Some sites "bag" the old HTML content and burn the entire site onto discs and then offer it to members who are willing to pay. After a certain period, that recorded content is either compressed and archived, or eliminated entirely. Hey, Mister, wanna buy six months' worth of The Hide? But you're right, in essence, it's crippling to store data consisting of guys posting enormous images (like from your cell phone on 4Kx3K pixel quality) and then having eight other guys quote picture-heavy posts in their entirety and write "Cool shit!" by way of response.
I guess that could be an approach, but having lived through the microfilm/fiche era, I'd never pay for a random collection of old data.
One of the enormous values of this site is the incredible cache of old threads and info that will pull up whenever Joe Shooter googles a question. He's likely never heard of us, but after the 3rd or 4th time he has a question and finds the answer here, it becomes the place to start looking. That's how I ended up here, and eventually participating.
The killer is that we have what, 1248 pages or something just in the Pit? Most of that shit is "dead" at this point, as are most of the old threads in other areas that are still invaluable as a research tool, but don't necessarily need to be active for replies. If I find a 5yr old thread dealing with a question I have, I'm going to start a new thread rather than revive the old one.
Since there's an "archive server" available, was just thinking of lightening the load on the newer more expensive technology and using it for current data while maintaining searchable access to the older stuff.
As as I said I'm no computer guy, so I have no idea how many gerbils have to run on their wheels to make this place work.
Great idea again on the Employment section buddy, I hope that happens.
ETA: now that I consider it, I might just pay for old "volumes" of the info here if it were on a USB or something that had a fantastic search function.
