

Datapocalypso (RE: Eviction, or the Coming Datapocalypse) - sjs382
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1649

======
wmf
The good part is at the very end where he actually proposes some kind of
solution.

------
Jebdm
I'm still not solid on what I think about private companies having the
responsibility to provide your data for you if they're closing down, but his
bit at the end about the archive team seems... well, brilliant. Hell, it could
even be a paid service. Monitor the web for companies shutting down and
download away. Of course, that's assuming that the data's not protected behind
some sort of wall (if Facebook was closing, or something like that); in that
case, contact the company and try and make a deal. You could get them to
simply give you all the data, or (in case of privacy concerns, etc.) offer the
closing company a solution where they commit to letting users get at their
data for 90 days (or some similar number) and after that, you put up a page
where people can pay to access the original site, or at least some sort of
download page.

Of course, people could just back up, but some stuff is just hard to do that
with, especially on the web.

------
Locke
On the other hand, perhaps it's good to allow data to be lost occasionally...
I've lost old emails, source code, and other documents that I _thought_ were
really important (to me at least). Turns out I was wrong, I don't miss any of
it.

It's a shame when people lose stuff for reasons other than neglect, but it
happens. Start over or work on something new (and treat it like an
opportunity, not a chore).

~~~
ajkirwin
There's no reason to lose data. Space is cheap.

~~~
Locke
It depends on how you define "lose". To keep all your data for a _long_ time
takes effort. Storage formats change. Disks die. Hosted storage bills need to
be paid, billing needs to be updated (credit cards expire), etc.

You really need more than one copy in more than one place if you want to be
really confident that your data won't be lost.

Is all your data worth the effort? Is it healthy to try to hang on to
everything?

~~~
ajkirwin
When I could simply offload to a drive and then throw that dive into storage?
Sure it is.

------
sjs382
Cross-posting:

Of relevance, Pownce had a similar shutdown recently. Pownce was bought and
users were given 2 weeks to export their data before the service was shutdown
and the data gone forever.

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/01/pownce-deadpooled-
team-...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/01/pownce-deadpooled-team-moves-
to-six-apart/)

------
sutro
So losing the data you enter into some lame AOL web service because you forget
to check your email for a few weeks qualifies as an _apocalypse_? After
watching fat insane Brando in Apocalypse Now and buff ass-kicking Aaanold in
the Terminator flicks, this "coming datapocalypse" doesn't seem very scary.

~~~
undertoad
Dohn't you unduhsstahnd? Ohl ur daytuh veel bee losst!

<http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,317553,00.html>

------
gommm
The biggest problem I have with websites like hometown that shut down with
insuficiant notice is that burned users are less likely to trust new
websites... And as a webapplication developper I care about having users trust
me with their contents....

------
ajkirwin
I fully support this idea and infact, I am already wondering how you'd go
about implementing it.

I've been bitten by this before and didn't have sufficient backups.

~~~
sjs382
Well projects like dataportability.org are a step in the right direction
(making the export of data easier), but then there's the issue of how much
notice (if any at all) is given when a site is closing.

