NUMBER OF AUTHORS: 2,036 (more or less)

I've run a preliminary count of all the authors in the Group archives and out of 19,000 possible members, it appears that, during the life of O-Net, only about 2,036 members have contributed to online discussions by posting their own words.

So, if we decide we want to preserve a complete archive of O-Net, we only need to get 2,036 people to agree to license their words under CCAL30.

I'm not sure how many have already signed yet.

354 have agreed

So, do people think we should encourage the other 1700? What can we (or should we) do to get the other 1700 on board?

My content was already available for transfer under another license (experimental at this stage) however I will be signing up for CC just as soon as I sort out the loose ends in the Intellectual Contributions group.

Not sure what can be done about the other 1700 if they don't turn up and take action. The request to sign-up is prominent.

The Wayback Machine already has a number of historical copies of o.net although access is slow. Hopefully they will take another snapshot between September and the end of the year. Maybe a contribution from Omidyar Network could ensure that all the world's important Internet archives are kept available and it could help improver their server power.

Makes me think that any future 'o.net' platform should make provisions from the start to at least allow an archive to be kept open after the organization comes to an end.

Nicholas Bentley said:

Makes me think that any future 'o.net' platform should make provisions from the start to at least allow an archive to be kept open after the organization comes to an end.

Good suggestion Nicholas. As every one sets up groups they would be well advised to think ahead. Maybe on joining the group to give CC license up front.

Nicholas Bentley said:

Makes me think that any future 'o.net' platform should make provisions from the start to at least allow an archive to be kept open after the organization comes to an end.

Nicholas, just to be clear: the organization (Omidyar Network) is not coming to an end. The omidyar.net platform will be archived on Sept 7 and then access to the content will be removed on Dec 31.

The organization itself will continue its work long after the end of this year.

Thomas,

Can I ask that you and the LLC explore options for archiving and making available on a request basis for ther long term the existing site content and structure? This way the whole that has been O/Net will be preserved in total since the User Agreement will remain in effect. No specific language about what those services are is included in the User Agreement, so those services could be changed to only refer to restricted read only access to this significant historical document. What would be required is a policy for access, a single server, and a few hours of programming.

I ask you to consider and respond to this request. The transition team may be deemed responsible for making such a request, but it is important for them to know if the Omidyar Network will be willing to take on this small but significant responsibility.

I hear your request, Rory. And if the transition team makes it a priority discussion item, we'll no doubt discuss it.

Thaks for the response, so quintessentially Thomistic! : )

I'll look forward to hearing of this conversation. What I am requesting is obviously not the only technical solution to this issue, but I, and others it seems, will be dismayed if the issue is not dealt with effectively in this transition.

Nicholas,

I haven't used wayback (archive.org) before, but when I tried to look at a news group it said there was no match found. I'm having doubts that the wayback machine has any usable archives of Omidyar.net.

Perhaps you can provide details about how to find archives on archive.org and set my mind at ease?

Thank you.

Nicholas Bentley said:

My content was already available for transfer under another license (experimental at this stage) however I will be signing up for CC just as soon as I sort out the loose ends in the Intellectual Contributions group.

Not sure what can be done about the other 1700 if they don't turn up and take action. The request to sign-up is prominent.

The Wayback Machine already has a number of historical copies of o.net although access is slow. Hopefully they will take another snapshot between September and the end of the year. Maybe a contribution from Omidyar Network could ensure that all the world's important Internet archives are kept available and it could help improver their server power.

Makes me think that any future 'o.net' platform should make provisions from the start to at least allow an archive to be kept open after the organization comes to an end.

Marcus B. (CCAL30) said:

I haven't used wayback (archive.org) before, but when I tried to look at a news group it said there was no match found. I'm having doubts that the wayback machine has any usable archives of Omidyar.net.

Perhaps you can provide details about how to find archives on archive.org and set my mind at ease?

Marcus,

I have not used Wayback much either although a couple of times I have found content that was lost from its original location on the net. (Once, something I had written :)

I have only scanned the o.net content a couple of times as well but so far it appeared I could page (slowly) through the whole site archive. It is far from ideal because the response is very slow at times and I have had messages that something was not available but then found that later I could get to it. I think it is server problems a lot of the time. As it stands I don't see it as an active alternative to moving all the o.net content to a new platform, if that proves possible, however it could be a good backup if you really needed to find what was said in a particular discussion.

The way it worked for me was that went to the welcome page. Taped in the o.net address: 'www.omidyar.net/home'. This took me to the archive page for o.net. From their I just selected a dated archive and started browsing.

Thomas Kriese (CCAL30) said:

Nicholas Bentley said:

Makes me think that any future 'o.net' platform should make provisions from the start to at least allow an archive to be kept open after the organization comes to an end.

Nicholas, just to be clear: the organization (Omidyar Network) is not coming to an end. The omidyar.net platform will be archived on Sept 7 and then access to the content will be removed on Dec 31.

The organization itself will continue its work long after the end of this year.

Thomas, I understood this and did not mean to imply otherwise. I was just sloppily trying to identify the issues for the future.

Still, it makes me think that as Omidyar Network will continue and still holds the agreement with all the users here it could tuck away a low bandwidth, passive, archive of all the community input to-date and allay the concerns of everyone here. (Others have made this suggestion but I don't have links to hand.)

