The Death of Usenet archiving

[Colin J. Williams]

This may be of interest to those who rely on Deja to search out old Python
postings.

Colin W.


Hi,

The following was posted on the netizens list calling attention to a
thread on the Community Memory mailing list.

Jay

Following was an important post that was on the community memory mailing
list yesterday. It is about a petition to Deja News complaining about
their removing the archive they maintained and made available of Usenet
posts.

Also I suggest people take a look at the petition as it includes
peoples comments - and the importance they attach to Usenet and to
it having a memory. And it would be good to figure out how to contribute
to the effort to save the archives.

The whole petition shows the sham of having to rely on the commercial
world and business models for technical and social resources as important
as an archive of Usenet.

Ronda

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From: "John Stevenson, tranquileye.com" <jhs at WELL.COM>
Organization: tranquileye.com
Subject:      [CM>] The Death of Usenet archiving?

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 Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace
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I think the readers of this list might be interested in what appears to =
be something of a crisis in the area of Usenet archiving.

It would seem that Deja.com, formally DejaNews.com, is not longer making =
available its archive of Usenet posts dating from 1995 to approximately =
1999. They claim that the situation is temporary, but I do fear that =
they have used their hardware move as an excuse to discontinue what =
might well be an unprofitable service.

The Usenet community, such as it is today, has noticed this, and one of =
the efforts underway is a petition that anyone may electronically sign:

http://www.petitiononline.com/dejanews/petition.html

As well, the OIdnews Usenet Archive, collecting many posts from 1981 and =
1982, seems to be down for good due to too much traffic:

http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/index.html

Finally, RemarQ.com has been purchased by CritialPath, turning their =
Usenet access service commercial. I am not sure what level of archiving =
they did, or if Supernews offers anything similar. I doubt it.=20

I understand that the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) has a =
substantial Usenet collection, but it is not open for mundane browsing =
from what I can tell.

All this leaves me with something of a sick feeling. While much of =
late-1990s Usenet is junk, it has both practical and historical =
significance. The notion that archiving Usenet is not commercially =
viable does not bode well for saving other parts of the Internet's =
history.

I trust these few comments are germane to the list.

John Stevenson
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