Last week it was reported that GameStop, a clown show of a company peddling meme stocks and cheap video game merchandise, had unceremoniously and without notice shut down Game Informer, a magazine and website that had been publishing in some form since 1991. The decision was a terrible one for many reasons. For readers and […]
Why is everyone so mad about this? I mean, it’s a salty article, but yeah, it kinda sucks when publications don’t give notice before closing down. I think providing the public, including previous contributors, time to archive content is a good practice.
It’s a good practice, sure. But as per the headline, the author wants to make it a law. That’s why people are not having it.
That’s not really what the article is about. The author even concedes that such a law would never, and perhaps never should, happen; rather, he feels that corporations will not adopt best practices of preservation unless compelled, and it pisses him off.
The title is deliberate hyperbolic. He’s clearly pissed.
Actually the author himself is somewhat harmed by this situation. I would be salty too. When I wish to write my CV, I can say: my text have been published at X and Y. Especially nice if it’s an important and well known publication. Now a part of his CV is literally erased, he can’t access his own texts anymore (not even on Internet Archive). That’s… utterly ridiculous. It’s a common practice to send the author a copy (or multiple) of the text he has published, he has every right to own a copy of them. Now the copy that was intended to be available to everyone is not available even to him. Something of the sort really has happened to me too when a website I published an article on a site underwent a redesign and now the text just isn’t available anymore. Admittedly it’s still on IA, but it’s an awkward situation.
Yeah, right? I mean, imagine if YouTube when down and just deleted all the videos. People would be up and arms demanding legislative action. There would be endless lawsuits.
As a creative, you rely on platforms to not obliterate your stuff. At least not immediately. This guy has a horse in the race of this site.
(“Up in arms.”)
Why wouldn’t you save a copy if it’s so important to you?
What do you mean by “saving a copy”? I still have the .doc file somewhere in my emails. If I told you I’m a serious published writer, and then you asked me where you can read my texts, and I sent you a .doc that hasn’t been proofread, would you take me seriously?