Monday, February 24, 2020

Zerohedge on Twitter: An Incomplete Archive Via Cache


As you may or may not know, when a person is suspended from Twitter, their Tweets essentially disappear -- because, even if someone has had the forethought to archive them into the Internet Archive, which one has to do repeatedly, periodically, consistently, and often -- to make any sort of comprehensive backup -- all that work becomes for naught should their account become suspended.

 Understand, I consider the following fact to be a flaw with the archive system, but I know that everyone is doing the best they can; should I hear or think of a solution, I will be sure to suggest it (if by no other means than by publishing it here, and explaining my ideas to the best of my understanding, however rudimentary).

 The problem:

 The 'robots.txt' settings that Twitter traditionally employs in effect cause all those archives to retroactively evaporate.  They cannot be accessed.  They will never be seen again, if the account never regains good standing.

 While what I present below is, I admit, only a rudimentary and makeshift solution to this serious problem, it is at least one that functions at this time.

Hopefully it will continue to do so: All the sources below, and therefore all the tweets to which they are linked, should not be in danger of disappearing, or of linking only to a disappointing variant of "File Not Found." (Unless something changes.) 

 UPDATE: In the time it took me to prepare this post, it would appear that archives of cached pages are at risk, as far as the Internet Archive goes.  This is evident in this illustration:
But it used to be available on the web, which is why I archived it!

You can see (upper left, in the URL bar) that the Internet Archive address I was attempting to retrieve already had its date stamp. This means it was not a query, but an address that had already been generated by virtue of a response to a request to archive a page. One presumes that many pages whose duplicated are archived by the Internet Archive cease to exist at some point thereafter.  How is it that this affects an archive that was already made? 
so far, archive.is has not made similar policy decisions.
                                                                                                                                                  

 Thank you Internet Archive for making this possible.  Thank you Google.  Thank you, Archive Today.

 And thank you Zerohedge; while I have not gotten to the bottom of the altercation that led Twitter to suspend you (without recourse?!), in my past experience, your voice is and has always been a valuable, reasonable, well researched, and, more often than not, perspicacious contribution to the available news, and to the availability of news, on teh inter-webs. For this I must thank you, and the following is a gesture symbolic of that thanks.

 May we live to see the dominant Paradigm revised, its Customs reinvented, Truth recognized, & a strong & lasting Peace remade.



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    Zerohedge on Twitter:  An Incomplete Google Cache Internet Archive
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    Be seeing you.
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