Has anyone managed to reconstruct the gr…
Has anyone managed to reconstruct the grand debate on traditionalism in the Islamsphere from circa 2006? About half blogs involved have broken/inaccessible archives.I seem to recall someone here at TI mentioning it recently but couldn’t find it.
null, 
Naila, 
abunoor, and 5 others are discussing.
Zack 9:31 pm on September 30, 2009 Permalink
Here’s one solution.
thabet 4:14 am on October 1, 2009 Permalink
That reminds me: what happened to the blogger known as Von Aurum?
Zack 9:32 pm on September 30, 2009 Permalink
That still misses Ali Eteraz.
aziz 5:59 am on October 1, 2009 Permalink
you mean his wordpress blog I assume. i see that some of the old eteraz.org content is in the Wayback though.
Aasem 12:52 am on October 1, 2009 Permalink
Zack, you can update my links as I have shifted my blog to wordpress.
Tradition (1): Key Dualities
Tradition(2): Conversation Incarnate
Tradition(3): Converse to Create Knowledge
Tradition(4): Conclusion and more…
-reagrds
pi.info 2:59 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink
This is why I tend to excerpt heavily. There are too many examples of blogs and bloggers disappearing into the void — taking their important contributions with them. It’s hard to have or create a common understanding if you can’t at least reference the insights and information that informs your perspective. Ali Eteraz is one example of such a loss: Salafi Burnout is another.
aziz 3:44 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink
actually, Wayback does a good job pf preservation. The problem with Ali’s blog on wordpress is that he explicitly set the robots.txt file for max privacy, so archive systems cant access the content. Usually the reason content is gone is because the owner wants it thus; otherwise the default is to leave stuff available forever. blogspot.com and wordpress.com arent going anywhere
If ever for some reason (god forbid) I was unable to continue actively maintaining TI I would at bare minimum fund its domain and host in perpetuity so teh archives were permanent. My estimate is that for about $1000 I could keep it online for almost 50 years. Ideally Id just handover the day-to-day ops to others, though, in the hope it would be self-sustaining. But one way or the another, TI content is here to stay. (which goes for the Journals, too).
abunoor 3:57 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink
People should of course write with the intention that what they are writing is there forever and should write with such taqwa.
However, if people have for whatever reason decided they do not want their own words on their own blog to be available anymore, that should obviously be their right, and I don’t think it would be correct to try to thwart their intentions.
Allaah knows best.
pi.info 5:09 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink
That get’s into other sets of ethical issues, as posted here.
Abu Noor 3:13 pm on October 2, 2009 Permalink
John, I remember that post — I agree there are some different considerations if a particular post makes specific allegations against someone or if for some other reason the post itself is newsworthy.
I think one should be careful in assuming that the blogging etiquette that has developed is necessarily consistent with Islamic adab and good character.
null 8:00 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink
here are too many examples of blogs and bloggers disappearing into the void — taking their important contributions with them.
It’s always distressing. Sunni sister, Mere Islam, Dervish (Umm Yasmin) …
aziz 8:32 am on October 2, 2009 Permalink
incidentally we added a category to the Brass Crescent Awards this year for just such blogs. So nominate!
null 8:42 am on October 2, 2009 Permalink
I’m sorry Aziz, I must be daft – but which category would that be?
Or do you mean, just to vote for defunct – but much missed – blogs under the Best Blog/Best Writer categories? Confused…
aziz 10:29 am on October 2, 2009 Permalink
oh no i meant there was a categgory for BEST RETIRED – Shahed may not have added it yet to the drop down, let me bug him about it…
Naila 12:25 am on October 2, 2009 Permalink
Apropos somewhat: I spent the week reading through 19th-century archives of letters, personal correspondence, and other material for a project, and it occurred to me how the advent of email and ethereal cyber-communication will make this kind of research so much more difficult, if not impossible, in the future. Personal letters especially are invaluable windows into the past, and crucial especially for biographies, and I wonder what we will have a 100 years from now.
null 2:26 am on October 2, 2009 Permalink
I felt this way often. Thomas Carlyle, Goethe, Nietzsche all have such impressive letter correspondences.
It’s a lost art.
Naila 9:31 pm on October 2, 2009 Permalink
Have you read Naipaul’s correspondence with his father? Absolutely gorgeous stuff.
I couldn’t open the video link you posted. It shows up and no play option works. The title of the video sounds wonderful.
Ah, technology.
*shudder* I will take my late-in-the-night solitary intimacies with microfiche in the dank library basement any day.
null 10:35 pm on October 2, 2009 Permalink
This is the URL for the video Naila:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lakshmi_pratury_on_letter_writing.html
Or just search ‘Lakshmi Pratury’ on ted.com. Get your tissues out.
I haven’t gotten around to reading much of anything by Naipaul actually. Maybe the sappy family letters are just the thing to warm me up to him.
Towards the end, my nani suffered from some memory loss. The things she knew off by heart until her dying days were surahs from the Quran Sharif, and the love letters my nana sent her when they were courting. Pages and pages, word for word. Magic.
thabet 4:14 am on October 2, 2009 Permalink
Future historians will have to mine through Facebook, Myspace and Twitter accounts…