Second Life Archive?

You've heard of the Internet Archive and maybe even used the Wayback Machine? (I remember posting links to the first SL homepages...)

But now, should we not find a way to archive content from SL and provide a similar "snapshot" of it's existence that could be shared with the future, kind of like how the Internet Archive does now for the Web?

Imagine if we could "see" some of the lovely creations and builds that we lament the disappearance of?

And yes, they talk about other possible "issues" too...

From: http://news.oreilly.com/2008/06/gordon-mohr-takes-us-inside-th.html

(The Second Life discussion is just after the middle of the interview...)

A couple of years ago we talked about having a library of rez-foo'd builds - many have been lost forever, and of course although learning to live with and enjoy change is better than worshiping the past, preserving some choice bits of past creative work is a good thing. I thought it would be good to have such a library and rotate the rezzed builds so that each one was accessible for, say, a month.

I think if we had all the old builds, which is of course impossible, people would be surprised to see the that many current builds they think are the originals of a certain style or genre are merely shadowy copies.

Some places, like Damania and Svarga, ought to be preserved for posterity, so there should be a way for Linden Lab to acquire 'heritage' sites if the the owner ever decides to remove them. Obviously there should be adequate compensation for the the owner and only a few exceptional builds should be considered for preservation in this way. But at what stage should LL step in? What if an owner wants to modify their 'heritage' build with an equally impressive creation, which nevertheless removes much of the original?

I agree, Svarga is amazing, the Greenies too. They really should offer some sort of compensation for amazing SIMs but that would be problematic. I have my 2-3 years archived at my office if anyone wants to see my own builds over the past few years. But a public archive, would be a great idea. The Lindens do make time capsules at the annual parties. the public can drop things in, I recall I did drop things in last year, maybe two years, faint memory, but their plans to open these capsules, not really sure.

My personal history, if one is interested.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sawrey/208/62/30

Textures are permanently stored aren't they? Do they ever get purged? So an archive of SL content would really only need the geometry data stored. That's fairly miniscule, no?

That is an excellent idea. A couple of weeks ago, I was given an LM to a gorgeous forest build (can't remember the name to save my life.) the day before it was to be reclaimed by LL.

I spent a long time there, had a lovely fairy dance with the nicest guy, and I took a ton of pictures because one of the first things I learned in SL was that the awesome place you saw yesterday won't necessarily be there next week, or next day.

This IS a superb idea !! Perhaps there should be some awards for amazing sim wide builds, where the award is to give the sim owner/creator a new sim, maintenance free for a year, and preserve the award-winning sim forever.

I am sure LL could afford to do one of these a month without blinking.

Can you imagine what a spur it would be for creative residents to unleash ever more amazing builds?