Disappearing Modeling Resources

[NSEGeorge]

mark.hinds made an interesting comment on another thread about the useful website www.model160.com being no longer available. There are a couple of others that have gone away as well, and in the digital age, I'm afraid this is going to keep happening. My guess is (and it is just a guess) that one of two things is happening- either the creator loses interest, gets sick, or other personal issue OR the hosting costs become too much to carry on. This seems a shame, as there is a lot passion and work that goes into these valuable resources that we all use. These experts are extremely important, as we just don't have the time or ability to do the in depth studies that some of these people have done.

The N Scale Enthusiast is developing a new web solution for the organization that includes a 'resources' section, and as I am personally interested in preserving these works, and would like to offer on behalf of the N Scale Enthusiast, hosting solutions for these diminishing resources. For example, if anyone has the files from model160.com we would be happy to host it as the first entry in that program.

I do not know what we would do without the work and dedication of sites that share in depth information that makes it so we can actually do the modeling we love. If there is anything we can do to keep those resources for everyone, we should.

PM me if you need.

NSE George

[Mark5]

Crap, another site down. 

Luckily, lotsa "snapshots" on the archive:  https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://www.model160.com/

Some of the snapshots are functional, others not so much. 

Mark

[Hedron]

Hosting a site is getting more expensive every year, even for small hosting packages. Ad revenue is way down because between ad blockers and ad blindness, no one is clicking and no one is paying. Affiliate programs are being discontinued as commerce websites no longer need the referrals to get the traffic they need. When it comes time to pay the hosting bill, webmasters ask, "Should I spend out of my pocket to keep my little pet project going?" and the answer is increasingly,  "Eh, maybe not."

[NSEGeorge]

Hedron-

I agree, thats why I'm trying to make it easier for the small producer., as we have a dedicated server in a first tier datacenter, and it exceeds our needs, making it perfect for hosting these smaller resource sites by eliminating the hosting cost. They would still have complete access and control, I just don't want these sites to disappear and only be available in the Wayback Machine.

George

[nkalanaga]

A problem everywhere in the post-paper world.  It isn't just disappearing websites, but upgraded ones that can't be accessed on older systems, and the opposite problem, old, legacy sites that newer software can't access. 

Try to open an .MHTML file lately, with most browsers?  I keep Firefox 52.9 just for cases like that, where the newer stuff won't work.  And then there's some of the early, pre-Windows, word processing programs.  NOTHING will open some of those files!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I got you guys.

http://rrarchives.org/

I've got a couple more sites backed up and ready to go if the need presents itself.

My methodology is to use Sitesucker to download sites, even "dynamic" ones, as "flat" html that I can then, cheaply, host using Amazon S3 for just a few dollars a month.

I can't preserve stuff forever, but I CAN prolong the inevitable.

So what other sites need consideration?

[Angus Shops]

It is hard to see some of these valuable sites disappear, but I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one who remembers trying to research anything in the pre-net world - stacks of old RMC and MR’s and the books you could afford.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

It is hard to see some of these valuable sites disappear, but I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one who remembers trying to research anything in the pre-net world - stacks of old RMC and MR’s and the books you could afford.

Ugh. I don't want to talk about the reason my office is such a mess, but it might have something to do with that.