Wow, what a good question. Today’s Daily Create asks:
The internet is on fire: What digital personal effects would you save?
Kevin’s story gave me pause for thought – as he suggests, I wouldn’t have time to log into everything. So what would I care about most? This blog, which has been part of my life for five years now? My Flickr account, which I do regularly upload my favourite photos to? Google Docs, with all of my collaborative writing including our crowdsourced #CLMooc Tech Tools Playground? My Ravelry account, with pics of most of my recent knitting projects? Gosh, so much of who I am exists online. Ok, so a lot of it I could find again – but would I?
So if the internet was on fire, what would you save?
“Wood fire Fury” flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using (CC0)
Intriguing question.
I actually think I would attempt to save none of it. I gave it away, intentionally, by putting my material under one of only a few licenses.
* GPL for code
* CC-BY for writing
* CC0 (public domain) for my clipart
Now, to be fair, I expect that I have copies stored digitally on one or more hard drives, but I’m not even sure I would attempt to repopulate an Internet rebuild after the conflagration.
Though it is less true today than it was once, I always felt that content sent to the web was ephemeral.
Yup, same here, Algot. I don’t think I would go through the palaver of recreating archives again.
I don’t write with children’s children’s children in mind but sometimes it crosses my mind that I hope some future genetic offspring might mull over my meanderings, if only to wonder: what the heck was he thinking, anyway? But I don’t really believe of of this now will survive, fire or not.
Kevin
I wonder what will last, and who will care. I don’t think it matters though, does it? We write for now, for us and our communities. If (if!) any of it lasts, it is a bonus.