Archiving past posts

I spent a busy weekend copying posts from my previous blog (hundreds of posts, currently archived on another server awaiting my resolution) onto my hard drive. I plan to resurrect some of these posts – maybe with a bit of updating or editing – in a WordPress archive site here so I can keep them alive in that digital manner the Net provides.

But first I have to sort through a lot of old material. A lot. And the corruption of the old database in the move to that server has created some technical issues I need to resolve, too.

It’s tough. I have seven years’ worth of older content to resolve, sort through, edit and re-post. And maybe discard. What is relevant, what can be replayed, what should be saved, what is best forgotten? What matters, what is mere digital detritus? As the author, my first reaction is that they all matter. But the editor in me says “pick and choose” because what matters to me may likely not matter to anyone else.

(Of course the point of blogging is self-fulfillment…)

I have some personal and subjective judgments to make. I was fairly prolific those years, although a lot of the content is about local politics in my second term. There’s a lot of stuff there, and the topic range is large, although I seemed to be less wordy in many past posts than I am here. I’d write a shorter post, if I had the time… (“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”… see a long story on short letters).

Some of the content is still valid, but for a lot it is no longer relevant, even aside from my own personal interest. Movie, music and book reviews, for example – much if it is dated and uninteresting to readers so many years later.

Comments about the dysfunctional previous council and my frequent battles of words and wits with an autocratic former mayor may still resonate with me and some local voters, and still serve to  entertain me, but they’re mere local historical anecdotes today. I’m willing to let them rust in the digital dust.

I don’t think I’ll archive most of the local political material  – unless some of the politicians named therein run for election in 2014, in which case the public ought to be made aware of the events, controversies, and of their (sometimes boneheaded and controversial) comments.

Sure, some events – like the former mayor’s email “audits” and other faux pas – have a larger historical value and speak to the entire process of local democracy and accountability. In terms of our municipal history, they still play a large role. These should have a place online simply so no one forgets the lessons of history or governance, but for now, I think I’ll let them rest here in semi-oblivion and let other sites carry that weight of remembrance.

A remarkable number of posts relate to or are in response other media, a one-way conversation based on stories and news. Much is also in response to other bloggers. I refer to the EB and Mr. Adams many times, back in the happier days when we actually talked to one another (and less offense was taken in that process), and we enjoyed a mutual back-and-forth banter. However, I don’t think I’ll be porting all the comments over, simply because it’s a heckuva big task to reinstate them on a new site.

But some… what, for example, became of the Collingwood Book Club idea, suggested by Adams in his former East-end Underground in June, 2005…? That could have become a whole social circle of cultural interactivity… I’d be eager to continue this thread and talk books and culture today…

Anyway. The world turns, things change. People change, too. Even me. I like to think I’m more level-headed, calmer and less ready to take offense now, despite the provocations or the constant codswallop and innuendo from others.

But that may be simply my own impression. Others probably think less of me. The authors of that codswallop, I expect, are among them.

I expect to launch my archive site shortly; one that includes previous blog posts, older essays and commentaries – some of which are local, others are not, and I may post some updated material here, too.

If you care about this sort of stuff, watch this site for updates and a link to the new posts.