Archives / archive.org P.S. - They even have an archive service if Omidyar Network didn't want the hassle.

Marcus, I wholly support what you are doing! Let me know if I can help. Note that some users posted under more than one name, so we should remind everyone who changed accounts nmw to log in under their old user names and click the button.

Hey, you made me think of something else, by your reference to Plato.

Some of the dialogues on o/net were really awesome! I wish we could have a little digest of those. Imagine if to read Plato's dialogues you had to wade through everything else that was said in Athens on those days when the dialogues occurred. I'm sure during the Symposium the slaves preparing the food and wine were having lively conversations too!

Of course, if this archive lasts 2500 years, maybe everything here will become precious. Classicists would probably love to have those slave kitchen conversations from ancient Greece, actually.

But then the other thing this points to is the question of what made those particular o/net dialogues great? How could we do that again, and better?

That's what I'd like to know. How do we set up a context for really great discussions that lead to (a) people getting to know eachother and (b) people shifting their viewpoints and learning something and (c) positive actions that were not predictable before the interaction.

Exactly !

Dav in Phoenix (CCAL30) said:

But then the other thing this points to is the question of what made those particular o/net dialogues great? How could we do that again, and better?

That's what I'd like to know. How do we set up a context for really great discussions that lead to (a) people getting to know eachother and (b) people shifting their viewpoints and learning something and (c) positive actions that were not predictable before the interaction.

I like your line of questioning here, Dav. Want to set up a separate thread in which we can pursue this line of inquiry more directly? May be useful to others who are looking to repeat the good stuff they found here on omidyar.net

Dav,

I think maybe the formula hasn't changed all that much in 2500 years-- Good people, good food, good wine makes yields a, b and c as per your cataloged goals. (That's why I'm interested in the Vegas gathering :-)

Marc

Thanks for the tips-- that helped (the "/home" is essential). Yes, that's considerably better than I was seeing. The April archive gave error messages but Feb. seemed to be intact.

Nicholas Bentley (CCAL30) said:

Marcus B. (CCAL30) said:

I haven't used wayback (archive.org) before, but when I tried to look at a news group it said there was no match found. I'm having doubts that the wayback machine has any usable archives of Omidyar.net.

Perhaps you can provide details about how to find archives on archive.org and set my mind at ease?

Marcus,

I have not used Wayback much either although a couple of times I have found content that was lost from its original location on the net. (Once, something I had written :)

I have only scanned the o.net content a couple of times as well but so far it appeared I could page (slowly) through the whole site archive. It is far from ideal because the response is very slow at times and I have had messages that something was not available but then found that later I could get to it. I think it is server problems a lot of the time. As it stands I don't see it as an active alternative to moving all the o.net content to a new platform, if that proves possible, however it could be a good backup if you really needed to find what was said in a particular discussion.

The way it worked for me was that went to the welcome page. Taped in the o.net address: 'www.omidyar.net/home'. This took me to the archive page for o.net. From their I just selected a dated archive and started browsing.

During the transition team meeting (Thursday August 9), the question of extending the "archive" date came up. Right now, the discussion stands as:

• There is a possibility of extended the life (beyond December 31) of an O.net archive
• There is little ON management interest in picking a duration of that archive
• There is ON management interest in the idea of creating some kind of threshold, beneath which the archive would expire.

So one thing we need to do is accept that there may be no permanent archive of discussion available at O.net although it is looking likely that the life-span of an archive could be extended.

I am curious to hear from folks what you feel is the argument for extended the archive is, and what kind of "throttle" would you propose to determine its cut-off. The reason for this is that there is a shared feeling that the archive really won't be that interesting and in demand once the interactive features (the "edit" features) have been turned off. According to an analysis of in-bound links, it appears the vast majority of them are google (not, for example, O.net members pointing to content here).

So, I'm curious to hear what you think about this adjustment to the existing transition plan and your thoughts on a cut-off mechanism?

Yes agreeing with Lars. I also want to point out that this was a possibility but not a likelihood. It won't happen just because we ask for it. We will need to make reasoned and compelling arguments for changing the current position. I hope you will all help in this thread: http://www.omidyar.net/group/tra nsition/news/50/

with listing clear and pressing reasons. I know we all have them. Please contribute what you think an archive can be and do and get for us...for yourself, for others, for the whole, for history, for study, for any perspective you can think of.

Link to comments you have made already or port those posts over to http://www.omidyar.net/group/tra nsition/news/50/ so we can compile it all for presenting to and convincing management.

There is significant value in continuing to allow Googlers to find Omidyans based on shared interests (keywords searches).

An online permanent archive plus a voluntary "signpost" application (forwarding addresses for Omidyan's screen names to other screen names in other venues) would be sufficient.

Otherwise, we throw away the investment (of time) people have put into this network, methinks.

It seems to me one reason to keep the archive is as an archeological sample of early internet community. However, it it ever expires, that kind of defeats this purpose, because it would get more valuable as it ages.

Another reason is to allow scholars of online community to study what happened here, and perhaps compile a list of lessons learned. However, that purpose would probably be served simply by giving these scholars a copy of the content.

My own reason for wanting it to stay alive is to mine it for all the recommendations, like all those websites people pointed to, and all those books and movies people recommended. It's easy to find recommendations on the internet, but elsewhere it's hard to tell what the context is, here we got to know people and there was a certain kind of background to the interactions which made the recommendations especially valuable.