Author Topic: what happened to the legacy archives  (Read 3863 times)

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Offline Lanx

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #1 on: Wed, 20 February 2013, 22:30:20 »
no seriously, i'm not joking, where'd the legacy diy section go? i click my sig now and it makes me feel like i've done something wrong.

Offline alaricljs

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #2 on: Wed, 20 February 2013, 22:38:36 »
Ok, your wacky KB mod is moved... anything else you were looking for?
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Offline mkawa

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #3 on: Wed, 20 February 2013, 22:43:09 »
they haven't been deleted. i hid them in a vain attempt at cleanliness.

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #4 on: Wed, 20 February 2013, 22:56:25 »
Hasn't GH lost/purged/deleted/hidden enough content already?!

Offline mkawa

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #5 on: Wed, 20 February 2013, 23:07:13 »
unfortunately, this is all the inevitable consequence of losing all the images and attachments that 90% of those threads referred to 8 months ago. there's really no point having completely unintelligible threads hanging out forever, so the idea was to mine them for what was still useful and then eventually shed the unintelligible stuff. my understanding was that over the last 8 months the job of mining diy discussions had been basically done (as the old photos archive has been mined), but it looks like there's still some useful stuff there.

yes, it would be great to have all that content that was deleted back, but it's gone, period, can't do anything about it. as i think i've said before, i have full faith that we can redevelop and recover (from memory, whatever), all that we lost and more and i think the stats are backing me up on that one (but feel free to have your own take on things). imo, fwiw, ianal, etc. there's no point hoarding old text for the heck of it.

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #6 on: Wed, 20 February 2013, 23:22:45 »
there's no point hoarding old text for the heck of it.

It's not for the heck of it. It's not just 'old text'. It's discussions that contain facts, that could well answer someone's question and be found by a search. It's the target of links, where the linker didn't want to rewrite something already written.

Some of it is not very old at all... please click through the links in the 'Projects' section of hasu's github page. Fine way to treat one of our greatest technical contributors.

So it's not just about the stuff anyone remembers was there, or what people have already asked to have moved into the 'current' DIY section. It all has merit, but you just don't see it. Your logic is flawed and somehow you end up at an 'inevitable consequence' which is not inevitable at all!!

Keep it all. We've lost enough already.
« Last Edit: Wed, 20 February 2013, 23:24:22 by Soarer »

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #7 on: Thu, 21 February 2013, 00:13:42 »
So yeah... just to be clear... moving a few threads that people mention is not enough. I know I can't remember all the threads that I'd like to see kept... the search function is my memory!

Offline mkawa

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #8 on: Thu, 21 February 2013, 00:16:24 »
i've moved all of the threads linked to by hasu's github, and done a quick pass over the most viewed threads in the archive.

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #9 on: Thu, 21 February 2013, 00:30:19 »
My pointing out of hasu's dead links was more to point out the folly of wholesale 'cleaning'.

Why bother doing a 'quick pass'? Just keep them all... sure, they don't have to be prominent, but accessible at least.

Thinking about it, now that they are 'old', why not just chuck them all in the current section (where they'll be many pages down the list anyway).

('old' being a relative term, since some were started as recently as early 2012).
« Last Edit: Thu, 21 February 2013, 00:33:08 by Soarer »

Offline Lanx

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #10 on: Thu, 21 February 2013, 01:51:48 »
Ok, your wacky KB mod is moved... anything else you were looking for?
hey it's not wacky, it's an ergonomic mod and guide for any that were interested, an entire build.
it's also in the top 10 of most viewed, i call it a prime example of community sharing.

plus my mod never trusted forum uploads, so everything is intact since i had to foresight to use imgshack

i mean it was a project log for all to see, my second actually, which is what gh is severly lacking since the remodel, no more projects, just seems so devoid of diy.

also i use the guide as a reference, visit the ergo forums, i know many don't, but for the regulars that are there, i always use my mod as a reference.

not as a "look at what i did i'm awesome", no i use it as a "look what i did to try to make an ergo board to my specifications, all the skills i had to learn, all the terms i wasn't familiar with, and in the end i just went with a kinda modded kinesis"

for me there's a point to it, a point of reference, i use it as a way to say to ppl "sure you can build your own board, i did, and look what i did in the end, i went with a kinesis", i'm not pimping out kinesis either, just giving out my experiences, and sometimes it's easier to explain it when you see a 2 month learning log vs. just purchasing the damn thing.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #11 on: Thu, 21 February 2013, 10:56:20 »
The loss of pictures is a real shame, but there's still plenty of solid information in the remaining text.

Just as an example, HaaTa's big backspace mod has all of the important info in text, and the resulting discussion has further useful posts (like mine about which scancodes are produced by the extra keys on an AT-F). But that's just an example, there are many others like it.

I'd wager that of the 500-odd threads, about half are definitely worth keeping. The remainder being a mix of those started by ripster, where the deletion of his posts makes it senseless to keep the rest, and noise (questions, mods that didn't get anywhere, etc). Even failed projects have merit though, if only to point out to someone with the same idea that it might not be as easy as they think!

Please, just invert the logic for culling - cull stuff that's definitely chaff by all means, but don't wholesale cull stuff that's not specifically been pointed out as non-chaff. If I gave you a stack of banknote-sized pieces of paper, an unknown number of which were real banknotes, you wouldn't just pull a few banknotes out and toss the rest! Nor would you just keep the 100s... the 1s add up as well.

