If the forum dies.......

[nickcrowhurst]

If this forum dies, have we lost all that knowledge and experience? For ever? I've been thinking of ways to preserve some posts for my own future reference and non-commercial use, in such a way as to enable later searches. I'm sure there are members out there who have solutions for this, so I'd like to initiate a discussion on the subject, and learn of a good solution. My initial superficial thoughts have been:

1. Copy and paste into Word or similar software, and use the "find" facility.

2. Copy into Microsoft Office Onenote, a package enabling the scanning and searching of written and printed materials. (Useful for making your own recipe book from magazine articles and web recipes, for example)

3. Use the Way Back Machine at Internet Archive: Wayback Machine
I see that a few pages of this forum have already been archived there.

Any thoughts?
Nick.

[Jim & Susan]

Full Disclosure: My comments may not be appropriate here as a former Forum Staff member, so please delete/edit as necessary.

The mechanics of “saving” your favorites is not that difficult. Microsoft Word can be used for that purpose. The text you see on the screen doesn’t take up that much hard drive space, images take up much more space.

I believe there’s a statement in the “terms of use” at the bottom of the page to the effect that the posts here are the Intellectual Property of Social Knowledge, Inc. and can’t be reproduced by others. Somebody on the staff/ownership may want to comment on that.

Let's hope the day doesn't come for a long time that we have to worry about the Forum going silent. As a famous pointed-eared guy will say in a couple hundred years, "Live Long and Prosper".

Jim

[Stefrobrts]

I don't think there are any issues with saving posts for your own use. I do that myself, from a variety of different sites I visit. I have a folder on my computer for project plans. However it is far more likely I will have a hard drive failure and lose all that stuff on my computer, than that the information will dissapear off the net!

[nickcrowhurst]

Stephanie, I archive all my important files by sending them to myself as attachments to a Hotmail email, and then archiving them in the Hotmail web archive folder. They are then archived away from my hard drive, as a free additional level of safety. It's particularly useful when travelling. Personal details, eg passport numbers and travel insurance details, can be kept on an Excel spreadsheet, and archived so as to be accessible from any PC worldwide.
Nick.

[sapphire]

Oh, this forum can't die! I just joined up!

[ibgl6]

I want to be a rivet master someday I have saved some things and printed some diagrams I hope that is ok just for my own use...SAM

[CanoeStream]

Originally Posted by sapphire

Oh, this forum can't die! I just joined up!

There are too many aluminuts here to let that happen.

[Goin camping]

Originally Posted by CanoeStream

There are too many aluminuts here to let that happen.

Too much demand for the product. Andy benefits from providing it and we benefit from using it. That simple reality has kept many products and services in business for years and years.

[Zeppelinium]

Forum death--too horrible to contemplate.

Jim (of Jim & Susan),

From your post it looks like you've managed to save posts, including images. I tried copying a few and pasting them into a new page in Adobe's GoLive, but all I got was text. Upon reflection, I can't see how you can copy a post--the Avatar and signature are not actually in the post itself, but are generated from a stored set of parameters. The inserted images are the same way--they are stored elsewhere and "presented" using some interpretive code.

If anyone (Jim) knows how to save the complete appearance of a post, I'd like to know.

Zep

[azflycaster]

You could use an application like SnagIt which will capture the entire we page.

[nickcrowhurst]

OneNote will do it,as mentioned at post 1, and the text can be searched. I've loaded some of my posts into it, but haven't yet tried to search. You drag a box round part of a web page, and then drop it into a page in a OneNote book. I've set up separate chapters for refrigerator, furnace, brakes etc. Seems okay so far.
Nick.

[Andy R]

Each poster owns the copyright to their post and then Social Knowledge owns the rights to the discussions in the order they are posted (all the posts together). Members grant SK the right to use their posts as needed when they post to the forums. I don't see an issue with keeping a copy of important discussions for your personal non-commercial use. There is a print thread function and you can save to PDF if you want really nice PDFs to save.

In regards to the forum going away. That is highly unlikely because we have redundant solutions in place and backups offsite. Life has not been perfect and tiny little things have been lost in the early days. Fortuneately I learned from those experiences and feel very confident that the forums are not going to die, I actually think they will outlive me (I wish I had more redundant systems).