Recording the Discovery of the Decade and other discoveries

To be honest if people don't put it on paper it just disappears. Somebody told me about significant finds in DYO a few years ago  - named passages and all. When I went looking there was  absolutely nothing in print despite several exploratory and digging trips with the approval of the cave owner. So when I realised this I asked everybodyinvolved  for their log book entries and compiled an article for the Belfry Bulletin that can now be located by any researcher. Interesting area of the cave too. .

I know this is off topic #sorry - but my personal belief is that when humans are long extinct and some future species, or visiting aliens start to find evidence of our existence... all they find is stuff that's been carved into stone..

Thus the absolute pinnacle of humans intelligence, will be assume to have peaked somewhere around the end of the 19th century.

The entire 'digital' era is quite literally as ethereal as it appears. 

SamT said:

I know this is off topic #sorry - but my personal belief is that when humans are long extinct and some future species, or visiting aliens start to find evidence of our existence... all they find is stuff that's been carved into stone..

Thus the absolute pinnacle of humans intelligence, will be assume to have peaked somewhere around the end of the 19th century.

The entire 'digital' era is quite literally as ethereal as it appears.

Click to expand...

Yes, there are two problems here:

The first is outlined by mrodoc that often information is just not made available. This might be due to the people involved not thinking it's important or meaning to share it and forgetting. There are also clubs and groups who sit on information and decline to share it less their empire collapses. This is especially so with surveys - were even a simple sketch might prove to interesting of others who want to open up an old dig. I don't know what the answer is to this, but it is good to see that people like Cris Ebbs have steadfastly documented many of the North Wales caves, first in a self published booklet and later on a website (now hosted by CCC). It would be really nice to have a similar level of information describing the North Wales mines - Cris has documented some sites, but there are many to be recorded. UCET's knowledge base is a step in the right direction. cavemaps.org is a really useful resource and I hope people will continue to lodge stuff on there. Copyright can be an absolute pain in the arse and I think the current rules on extension way after the owners death as a joke. I think a lot of information should be free - the likes of scihub are an amazing resource, but I know people have mixed views on this 

The second problem noted by samt is the transient nature of a lot of online information. As a case in point Cris Ebbs site would have died (it was hosted by google for free and they pulled the plug) if Martin Laverty hadn't pulled it over and hosted it on CCC. Photographs hosted on flicker will not last for ever and it is so easy to lose valuable archives owned by a person when they sadly pass away. Historians are very aware of the need to preserve what we have now and despair of what media to use. CDROM's kept in a cool dark environment may last for a few 10's of years, but will hardware be available to read them? Trying to read a 1980's floppy disk is now well nigh impossible.    I don't know what the solution is, but photographic prints seem to survive very well - I am not sure if printouts on a laser or inkjet would survive a long time without carefully controlled conditions. Certainly written paper information will survive - and if it made its way to the BCA library then it is at least accessible and hopefully safe.

(I should note that I am guilty of not documenting stuff as well)

Dave

[info]Split topic from 'EPC Discovery of the decade'.  This is an interesting topic in its own right on how things are recorded (or not) these days[/info]

Oh dear - that killed that thread then 

I'll have a go! Years ago I had to register many (digital) designs with the UK Copyright Service, and they recommended sending digital files, on CD-ROM. However, on enquiry, they were happy to accept printed paper copies as well, and as the designs were visual, it seemed sensible to provide those too, not least, as pointed out above, CD-reading technology may become obsolete - most laptops don't have a CD drive any more. Also I'd seen what can happen to cheaply-manufactured CDs, where moisture or even mould can get into the tiny gap between the two halves and eat the metal data layer away. So I bought a bunch of Mitsui gold CDs, which are 'guaranteed' for 300 years - it may have been over-the-top, but I'd seen my own bought CDs degrade to unplayable in less than ten years. But again, they may not be able to read them in 'the future'. I still have a box left, in individual jewel cases.

https://www.conservationresources.com/family-archivists/audio-visual-materials/mitsui-gold-archival-cds-74-minute-in-jewel-case.html

I guess 'indestructible' papers like Tyvek, or acid-free archival papers and archival inks are also a pretty good bet for printing long-term, but it can get pricey.

I believe Wellyjen keeps all the Crewe Rigging Guide topos on vellum.

al said:

I believe Wellyjen keeps all the Crewe Rigging Guide topos on vellum.

Click to expand...

