Anyway

I’ve noticed a few blogs dis­ap­pear­ing over the past few months, blogs I used to enjoy read­ing and had poin­ted out to people. I find it dis­ap­point­ing when people decide to get rid of the entire blog, though of course I defend their right to do so (and to not pay host­ing and sup­port costs), since I think the web as a whole loses some­thing when parts of it dis­ap­pear. And mostly these were blogs I read for interest, for the lyr­ic­al writ­ing, or for the sub­ject mat­ter. I’ve become used to the idea that the Web is one big archive, and that inform­a­tion will still be there when I come look­ing for it again; all I have to do is remem­ber which search terms to use, or book­mark the site. When that assump­tion is not val­id, it seems odd some­how, although a few years ago it would have been normal.

And it’s even odder when the blog just ends, and then dis­ap­pears, without even a “can­’t be bothered any more” final mes­sage. The enplaned blog is an example of this. It was an excel­lent blog about the air­line industry, full of inter­est­ing inform­a­tion, and one day it just stopped. And not long after­wards the con­tents of the blog were deleted. And if any­body knows why, they’re not telling… some thoughts are at the Flight Inter­na­tion­al blog (which has now iron­ic­ally also dis­ap­peared; it used to be at http://bizbuzzmedia.com/blogs/flight_international/archive/2006/05/11/2224.aspx.

So if any­one read­ing this is think­ing of stop­ping blog­ging, please do your read­ers a favour and write a “so long and thanks for all the fish” mes­sage to close up, and at least con­sider leav­ing the con­tents of your blog up for pos­ter­ity. Someone some­where will thank you for it, even if you nev­er know about it.