Comments on: Doing my small part to preserve digital history

By: Reid

Reid — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:30:49 +0000

As someone who did post an old’s blog content, I did go through a (basic) thought process of what benefit moving this content to my new site would bring.

1. Would this content be embarrassing? Yes, a little bit, especially with people who would read all of it and then bring it up in awkward situations. But, overall, there’s nothing too incriminating.

2. Does this content tell a better story of who I am? I think this was the most important factor – I had spent many hours and years writing in a defunct journal, and that content was sitting on another site’s server, meaning if I didn’t move it over, there was always the chance that it could be deleted, forever. And one of the reasons why I decided to keep a journal during my early years of college was to have something to look back on and see how I’ve transformed over the years. If anything, I’ve looked back on some of my experiences and wish I had provided more detail and context. And I’m okay with having it online – someone or something could one day find it useful.

Something I’ve also been considering is moving my old papers online. I also did some research and at least ‘publishing’ it on my blog can be more useful than it sitting on my hard drive.

By: Ann vs. Jason » Blog Archive » If you’re wondering what I do at work…

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:08:42 +0000

[...] promise to write more about the baby shower soon. In the mean time, I’ve been uploading old papers and notes on my professional blog, so feel free to poke around the archives and see what I was thinking about as long as ten years [...]

By: Navin

Navin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:53:39 +0000

I was prevented from digging out about 10 years of writing by accidentally deleting it all after file handling got a bit complicated between machines. Writing is a muscle, so outside of the self-absorbed value of seeing how my work changed over time, there’s good stuff towards the end that’s now gone — and I’m unlikely to ever write again as much and reach that same point.

By: nelson

nelson — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:51:28 +0000

As long as there are people like you, I don’t have to worry about my lack of posting. :)

By: Jason Morrison

Jason Morrison — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:22:22 +0000

Thanks Nelson, that was a great link. I do see your point, that’s why I’ve pretty much only put up professional or academic posts so far.

On the other hand, if everyone decided to stop blogging because they’ve never had any novel or interesting experiences, the web would get really boring really quick. So I think I’ll keep posting. :)

By: nelson

nelson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:52:49 +0000

I think it’s pretty clear from the experiences of Reid and Wysz that putting up your history online for the world to read/see only makes for awkward situations where people end up remembering more about your past than you. It’s not like many of us have any experiences that will add anything new to the collection already up on the web (at least that’s what Will Smith told me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEMEBBwO6J8) so I think the only thing that will come out of such an endeavor is awkwardness at parties. My vote: keep it hidden.