[game_preservation] Preserving Websites

[Devin Monnens]

Of course, site updates are important. It depends if it's a snowball-like
database like HotU versus a site that changes internal content frequently or
does image overhaul. As a result, like a game updated with different version
numbers, a website's appearance can change like that, too. So a 'final look
of the site' ultimately may not be the best archival.
Devin

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>wrote:


>  Yep, that's mainly what I'd intend if the project got going for game

> websites going down - either archive-it one time crawls, website backups

> from the source, or something, stored in a location publicly accessible.

>

> Doing it constantly on sites still up and running would be what the Wayback

> machine partially does, and also not be feasible or really desirable,

> although doing a good scrape every year of a site can work wonders (a lot of

> changes can happen in a year for larger sites), it'd also not be the point

> of the project initially (if at all, like I said - cost, in time and money,

> would be much higher).

>

> Andrew

>

> Henry Lowood wrote:

>

> Andrew,

>

> for now, just let me know.  We have an archive-it instance with our

> project, and I can use it to crawl sites. If a site is going down, I can do

> a one-time crawl to catch it near the end at least.  By the way, frequent

> crawls for the most part are not adding much content to what we get from

> infrequent or even one-time crawls.

>

> Henry

>

> Andrew Armstrong wrote:

>

> We need to look at some point into helping preserve websites - especially

> ones that simply cease to be. I brought this up off list a bit with Henry

> and Simon a while back - what pipqued my interest again was this:

>

> http://www.gamecyte.com/rip-gamecyte-2008-2009

>

> A site I don't think I've ever visited, and if not then I can't recall it

> from memory. It was operating for an entire year, and I'd no clue. Well,

> it's stopping - but no doubt this is something to preserve in some way if

> they then switch off the hosting next month.

>

> The IA crawlers are okay in general, for sites which don't go out of

> business or offline, and if they are setup properly. However many sites are

> not crawled often enough, certainly not to the level of accuracy that would

> be acceptable for preservation (see the example HotU!)

>

> Jason Scott created a task force more dedicated to grabbing sites while

> they are still online,

> http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Main_Page - I will join their

> group to see how they operate, and see if I can help or do something.

>

> This is a possible project we can look at working on continually - while

> the IGDA is both a developer orientated group (give or take) and hasn't got

> the funding to do a physical archive, I can help put my efforts into this

> (along with any help we're able to get) just because I don't think many

> other places (any other places?) think about this and other area's we're

> working on.

>

> My thoughts are to maybe just for now list websites which are basically

> shutting with their "death date" and then requesting off the

> owners/webmasters if possible an archived copy of the site for at least dark

> storage on the Internet Archive, if not public access. I've no idea if the

> more accurate/on demand Wayback scanner is another route to take, although

> doens't that require payment to use? (while we have no money ;) )

>

> Thanks in advance to anyone provides a comment, I'd not mind knowing if

> this was worth working on in the future.

>

> Andrew

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>

> --

> Henry Lowood, Ph.D.

> Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;

>  Film & Media Collections

> HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall

> Stanford University Libraries

> Stanford CA 94305-6004

> 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood<http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>

>

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-- 
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"Until next time..."
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