Offline mkawa

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #12 on: Thu, 21 February 2013, 12:49:42 »
yah haata's post would be a good one without the bitrot :(

i think fohat.digs has been working on duplicating that guide on the wiki (although he has a slightly different method).  i'm happy to make the archives available again for people to go through, but i prefer that people rescue the content by reconstructing the rotted out bits into the live forum when there's a lot of pervasive bitrot in the archived version.

the flip side to the needle-in-the-haystack argument, that people might find something useful via search, is that the bitrot itself introduces a ton of noise into search results.

anyway, i'm going to make the diy discussions archive visible again (since we're obviously not done with it), and leave it in the projects grouping so it gets some attention for the time being. once we feel as a community that the important information has been recovered in an intelligible format, i'll put it away again

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #13 on: Sat, 23 February 2013, 08:50:24 »
I still don't agree at all :(

Although it was just an example, and my whole point is that I shouldn't have to argue every single example... haata's post is still good even though images are missing. It's as simple as that.

It really isn't going to be a "ton of noise" in search results. It's less than 10,000 posts amongst 100s of 1000s. Being melodramatic about it doesn't make your case! The signal to noise ratio within those posts is far higher than the forum as a whole.

Even worse, there will likely be links to those posts from other posts on the forum. If the old mods were removed, those links would be dead, and someone searching would be left at a very frustrating dead end - far more frustrating than just finding the thread has lost some pics.

I really am convinced you've made a mistake deciding to remove all those that aren't specifically asked to be kept, or that get 'recreated'. You obviously don't have time to give each one detailed consideration - and nor does anyone else! And the other example of your over-optimistic expectation of recreation... hasn't.

Why kill the complete-with-images-and-all bpiphany's symmetric stagger?! missing-some-but-still-has-some-pics lowpoly's mini with trackpoint?! thedward's XT adapter that still links to code?! Even though there's another aikon article now, sixty's original write-up?! Mnemonix's keyboard controller (still links to code)?!

Those are all classics, and there's more, yet skipped over when you sorted by views and moved only about 4 or 5 :(

I just don't see any hurt in keeping all of the old mod articles. We could maybe fairly easily pick say 25 to 30% to delete, but I'm not sure even doing that is worth the effort.


(Despite all the strong words, I'm just trying to make my case, there's no hate here).

Offline mkawa

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #14 on: Sat, 23 February 2013, 08:55:06 »
Why kill the complete-with-images-and-all bpiphany's symmetric stagger?! missing-some-but-still-has-some-pics lowpoly's mini with trackpoint?! thedward's XT adapter that still links to code?! Even though there's another aikon article now, sixty's original write-up?! Mnemonix's keyboard controller (still links to code)?!

Those are all classics, and there's more, yet skipped over when you sorted by views and moved only about 4 or 5 :(

(Despite all the strong words, I'm just trying to make my case, there's no hate here).

understood. post links and i'll move all you've mentioned (i agree, those are good to keep. huge amounts of signal in those threads)

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #15 on: Sat, 23 February 2013, 09:09:07 »
No! Those are just examples of why your thinking is wrong, and hoping to make you realize that!

Who are we to make a call on each article? Are we qualified? With the mod articles at least, one man's noise is another man's signal, or something like that!

Offline mkawa

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #16 on: Sat, 23 February 2013, 12:16:06 »
i don't think either of our thinking is outright wrong. there are good arguments for both sides and i feel that i've detailed mine and you've detailed yours. what i'd like to do right now is highlight the signal that we know is in there and try to clean it up enough to make placing it back into the live forums a non-issue. that's why i asked for links; not to challenge you but to start an active process that will make the forums better regardless of our differences in philosophy :)

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #17 on: Sat, 23 February 2013, 12:50:52 »
Well so far I've managed to convince you that multiple articles are obviously worth keeping, which you would've removed otherwise with your thinking. So 'wrong' (aka mistaken) seems an apt description! :)

My point is, it would be a very long list if I did that. And even if I could even find the time to check over 400-odd articles, I certainly can't find the time to debate them individually.

Comparing the downsides of each philosophy...
Your way: some good stuff could be lost forever AND much time is spent checking articles.
My way: some slight noise might remain for a while until culled.

Culling specific articles wouldn't take much time, since there are probably fairly simple searches that could be done to identify certain classes of them.

Offline mkawa

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #18 on: Sat, 23 February 2013, 13:02:32 »
here's my summary: we both want to kill bitrot. my approach: default deny. your approach: default allow.

to step back for a second, this forum has a huge number of moving parts and this, frankly, is one of the least important, in that its velocity is hilariously low. yes, i was wrong to hide the threads before they'd been explored. however, i claim that bitrot is a real problem, someone is going to have to make a pass over this content at some point, and no one currently on staff has the time to deal with it.

open to suggestions. note that "put all the bitrot back in and hope that magically it gets culled down" is unfortunately not an acceptable one to me, as, if no one has to time to deal with it, the result is that we're going to have a bunch of bitrot hanging around (and yes, the bitrot does distress people. we get regular PMs expressing confusion about the unintelligibility of archive material)


to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Soarer

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Re: what happened to the legacy archives
« Reply #19 on: Sat, 23 February 2013, 14:03:14 »
I can't believe confusion over a few archived projects can go much beyond "wut, no clacks?!" :p

Seriously, your summary is fairly apt, but where we really disagree (and hence have different default state) is in how much of the archive will be worth keeping in the end anyway (from each of our cursory assessments). Clearly, I think there is more there worth keeping than you do. In terms of posts, probably well over half of it. In terms of threads, I'm not sure yet, quite possibly most of those which actually have responses!