I think the problem is that an awful lot of people don't understand that their work is being archived. They didn't sign up to participate in the Wayback Machine's archive. One day they realize/someone tells them that their stuff is being saved forever and ever in a public, searchable location, and they suddenly realize that they don't have control over what they write, and that freaks them out. I mean, lots of people have a problem with other people putting their stuff in an online archive without permission, and I think it feels equally violating when you suddenly realize that the internet itself is archiving you.
I work for a company that hosts online academic journals, so it's a big issue for us when a publisher wants to delete an article that's already gone online (retractions are one thing - with a retraction, you put a retraction notice up along with - usually - a reason for retraction. deleting an article is a whole different beast all together.). Deleting that article damages the publication record, and it pisses librarians off. So I certainly understand where you're coming from, but I do think that that archive.org's assumption that everything on da interwebs is free to be archived is kind of...hubristic. I mean, you have to be fairly tech-savvy to know how to block robots, and it isn't like archive.org e-mails you every time it spiders your site.
I have a problem with the archiving of my journal, so I block robots. I don't block robots on other online archives, because I think it's harder to associate archives with my real identity than it is to associate my LJ with my real identity. I recognize that given some of my career goals, it is highly likely that I will someday need to take down my journal, and probable that I will need to take down my fic archives. In the absence of the journal, the potential identifiability of the archive (say, on skyehawke) is significantly lower - not impossible, but low enough that I think that it's probably okay if my archive is still accessible via archive.org. So I'm just not too worried about that for now, though I may find out differently in the future, and I may end up someday needing to delete my fic from the Wayback Machine.
I think the important thing to do as an author is to realize that whatever your feelings about a fic, and whatever your reasons for deleting it, you can't un-write it. You can't make the act of posting it go away. If you have to delete it, you have to understand that a lot of people have probably bookmarked it and enjoyed it. I think it's important to save all your fic, even if it's just on a burned cd in your closet gathering dust, and I think it's important to - out of respect for your fellow internet denizens - try to make the deletion as un-impactful as possible. This means that if you can, you give public notice ("hey, I'm about to delete all my fic. Save it in the next week if you want it."); if you can, you preserve the path and make it go to some sort of deletion notice ("This fic has been deleted for legal reasons. Questions? E-mail me at me@foo.com."); and that, if you possibly can, you then provide the fic, by e-mail, to other people, on the agreement that it will not be reposted online.
It's absolutely the right of the author to control how her work is distrubuted, but there's a certain level of respect for readers that I think is necessary, too. Just all part of playing nicely on this here internet.
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Date: 2006-10-28 05:54 pm (UTC)I work for a company that hosts online academic journals, so it's a big issue for us when a publisher wants to delete an article that's already gone online (retractions are one thing - with a retraction, you put a retraction notice up along with - usually - a reason for retraction. deleting an article is a whole different beast all together.). Deleting that article damages the publication record, and it pisses librarians off. So I certainly understand where you're coming from, but I do think that that archive.org's assumption that everything on da interwebs is free to be archived is kind of...hubristic. I mean, you have to be fairly tech-savvy to know how to block robots, and it isn't like archive.org e-mails you every time it spiders your site.
I have a problem with the archiving of my journal, so I block robots. I don't block robots on other online archives, because I think it's harder to associate archives with my real identity than it is to associate my LJ with my real identity. I recognize that given some of my career goals, it is highly likely that I will someday need to take down my journal, and probable that I will need to take down my fic archives. In the absence of the journal, the potential identifiability of the archive (say, on skyehawke) is significantly lower - not impossible, but low enough that I think that it's probably okay if my archive is still accessible via archive.org. So I'm just not too worried about that for now, though I may find out differently in the future, and I may end up someday needing to delete my fic from the Wayback Machine.
I think the important thing to do as an author is to realize that whatever your feelings about a fic, and whatever your reasons for deleting it, you can't un-write it. You can't make the act of posting it go away. If you have to delete it, you have to understand that a lot of people have probably bookmarked it and enjoyed it. I think it's important to save all your fic, even if it's just on a burned cd in your closet gathering dust, and I think it's important to - out of respect for your fellow internet denizens - try to make the deletion as un-impactful as possible. This means that if you can, you give public notice ("hey, I'm about to delete all my fic. Save it in the next week if you want it."); if you can, you preserve the path and make it go to some sort of deletion notice ("This fic has been deleted for legal reasons. Questions? E-mail me at me@foo.com."); and that, if you possibly can, you then provide the fic, by e-mail, to other people, on the agreement that it will not be reposted online.
It's absolutely the right of the author to control how her work is distrubuted, but there's a certain level of respect for readers that I think is necessary, too. Just all part of playing nicely on this here internet.