 sj |
||
|
||
Mudcat caught in a Time Warp
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Mudcat caught in a Time Warp |
Share Thread
|
||||||
|
Subject: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: Geoff the Duck Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:51 AM I have just had an interesting experience. I have been reading the Mudcat Discussion Forum for 2 December 1998. How did I do this????? TIME WARP !!!! Well, actually NO.... I chanced across a website where somebody is attempting to make a permanent record of what is out there on the Internet before it all disappears and is replaced by something more asinine. Their aim is to record for posterity, and for study, as much of the Internet as they can. The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet ? a new medium with major historical significance ? and other "born-digital" materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to permanently preserve a record of public material. I was looking at Mudcat 98 via this location Blicky to - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mudcat.org
Their archives also include archived film material - public infomercials and stuff, if you can spare a few hundred megabites per download. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: Mrrzy Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:54 AM Let's do the time warp again! It's just a jump to the left... |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:02 AM Thanks for that link Geoff the Duck. God how I wish we could go back to Oct 13 99--barely any BS! What a joy! And a Dave Van Ronk thread. Sigh. The BS that is there is telling--those with the most intense desire to maintain today's status quo of more BS, less music stand out like a sore thumb. And not a single gripe about guests, because there weren't any! This IS the Mudcat the way it once was, and now Geoff the Duck, you've given us the "evidence" of the kind of forum Mudcat could be. Personally, I can't thank you enough for providing the link. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: little john cameron Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:03 AM Very strange Geoff,Ah guess Big Brother IS watching.ljc |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: Jim Dixon Date: 13 Feb 02 - 10:18 AM You CAN go back to Oct. '99 if you wish. All those threads are still there. You just have to find them. For example, here's the thread called Lyr Req: Songs by Bruce 'Utah' Phillips. Here's one easy way to bring up old threads: Just take the URL http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=14233 and substitute a different number for "14233." All threads are assigned numbers sequentially according to when they were started, so numbers close to "14233" will bring up threads that were started about the same time. Happy hunting. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 10:56 AM The difference between finding old threads and the website Geoff the Duck provides links for, is that with the link GtD gives, you bring up a full page of threads from the day in question. That gives a very different picture of Mudcat, and allows for a person to see what the tone and content of the forum itself was then and compare it to the tone and content of the forum now. Big difference. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: Geoff the Duck Date: 13 Feb 02 - 12:10 PM I did not post the link as part of ANY of the current arguments of the Good Mudcat/Bad Mudcat variety. It is merely an example pulled from a website which is worth bookmarking for its own sake. It could also contain a copy of valuable resources which were believed lost due to websites closing unexpectedly (as does happen). Perhaps I could have titled the thread something like - Look Here For An Interesting Website..... - but I didn't. Go to the link and try an obscure website you can no longer access, you might find its ghost still walking through walls at the Internet Archive..... Quack! Geoff. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 12:25 PM And along those same lines, this is from the Google Groups page: New! Google has fully integrated the past 20 years of Usenet archives into Google Groups, which now offers access to more than 700 million messages dating back to 1981. This is by far the most complete collection of Usenet articles ever assembled and a fascinating first-hand historical account. We are compiling some especially memorable articles and threads in the timeline below. For example, read Tim Berners-Lee's announcement of what became the World Wide Web or Linus Torvalds' post about his "pet project". You can find more in-depth information about the archive here. We would like to thank the following archive donors: Jürgen Christoffel, Bruce Jones, Kent Landfield, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman. Enjoy your trip back to the golden age of Usenet.
|
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: Wolfgang Date: 14 Feb 02 - 07:16 AM Thanks, Geoff, for the glimpse into the past. I always wondered if my recollection that I liked the old Mudcat more was correct or was due to selective forgetting of disagreable threads. I now know I can trust my memory here. The percentage of threads that interests me was much higher in 1998. The choice of threads was getting worse from the start of 1999 on and in 2000 I don't see much difference to today. Wolfgang |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: GUEST Date: 14 Feb 02 - 08:10 AM I agree Wolfgang, memory isn't always as fallible as we expect it to be. There is such a striking difference between the tone and content of the 1998 forum and now, it shocked me to read it. Even though that was what I expected to find when I went to the site. But it also seems as though all the Mudcat lovers of BS and flaming aren't too anxious to see the record. I'm also surprised we aren't seeing any "hey! this is great, remember that thread..." type comments here. Sorta says it all, for me. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: CarolC Date: 14 Feb 02 - 01:22 PM I'm guessing the reason you don't see any BS threads in there is because the BS filter probably wasn't a feature in the Mudcat at that time. But I do see in the October 13 selection, many threads that, if they were posted in the forum of today, would have a BS designation put in the thread title. I didn't look in the threads themselves, so I can't speak to the issue of the quality of the content. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: CarolC Date: 14 Feb 02 - 01:25 PM (Oct. 13, '99) |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: GUEST Date: 14 Feb 02 - 01:38 PM Carol, I was commenting more on the lack of BS in the forum in general, even as recently as the Oct 13 1999, as well as what I felt was the poignancy of discovering a Dave Van Ronk thread the day after he died. If you want a truer sense of the "old Mudcat" do as others have suggested and read the 1998 days. Not that many of them, and you quickly will see how much different tone and content was "in the old days" and compare it to now. It wasn't that BS didn't ever happen. The difference is, the people who were here were all committed to keeping the forum on-topic, and the flaming to a minimum. With the growth of the Internet being what it is, there were going to be more problems. Thing is, message boards that have retained their high quality have done so by keeping BS and problem posters out. Period. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: CarolC Date: 14 Feb 02 - 01:56 PM I'm sorry GUEST, but I just don't see it with your eyes. Case in point... the "Why I hate Folk Music" thread, which was originally posted in December of 1998. The early posts to that thread were much more bellicose and obstreperous than those posted in just the last few months. Check it out for yourself, here. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 14 Feb 02 - 02:03 PM I've often thought it's be great to be able to do this. I'm very grateful to Geoff for finding it. It was around October 1999 I started visiting here, at the time the Harry Fox wants to wreck the Mudcat thing blew up. It'll be good to have another visit, and read the threads I missed.
I think if people take time to browse through a few sequences of threads, they're going to find, or be reminded, that it wasn't really very different then.
There were people lamenting every now and again about how the Mudcat wasn't a patch on what it used to be; and other people predicting that in a few years people would be saying it wasn't a patch on 1999. And every now and again there were some nasty characters trying to make life unplesant for everyone else.
There are types of unpleasantness that maybe weren't quite so noticeable then. But generally speaking it comes in waves, and it came in waves then too, and then we get back on an even keel, and I get a feeling thta is already happening.
But it's weird, people talk about 1999 as if it was the long distant past. 1999! And yet it does seem a long time ago too. We really are in some sort of time-warping mechanism.
|
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: Gloredhel Date: 14 Feb 02 - 08:23 PM Thanks Geoff. Me only having been around a few months, it was nice to catch a glimpse of the past. All I really noticed were that there were a lot fewer threads period, and several of them (even Dec. '98) were BS, though not designated as such. |
|
Subject: RE: Mudcat caught in a Time Warp From: Geoff the Duck Date: 31 May 03 - 12:17 PM Max is moving house, so I thought I would refresh this thread before we close down for a week and a half. You may be able to get your fix from old mudcat threads even if the REAL verison isn't online. Quack! GtD. |
| Share Thread: |