List Issue: Dual Archives

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

To all,

 

When I originally set up the list, I enabled the archiving of list messages on Lsoft's server. This was a quick and painless way to have a searchable archive of list posts. These are the archives located here:

http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ROSEN.html

 

But, I saw three problems with this archive:

1) Cost - As time goes on, I have to buy more archive space from Lsoft, and I will have to keep paying for it over the years to maintain them.

2) These archives were not being indexed by search engines like Google, so the archival "value" was not really being used.

3) Lsoft provides no way to hide or mask users email addresses. This means that spam merchants could potentially harvest email addresses from these archives. This might make some folks who try to keep their email address private hesitant to post.

 

Some months ago, I created the archives that are located on my website.  This is done utilizing some Perl freeware, and has been used for some extremely large archives. These are the archives located here:

http://www.panmere.com/rosen/mhout/maillist.html

 

The benefits are:

1) Hides email address of posters.

2) It uses diskspace I was already paying for.

3) It is searchable with Google, etc.

4) Somewhat customizable layout.

 

My question is this: Would any one object to, or think of a reason not to, disable the Lsoft-based archives? Is there some value or importance there that I am missing?

 

One other option I have would be to maintain the status quo storage on Lsoft, and simply delete the oldest monthly archives as time goes on to keep the diskspace from filling up. At the current rate, I imagine the space would hold roughly the latest 18 months of archives comfortably. But I wonder if this might not end up being needlessly confusing by having partial archives in one location (Lsoft) and complete archives elsewhere; hence, the thought that I might as well just shut off the Lsoft archives.

 

Tim