Digital Cleanup: Letting Go of Old Domain Barges

A bit late for the monthly round of cleanups, but the mop is out. I have a few legacy domains running WordPress multisite that I am just going to bite my disgust of breaking links and let them go, after making sure they are full rounded up in the Internet Archive.

I considered doing the backup to static HTML I have done before and sending to my old web bones yard but can foresee a lot of effort to do each subsite. And to be honest, as proud of them as I am, I hardly feel the world will miss them. Plus its a few hundred a year in domains and hosting.

The Old Web Barges

One the block are these domains, they are all multisite with maybe 6 to 12 blogs

The latter two were project sites once paid for and hosted by the Justice Institute of British Columbia, but as orgs do, after the funding goes, they were not going to keep sites I built for nostalgia sake. So I arranged to transfer to my personal domain, where I have kept them alive for like 10 years. More details on the subsites below (mostly for my record).

Even in reviewing them, I run into issues needing fixing, such as being compatible with PHP updates, and I just noticed for a few a bunch of media evaporated. I could spend a month fixing them up.

Archiving or What?

I looked (briefly) at some options for archiving. I could try the approach I have done before to convert to static HTML with the OS X Site Sucker app. It has always worked before, but I am guessing I would have to do each separate one as a snag. I might still do this.

But before launching the fun app with the vacuum cleaner icon, another thought occurred to me.

After experimenting with the Wayback Link Fixer plugin for WordPress this looked like a good option to try out. I checked and many of the sites were already in the Wayback Machine, so I could have done nothing, but from what I read of the docs, it can take care of doing regular archive snapshots of posts and pages.

Now I am using it on my blog mainly for auto fixing dead links to be auto updated with Wayback links. I found on the set up, I could ignore the link fixing (since if it is in the archive, all links are pointed there too) and just use the set up options to ignore link fixing and just do archving.

According to the plugin docs its not yet written to do multisite, but I found I could network activate the plugin, and then do te setup once for each sub site. It might sound tedious but it went quickly.

I disabled the auto renew of the three domains, and so they can archive automatically until then. Afterwards I can delete the files, and also cancel one extra hosting account.

I got the idea that the Link Fixer plugin could take care of sending posts and pages to the Internet Archive. I just disabled the link fixer modes on the set up and enabled the Auto Archiver for all post types. My thinking was there is no need to fix external links of the whole shebang can be in the Internet Archive. .

But I am second or third guessing now. The plugin docs read more like that posts and pages get archived if they are updated — so do I have to rig something to update all the old pages and posts on my sits?

Now the barges can float down to the Wayback machine for these sites (quite a few SPLOTS in there anf Feed WordPress aggregator hubs):

• arganee.world – a fun little landing page that likely would confuse anyone who got there. Blogged how it was built from an HTML5Up template and some API fiddling
  • Networked Narratives #netrnarr course(es)
  • Daily Digital Alchemy the Daily Create for #netnarr
  • Mirror World site used for one year when #netnarr students created alt characters
  • ResNetSem for a seminar of Kean University MA students I supervised
  • Arganee Journal A TRU Writer Splot made into a “journal” for #netnarr students to publish final projects
  • NetNarr Make Bank collection of #netnarr assignments, modeled after DS106 Assignment bank but using my SPLOT theme
  • NetNarr Gif Reader SPLOTpoint site for a light referencer on animated GIFs. This one I exported the WordPress files, I might want a full version elsewhere in my domain pile
  • Somni Porta a TRU Collector site for student assignments
  • Networked Narratives 2020: Net Mirror – the NetNarr course site done as a Black Mirror flavored version, plus a second one for 2021
  • Pandemic Whispers a TRU Writer SPLOT used as a vehicle for students and open articipants to confess their pandemic sins. Perhaps I will do a full archive of this one.
• theagoraonline.net – simple landing page
  • UDG Agora main hub for program
  • Image Pool – TRU Collector site for participants sharing images in workshop activities (all images missing)
  • UDG Agora Studio Challenges – used DS106 Bank theme for all the workshop activities (all images missing)
  • The Daily Try – a version of the DS106 Daily Create, with 128 days worth of small challenges from over the 2 years of the program
  • Ask Us Anything – experiment using P2 Theme to create a faux twitter like status board for small questions. It did work (no more, tons of PHP errors)
  • UDG Comparte – a version of the TRU Writer theme that was especially modified to be 100% in Spanish. Participants all had to write an entry summarizing what changes that made in their classes the semester after the program. (all images missing)
  • Welcome to the Agora – a SPLOTpoint powered non slide deck for a session for a presentation at the 2015 Open Education Conference in Vancouver
  • Edupunk, EduBauhaus, D.I.O? a SPLOTpoint powered non slide deck for conference presentation in Guadalajara. Yes, we were asked to present on Edupunk. This was perhaps the farthest I ever pushed iMovie to create a 15 minute mockumentary (still available, punks!)
  • Reflecting on The Agora a SPLOTpoint powered non slide deck for a presentation about the conference for the Conectáctica conference in 2015.
• muraludg.org main program content, still in good shape
  • Contestar – experiment using P2 Theme to create a faux twitter like status board. It did work (no more, tons of PHP errors)
  • Accumalador – perhaps one of the most effective uses of the TRU Collector SPLOT, used for groups to report out on projects / discussions during the workshops. Hacked a ratings plugin to use tacos instead of stars.
  • The Daily Opener – a variant of the DS106 Daily Create, with 18 days worth of small challenges related to open stuff.
  • The ‘Pedia and Beyond – a SPLOTpoint powered non slide deck for a session on Wikipedia. Damn, still looks great.
  • Historias Increíbles de la UDG Agora – a very broken site meant to share video stories from participants (I see 3 videos in the site)

Hmmm

If anything, it was rewarding to revisit all these old sites, some 28 different maybe similar WordPress sites build near the peak of my WP chops. They will take a good bit of work even to fix problems. Are they even worth the trouble? I see hardly any potential future use nor do I think anyone on the internet is even going to stumble over these old sites.

And I have more than $200 bucks going out each year for domains and an extract hosting account.

Maybe I just leave them where they are now in the Wayback Machine. The older links would represent more or less a decent version to remember.

Still, it bothers me to shred many URLS I built. I don’t do this because they might get seen, but for the purposes of projects at the time. And they are my history damnit.

I have some time to decide, at least until the first domain runs out in April.

Maybe I just let the old barges sink to the murky underwaters, leaving remnants for a few snails and snakes to play in.

Update (30 minutes later)

I managed to fix all of the UDG Agora sites where images were broken, it turns out I had the wrong htaccess file for WordPress (needed the pre 3.4 version for the old file structure). I fixed it!

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Featured Image: Argentina Rusty ship public domain image from pxhere.