the loss of accumulated wisdom to be both lamentable and counter-productive in the maturing of the saints.
