OT: Archives nearly useless? (Google doing evil?)
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A few months ago there was a long and interesting thread on the
backuppc-users list entitled "replicating backup servers offsite,"
but all I could remember of the thread were some possible search
keywords.
After recently purging most of my backuppc archives on the assumption
that it would all be available on the internet, I tried to find this
old thread, only to discover that sourceforge apparently does not
allow searching on message contents, and google no longer seems to
store any messages from any technical mailing lists!
I finally found the thread using the ancient disused search engine
altavista, but that provides only a single link and the subject
line, which sent me back to the sourceforge where it seems impossible
to display the entire thread in threaded format even when you know
the message subject line. Ultimately I had to restore my list archives
from backup in order to read and search through the entire thread
with my newsreader.
As an experiment I then tried searching for messages from other list
archives on google, and sure enough, none are archived there any longer.
One of the lists, debian-user, is archived by means of being gatewayed
to a newsgroup, so it's possible to find old threads that way, but it's
disturbing to think that google now seems to have a monopoly on newsgroup
archives too.
I tried experimenting with the debian list archive search engine at
http://lists.debian.org/search.html to locate some arbitrary threads
and it seems an useless as it's always been, even more so than the
sourceforge search engine. I had always thought of the relative
uselessness of various archive search engines as being a indirect
consequence of everyone using google to find messages. I never thought
of what might happen if google suddenly closes off large categories of
internet archives (or at least, I didn't want to think of that).
This is troubling not only because I rely on message lists for much
of my trouble-shooting information, but also because I had always had
thought of my own contributions to such lists as free offerings for
the public good, and not as a potential means of profiteering by
archivists and search engine firms. The broader implications are
scary to me, and I have to wonder if it's connected with the recent
appearance of sites on which technical list questions, but not the
answers, appear in search hits, and you only get to see the answers if
you register (and presumably pay for the service as some future date).
To me that would qualify as google doing "evil."
Maybe the most optimistic explanation would be just that google is
knucking under to the rampant copyright or lawsuit madness that's
plaguing the USA, but that still leaves a problem for technical
list users.
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