[Air-l] re;INTERNATIONAL INTERNET PRESERVATION, CONSORTIUM

[et]

thanks for posting this Jeremy.

Finally, the most important issue in Internet Research cracks a mention !

In my opinion the two most critical innovations needed for the internet, 
from an internet researchers point of view, are
1. the need for complete recording and archiving of ALL webpages and
2. the need for the implementation of a royalty payment system for 
producers of small to medium sized websites.

Looking at 1....

The Australian government has an internet archiving system - 
unfortunately this system is only interested in archiving selected 
websites owned by major organisations.
Even the Internet Archive appears to only record medium to large 
websites and ignores small publishers and mum and dad sites.My sporting 
website was recorded by the Wayback Machine( poorly and infrequently) 
and is in the Alexandria Library archive, yet it is not in the 
Australian government archive.
My wifes business website does not appear in any archive. There appears 
to be far too much inconsistency.

 The problem is that public servants and government bodies tend to be 
very elitist as we see in the Australian example where they are only 
interested in archiving the big boys.
Yet it is a reality of the internet that often the best and most 
comprehensive information is not provided by official bodies but rather 
by enthusiastic individuals or groups.
For example, in the sport of rugby union, the website of the official 
body in Australia is archived by the government. My website, which not 
only possessed a far greater range of information but was also the 
content provider for much of the official bodies site, was not recorded. 
By not recording every site the quality of the archive is far less than 
it might otherwise be.

If one wants to find information about Style Sheets, they do not go to a 
university website, they go to a site run by a mad enthusiast who toils 
away for hours every week for free.
If you want information about a sport or sports betting odds, often it 
is a private website that covers the subject in the most comprehensive 
manner.
If you want to know about the latest Social Security rates or issues you 
would find more information at a private website than from a government 
body.

In most areas of human endeavour, officialdom lags far behind the 
efforts of the individual or small groups.

Even from the point of view of all the social researchers out there, I 
would imagine the resource that should be available from all the 
individual homepages is a huge treasure that should be retained, yet is 
being lost daily.

I believe that every webpage, except for those who explicitly opt out, 
should be archived at least once a month by a global organisation with 
governments and large companies benefitting from the internet 
contributing to the cost of this exercise and with open public access. 
Anything less than this is not worth bothering with.

Issue number 2 -
as stated above I believe there should be a royalty system for those who 
operate small to medium websites based on the accesses to their website.
Technically possible - I think so.
Capable of being set up without excessive fraud - probably
Of benefit to the internet's diversity - definitely.

Without going into it too much, I see a fund being established which 
would make payments to individual operators of websites who achieve a 
minimum number of web page accesses per month, who do not carry 
advertising or offensive material, and with there being a ceiling of 
perhaps $1000 per month to any individual registered with the scheme.
This would help keep many operators in the industry rather than fall 
away when life's responsibilities require them to spend more time 
earning real money.


Just a few thoughts,

regards

Eero Tarik