Did I really say that... TWICE? Archive questions.

[Michael Mutmansky]

Everyone,

I have been thinking about this whole forum migration issue, and I a pleased that we finally have our own home. Since the migration to P-N last year, I think the level of discussion had dropped of considerably.

However, I am a bit concerned about the archives that are on this site, and the (possibly duplicate?) archives on that site. Imagine this scenario...

Five years from now, someone is looking for some information and recalls that they think they saw it on the LF forum, and attempts to do a general Google search to find it. In Google, up pops a bunch of seemingly identical threads, but the data is not to be found anywhere.

It turns out, the thread originated on the LF Forum, was migrated (forked?) to P-N, and then continued on with the discussions there with a different end result.

This sounds like a real problem for data mining in the years to come.

Is there any way that this problem can be avoided? I have thought about having my posts to the old LF Forum removed from the P-N archive to eliminate the possibility of a Google search showing two different locations for something I wrote. This issue is really independant from the whole commercial debate that is going on regarding P-N, but ultimately that issue makes it easy for me to decide which archive I would like to keep my contributions in.

I know that removing contributions from the archive at P-N will result in discontinuous discussions, but ultimately, I belive that if P-N wanted a LF forum, they should have created one on their own, rather than hijacking the independant LF Forum.

I respectfully request to hear what others on this forum think about this issue. While I know that this is ultimately an individual issue, I am willing to let the general feeling of the group sway my decision to pull my archives contribution. If this forked data is not percieved as any real problem, then I am inclined to let it remain, even though P-N is now actively using the archives for income generation.

---Michael

[Michael S. Briggs]

If you are thinking about what is convenient or inconvenient for people in the future searching for LF information, I think discontinuous threads would be the greatest inconvenience. Suppose that someone uses google to search for "lens XYZ" and finds two relevant links. They click on the photo.net one but get confused because some of the responses are only understandable only in the context of answers that were deleted, or even from the question that was deleted.

If they click on both links and find two old threads that are identical (most threads don't attrack new postings after a few days) on two different webpages, they won't be confused about the information that they are seeking, something about "lens XYZ". There is a lot of dupliction on the internet. What is confusing about two pages with the same information?

My preference/advice is just to let it be. With time the two database will become increasing different and both will be sources of information that people can mine with search engines, just like rec.photo.equipment.large-format is an already existing alternative source.

For people who dislike photo.net, I suggest putting your energy into making this forum better rather than trying to damage photo.net. This site will gain "webshare" if questions are more likely to receive useful, informative answers and the particpants are almost always polite.

[Michael Mutmansky]

Good enough logic. I wasn't trying to damage photo.net, as much as keep the archives in a good, logical, singular location.

If enough people removed their contributions from the P-N archive, then it wouldn't be much of an archive, would it? At that point, P-N might just realize that they should scrap the old LF Forum archive, and start the archive at the point of the forum beginning on P-N, which was the proper thing to do anyway, once it became apparent that the move to P-N was unwelcome.

I'll leave my contributions on the P-N archives, but I think everyone should email Brian and ask for residuals for the advertising income derived from their contribution! !-)

---Michael