The original topos were all drawn by hand, with the titles and labels printed off and cut up with scissors before using a glue stick to fasten them down. Once done I passed the masters onto JRJ so he could get them photo copied. The descriptions were just typed up and again sent on for copying. These were all sorted and bound on the club cone binder! Just about all my drawings have been superseded now. Biggest faff was drawing the borders and not smudging the ink! Think it was more fun measuring the ropes in JRJ's garden after a trip and trying to work out how all the knots related to the rigging.

AFAIK the best thing to draw a survey up on is draughtsman's film, not quite sure what type of plastic it is but it's stable if not left in light for extended periods. I picked up a load of A2 sheets years ago when working for Bradford Council that the architects had left behind when moving office.

Needless to say, there are people in this world who have given a good deal of thought to the long term storage of digital formats:

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/

In terms of the longevity of media, static formats such as CD-ROM have only a limited life. Dynamic systems which maintain multiple copies of data and regularly move it and check it provide a much higher degree of reliability, but require an ongoing commitment to provide power, maintenance and updating. You can't do this just by locking the media away in a filing cabinet. Clearly this is viable for organisations with the resoures of the Library of Congress, maybe less so for a caving club.

On that Lakes programme the other day the bloke at Sellafield said they write on vellum what is in the nuclear waste containers and then put that in copper bags attached to them. So that?s the gold standard.

I use plastic for the ones we have drawn. Still OK, but really who will care in the end? Slight problem finding A0 copier these days round here that will copy on to film. May have to go to big smoke.

Apparently dumping it underground is a pretty good option: https://www.deepstore.com/

Or you just get it reproduced as much as possible (published) & stored in lots of different places!

NFTs on the blockchain anyone??

Again it depends on where it is stored and if it is accessible when needed. I have loads of IT backup failure stories from over the years ranging from an inaccessible mainframe and its data backup in a building in San Francisco which was condemned and access prevented after the last big earthquake in the 1980s (subsequently relocated to Phoenix Arizona well away from the San Andreas Fault) to replacing a dead server which had already been scrapped and finding the tape drive to load up the backup tapes no longer economically available, etc.

SamT said:

NFTs on the blockchain anyone??

Click to expand...

That's so 2019. It's high time the BC Library was encoded onto DNA. It will outlast everything mentioned here as it's already been about for 3.7 billion years. BCL could contract Blue Origin to pop it in orbit long term. Plus the whole thing would fit within a few ul.

SamT said:

NFTs on the blockchain anyone??

Click to expand...

You joke, but that's an interesting concept regarding digital file longevity. On the assumption that NFTs do actually present the future for internet IP, this may well become a very well maintained and secure form of digital file (albeit open by design). Probably out of scope for "caving news articles" but who knows where it'll evolve to

I do find it funny when (typically older) people think a hard copy is a more secure form of data than electronic. This is actually an important topic when it comes to things like original paper survey sheets or photos. For me, it's not very secure until it's scanned, uploaded to the cloud, and shared. Once done the management and risk of this form of data is very small (but admittedly still not zero). Whereas a box of survey sheets in someones attic just needs that person to die and the access to and existence of that data is instantly severely at risk. And as for public/shared caches like libraries (which are great), one fire/flood/etc and it's all gone.

SamT said:

I know this is off topic #sorry - but my personal belief is that when humans are long extinct and some future species, or visiting aliens start to find evidence of our existence... all they find is stuff that's been carved into stone..

Thus the absolute pinnacle of humans intelligence, will be assume to have peaked somewhere around the end of the 19th century.

The entire 'digital' era is quite literally as ethereal as it appears. 

Click to expand...

Na, species advanced enough to physically reach us will know everything about humans before they arrive, regardless of how long dead we are. They'll have picked up our radiowaves echoing around the universe (probably how they found us in the first place) and will probably have collated all of our internet in the process. They'll also see all the civilisations we hopefully had on the other bodies in our solar system (if not further). 

Rob said:

For me, it's not very secure until it's scanned, uploaded to the cloud, and shared.

Click to expand...

I think this hits the nail on the head. The more you reproduce something and share it, the more chance it has of survival, regardless of the actual media format, be that carved in stone, printed, digital, or even word of mouth (which has been used to store data for millennia).

& much like fossils (& ancient manuscripts), they'll likely leave a somewhat haphazard record in the distant future. Some formats will be better preserved than others, we just don't know which at this juncture.

PeteHall said:

The more you reproduce something and share it, the more chance it has of survival

Click to expand...

Put it in a git repository and encourage people to clone it and regularly pull updates.