Re: Changes in USENET archives (Was Re: Chain of strictly decreasing closed sets is countable)
From: David Bernier (david250_at_videotron.ca)
Date: 03/05/05
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Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 05:28:55 -0500
Dave Rusin wrote:
> In article <1109957253.426095.261130@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> Dave L. Renfro <renfr1dl@cmich.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>If you're only interested in a mathematical reply,
>>skip past the following rant.
>
>
> I would like to chime in here because the rant is very important to me too,
> and I think it affects anyone else who, like me, sees value in the
> permanent accessibility of (a small portion of) old sci.math posts.
>
> To recap a few of Dave's points, things are bad because of three things
> to have hit USENET recently:
>
> 1. Google Groups has a "New and Improved" interface which suffers
> several new deficiencies.
> 2. Google is starting to lose articles from its archives.
> 3. Math Forum has changed its interface too and old URLs no longer work.
>
> The upshot is that in a very short time period we have gone from having
> two sources of archival information to having none in some cases.
>
> Here is my own example. I needed to find a 1999 article of mine, with
> Message-ID: <7cofdk$ib0$1@gannett.math.niu.edu>
> I was unable to find it at google by typing some keywords into its
> the search engine. I did succeed at Math Forum, finding it at
> http://www.mathforum.org/epigone/sci.stat.math/phimplilchol
> so I'm not hallucinating when I claim it really existed.
>
> Seeing Dave Renfro's comments, I went to find the article in the
> "New" math forum but was unable to do so from the old URL.
> In fact, although I had saved all the data you see here, I hadn't
> made a note of what the article was about, so I couldn't today do
> a keyword search either!
>
> In fact, what I did today was to dig up a May 2002 file I had made
> when I was bored one day: I saved the results of a search on my name
> at google. THAT file I could grep for the message ID and so I had
> the few words that show up in a google search. Those I searched in
> Math Forum, so I now know the file still exists there, but under
> a completely different URL:
> http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=1525844
>
>
> So this is what we have now:
>
> Google, which _used to have_ a copy of the article, on public display,
> but which now has no trace of the article in its groups archives
> (though a search of the _web_ through Google still finds the article
> at Math Forum -- pointing to the old URL, unfortunately, but thanks to
> the Google Cache I was able to read it)
>
> Math Forum, which has the article and a searchable index, but which
> offers no way to find the article given only its old URL.
>
> Both of the archives now serve up old articles in the proportional font
> that makes a mess of our beloved ASCII graphics. Yuk.
Google has web sites ending in .ca, .uk, etc.
For the .ca google, the default for usenet messages is old style;
see for example:
http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=d0ab1l$sch$1@news.math.niu.edu
David Bernier
> On top of all this, although Math Forum has thoroughly revamped their
> interface, they didn't make the one change I have been asking them to
> make for some time: they still don't turn off the "reply-to" feature
> for threads that have been dormant for a decade or more!
>
>
> Is there a point to my rant? I'm not sure. If you want "action items",
> try these:
>
> 1. If you have old posts that you value, find them and make copies.
> Recordable CDs are cheap. If you've got your own web site, you might
> want to put things there; if not, save the CDs until you do have your
> own site.
>
> 2. Keep an eye on these archives to stay abreast of changes, in case
> you are in the habit of using them or encouraging others to do so.
>
> 3. I believe it to be true that the keepers of these archives read
> their email and take requests and complaints to heart. If you notice
> that something of yours has gone missing, or if you want to make
> a suggestion, do so. One letter might get ignored, but then again,
> maybe not. Multiple letters would be harder to ignore.
>
> dave
- Next message: José Carlos Santos: "Re: Second derivative of analytic function."
- Previous message: Jason: "Re: Possible proof of Gabriel's Theorem?"
- In reply to: Dave Rusin: "Changes in USENET archives (Was Re: Chain of strictly decreasing closed sets is countable)"
- Next in thread: igor.kh_at_gmail.com: "Re: Chain of strictly decreasing closed sets is countable"
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