There can be NO good reason for deleting stuff. Today's hard drives are cheap, and you have money enough to buy as many as you need. Additionally, organization tends to be much easier when you have everything at your fingertips, rather than having to go through CDs/DVDs/other.
I disagree with this comment on both a philisophical and practical data perspective.
A great example is Amazon.com. When you do a search for a product you are given hundreds of results, the vast majority of which are obsolete or no longer in stock. Further, you often receive many overlapping results representing minor variations in a single product (based on color, for instance, or platform, etc).
Grouping like products together and getting rid of (or at least hiding, by default) obsolete products would make Amazon a much more valuable resource.
And this goes for the web in general.
And let's not get into the legal matters of information persistance.
Each problem you pointed out on Amazon can be solved by adding refinements to the search. For example, Google figures out how to make access to data better, rather than advocating that there be less of it.
When it comes to the legal repercussions of old information, I highly recommend very strong encryption in preparation for leaks or warrantless searches. When faced with an order to provide information to a court, simply tell them that you lost it. When asked how, tell them that you were using flaky Microsoft products, and that will be it.
I still contend that there can be no good reason for deleting stuff. It's all about how you manage it.
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or maybe that's just me.
tried to leave a comment earlier but the server rejected me! wah.
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A great example is Amazon.com. When you do a search for a product you are given hundreds of results, the vast majority of which are obsolete or no longer in stock. Further, you often receive many overlapping results representing minor variations in a single product (based on color, for instance, or platform, etc).
Grouping like products together and getting rid of (or at least hiding, by default) obsolete products would make Amazon a much more valuable resource.
And this goes for the web in general.
And let's not get into the legal matters of information persistance.
Reply
When it comes to the legal repercussions of old information, I highly recommend very strong encryption in preparation for leaks or warrantless searches. When faced with an order to provide information to a court, simply tell them that you lost it. When asked how, tell them that you were using flaky Microsoft products, and that will be it.
I still contend that there can be no good reason for deleting stuff. It's all about how you manage it.
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