The internet giveth and taketh away

[GaryE]

I just went to look at a bookmarked site on a curious fish, and the site was gone. This is the third time this month I've tried to return to an article or site of interest, only to see it lost in the dementia mind of the internet. I've been online since the early 90s, before there were images on the web, and the amount of great aquarium info that's gone has to be at least equal to the amount still there.
Lots of reasons - the cost of running a site, the number of info sources that go under, the death of people who run sites, sites rarely visited and shut, commercial and space decisions...

What can we do? Download good articles and become our own archivists?

 

[Ichthys]

It happens to me all the time. And what is it with TFH? You bookmark an article, then when you try to use it it just takes you to the homepage where you can never find the article again.

 

[Essjay]

If you still have the bookmark, copy and paste the url here

Internet Archive: Wayback Machine

Once you find the page bookmark that as well - I have quite a few bookmarked archive pages. It does take longer than usual to load pages via Wayback Machine.



For example, this is my bookmark for applesnail.net which disappeared years ago.

The Apple Snail (Ampullariidae) Website

Information about apple snails (Ampullariidae): ecology, care, anatomy, species and genera, FAQ, literature, photographs, diseases and more.

web.archive.org

 

[Back in the fold]

Interesting . I do not use the internet an awful lot . I was under the impression that things stayed on the internet forever . I suppose if something interests you so much that you feel you may want to read it again you should print it and keep it .

 

[Magnum Man]

I print most things I find very interesting... have several of the little 2 drawer metal file cabinets, one for each of my "deep" hobbies... of course most articles just get dumped into the top drawer ( not filed )... to get filed when I have time, at a later date that may never come...

 

[GaryE]

I tried for an American Museum of Natural History article on their Congo Project, because it was a great source of info on African tetras, the ones @Magnum Man is looking at. Then I tried on one Danakila Cichlids. It's obscure stuff.

We will see if those meddling kids with their Wayback Machine will help.

The first thing I ever read online, in turnip yellow text, was an article comparing HOB filters. I remember sitting back and thinking "okay, this tech can change human society, make info available to everyone, revolutionize science and medicine and all that, but wow, it can go good stuff for our nerdy fish world". 15 years later I was out of work as a fish writer because of it. Such is life.

 

[emeraldking]

I just went to look at a bookmarked site on a curious fish, and the site was gone. This is the third time this month I've tried to return to an article or site of interest, only to see it lost in the dementia mind of the internet. I've been online since the early 90s, before there were images on the web, and the amount of great aquarium info that's gone has to be at least equal to the amount still there.
Lots of reasons - the cost of running a site, the number of info sources that go under, the death of people who run sites, sites rarely visited and shut, commercial and space decisions...

What can we do? Download good articles and become our own archivists?

Well, they keep saying: What's on the internet, stays on the internet...
But that's not quite true... And you already gave the reasons why...

 

[Magnum Man]

it's probably there somewhere... you just need to be a huge puter geek, or a criminal to find it...

 

[StevenF]

You can look around for a good site that has been around for years ( like this site and aquaticplantcentral.com) that does appear to use subscriptions or adds to pay their bills. And then then post alink to the an article with data and pictures manually copped from the site a. by typifying in the information manually will preserve the original link and information. then others can use this information and it has a better chance of surviving.