{"id":4559,"date":"2023-06-30T13:37:22","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T17:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/?p=4559"},"modified":"2023-06-30T20:41:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T00:41:22","slug":"blogs-harvard-wrapped-an-ecosystem-snapshot-as-the-lights-go-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2023\/06\/30\/blogs-harvard-wrapped-an-ecosystem-snapshot-as-the-lights-go-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogs.harvard, wrapped: an ecosystem snapshot as the lights go out"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>\u00a1Blogs.harvard is closing its doors for good!<\/h2>\n<p>Today is nominally the last day it will be editable, though it will stay up for archiving and export for another month. The WordPress dashboard lately has hadan expandable bar in the corner titled &#8216;Recent Updates&#8217;, but I&#8217;d never expanded it to see that it was local news about the platform, so this came as a surprise.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4593\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2023\/06\/30\/blogs-harvard-wrapped-an-ecosystem-snapshot-as-the-lights-go-out\/screen-shot-2023-06-30-at-18-30-49\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49.png?fit=1214%2C388&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1214,388\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Screen Shot 2023-06-30 at 18.30.49\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49.png?fit=1024%2C327&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4593\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49-300x96.png?resize=300%2C96\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"96\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49.png?resize=300%2C96&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49.png?resize=150%2C48&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49.png?resize=768%2C245&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49.png?resize=1024%2C327&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-30-at-18.30.49.png?w=1214&amp;ssl=1 1214w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">Checklist<\/strong><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<p>1)\u00a0 ping people who still need to migrate<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">2)\u00a0 draft final blog post, honoring the network<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">In the early days of blogging, Dave Winer was an energetic advocate of the form, as something important for writing and communication and not just another modern pastime.\u00a0 He set up the first version of Blogs@Harvard while he was a Berkman fellow (a <\/span><a style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/UserLand_Software#Manila\">Manila<\/a><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\"> instance hosted by the Berkman Center, at <\/span><em style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">blogs.law.harvard.edu<\/em><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">), and started blogging there as well as at Scripting News. It moved to WordPress in 2007. The community revisited it in 2011 to reaffirm the value in keeping it online. (JP, as the head of the center,\u00a0<\/span><a style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230322145900\/http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/project-info\/\">warmly summarized<\/a><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\"> the project history to date at that point)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Over the next decade, new blogs were only created by Harvard affiliates. In 2014, technical maintenance of the blogs moved to the Harvard Library\u2019s Office for Scholarly Communication, and the domain changed to <em>blogs.harvard.edu<\/em>.\u00a0 In 2018 its maintenance shifted to Harvard University Information Technology, and any old blogs run by authors who were not affiliates were <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230624140427\/https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/blog\/2018\/07\/13\/upcoming-changes\/\">closed<\/a> [and taken offline, if they had not set up an archive]. This also affected a number of past affiliates who no longer had university or alum email addresses, including the pathbreaking <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180922121213\/http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/infolaw\/\">info\/law<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180721192007\/http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/jkbaumga\">j&#8217;s scratchpad<\/a>, blog of the founding organizer of the Blogging Group.<\/p>\n<p>Now the rest are being shut down.\u00a0 While bloggers still at Harvard can migrate to the existing <em>sites.harvard.edu<\/em>, with a bit of effort, they are not being migrated by default, and most have not migrated.\u00a0 Those without new posts in the past year were not notified of the change.\u00a0 This also affects people like <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/doc\/\">Doc<\/a> Searls, a long-time pillar of free software and the open web who we&#8217;ve been lucky to have in the local eddy, whose active <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/vrm\/\">projects<\/a> live on nearby.<\/p>\n<p>There are plans for a full archive to be preserved; let&#8217;s make it one befitting this decentralized community, which has hosted many students and practitioners of digital creation and archiving.\u00a0 Going through the archiving process myself reminds me of the [extraordinary, wonderful]\u00a0 service of the Wayback Machine, which may also let us restore former blogs currently hidden behind its veil.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Checklist<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>3)\u00a0 Salvage old drafts<br \/>\n4)\u00a0 Make a proper export<\/p>\n<p>It is a curious sensation to revisit my old tempo of posting by seeing the proportionate tempo of unpublished drafts; some quite good and close to completion, but written in a week or month when many other works were going out.\u00a0 These days I would publish a good three-section post without hesitation.\u00a0 Most drafts removed or published; new &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/category\/unfinished-draft\/\">unfinished draft<\/a>&#8221; category added.<\/p>\n<p>I am also reminded that fully half of the links from over 5 years ago are no longer online; other websites having a much shorter time-to-linkrot than this blog family.\u00a0 Again, Wayback is not only a default salvation but one of the only options; if it disappeared, readers, researchers, and historians would be entirely out of luck (short of bring up one of the Wayback mirrors).\u00a0 If you are in a position to host a full mirror (currently around <a href=\"https:\/\/wiki.archiveteam.org\/index.php\/Internet_Archive\">100PB<\/a>), please get in touch with the archiveteam or the Internet Archive.<\/p>\n<p>Exports should be easy, though mine is not small.\u00a0 Preserving the directory structure on import requires a target style that uses the same schema for dated posts.\u00a0 Alternately, I could scrape the entire site into a .<strong>wacz<\/strong> file and restore its public appearance exactly as it stands today, then move to a different format for a future blog.\u00a0 I&#8217;d like something more collaborative by nature; easy to have a cohort working together.\u00a0 I have hopes that <em>Tana<\/em> could be turned towards this end, as shared writing is naturally a more social activity than just linking to one another&#8217;s blogs (and even here some of the best outlier blogs here have been multi-author, during times when many were active together)<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/project-info\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a1Blogs.harvard is closing its doors for good! Today is nominally the last day it will be editable, though it will stay up for archiving and export for another month. The WordPress dashboard lately has hadan expandable bar in the corner titled &#8216;Recent Updates&#8217;, but I&#8217;d never expanded it to see that it was local news [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[60484,216,207,6034,218,212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-citation-needed","category-fly-by-wire","category-indescribable","category-meta","category-not-so-popular","category-null"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-1bx","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4559"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4602,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions\/4602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}