LJArchive

[jducoeur]

Thanks to tpau for pointing out the layoffs at LiveJournal. If this article is to be believed, it's probably not the end of the world -- everybody's laying off right now, and I can't say I'm entirely astonished that LJ is consolidating. But it's a good reminder that backing up one's journal is a good idea, just in case

Comments

[dryfoo]

I understand everyone being unhappy were LJ to go away, but it's not clear to me what the value of archiving one's LJ postings would be. Do people imagine having the time someday to sit and re-read their old postings? Is it just a habit of the back-it-up reflex? Could there be some kind of Resurrection Day millenial hope that a new server system could raise up all the old archives from the dead into a new life, reborn and free from sin? Have there been posts of great literary value mixed in amongst the friendly chat, recipes, gripes, and grunts that make up the bulk of what I've been reading here?

Contestants are invited to complete this sentence:

In the future, we will want to "look up old entries" in order to...

Best answer wins a fully-ten-punched free-coffee card from Toscanini's on Main St, Cambridge.

[queenortart]

In the future, we will want to "look up old entries" in order to...

Mock people for the comments made in reply to them.

[dlevey]

...find the information we thought was important but have since forgotten.

I will sometimes post links to amusing videos, news articles of interest, and the like (as well as, for example, a spreadsheet of last years brewing competition results). I find myself referring to those older posts even now, when I remember *about* the item but don't have the details handy.

[rufinia]

I've used my lj as several things- wanting to remember when a specific thing happened, keeping track of things like migraines (which helped figure out the major trigger), planning stuff, recording thoughts and feelings, and genenral griping. I want to at least have the option of going back and re-reading things.

In the future, we will want to "look up old entries" in order to...

...remember the beginnings of grudge that erupted after a heated "discussion" on the merits of Buffy versus River.

[queenortart]

Since I've got you and you're talking about lj archive, and have made it work can I ask a question?

I've got a message back having downloaded it and started the wizard to get my journal which says

"The server requires that you set you encoding settings before your journal can be downloaded. This setting can be found at your journal's web site, at the bottom of the 'edit personal information' page in the 'auto-convert older entries from' box"

I am prepared to accept that it requires it, and that other people may be able to find it, but I cannot find "at your journal's web site" even if it thinks I can, this despite some time looking, and that doesn't tell me what the encoding setting needs to be.

I am feeling rather dim :(

[jducoeur]

Hmm. I didn't get that message; I *suspect* it means that your journal is still in the old S1 format or something like that.

My best guess would be that "your journal's web site" means LJ itself -- keep in mind that there are a lot of other LJ clones like DeadJournal and InsaneJournal and stuff, so they can't just say "LiveJournal". And I'd guess that "edit personal information" means the Edit Profile function.

But that's just guesswork -- it *is* a badly-written error message for a relatively obscure situation, so you shouldn't feel dim about it. If nothing obvious shows up on your Edit Profile page, I'd recommend asking in the ljarchive community, which has a lot of people asking lots of questions right now...