Something that just frustrates me

[starrylizard]

Why do people keep deleting comms?

Especially comms that asked people to post to them, so the posts that were there are not duplicated anywhere else and are now lost forever. Okay, so your comm was a failure or you were too lazy to keep it going, but why can't you just stick a fracking huge message in a post at the top saying "NOW CLOSED" and lock it down so no one can post? That way people could still read the entries later.

Comments

Kind of related

[charis-kalos.livejournal.com]

I'm reading a book by Geraldine Brooks at the moment called Foreign Correspondence: A Memoir. The first part describes her correspondence with her various pen-pals as a child and teenager, and then the second part is her journey to track down these pen-pals after she finds all their letters when cleaning out her parents' house. And I thought: what will happen to us? We write to people all round that world and I'd love to do what Geraldine did sometime and track down these people I've only met across the internet - but there's not going to be a collection of messages in my parents' house for me to find. They might not even survive on-line. I love the immediacy of LJ and emails - but they're not very archivable.

Re: Kind of related

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

There is some way of archiving your own LJ. I've heard about it. Some people use it like a backup, but I don't know what it's called.

Very true though.

[lark_ascends]

Yep.

[reedfem.livejournal.com]

I've tried to look up old pen pals, but had no luck.

I think I'd rather my LJ not be found posthumously...

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* When I'm dead I'm not gonna care. But I'm talking about fan comms and RPG comms. People close them and they frustrate me when they disappear altogether.

[musesinspire.livejournal.com]

I have run into the same thing and it's very frustrating. Which is why, in the case of the one that we're shutting down (btvs_sccxover) we're redirecting everyone over the other one (sccxovers) and also moving the stories there as well so that they are not lost for good. A lot of comms just close down, wash their hands of it and go about their merry ways and it makes me nuts!

Just thought I'd share... :-)

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Thank you and that's a great idea. Boost another comm while closing yours down. *thumbs up*

I certainly don't get it, since you can just lock a comm down and leave it open for reading. I think it's usually that people are embarrassed to have set up a comm that didn't thrive or something.

Thanks for dropping by! :D