MAOIST.WS

Maoist Information Web Site

On the closing of the Etext Archives

[The following was most written on January 9, 2009, and last revised on January 15, 2009.]

A Web site called "Etext Archives" hosted a Web site of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, www.etext.org/Politics/MIM. On January 9, 2009, MIWS encountered the following while doing quick research for a movie review:

"Thank you for your interest in the Etext Archives.

"The Etext Archives (1992-2009) are now closed, but the site lives on via the Internet Archive. You can view the historical record of the Etext Archives by visiting this URL:

"http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.etext.org/

"While you are there, consider making a donation to the Internet Archive which provides this free service.

"The operators of the Etext Archives are no longer hosting any of the data previously in the Etext Archives and we have no influence over third parties who may have copied the content and continue to serve it."

Obviously, there is still a running Web server at WWW.ETEXT.ORG, but the pages that were there don't seem to be. All requests generate the same error page ("404 The Etext Archives have closed," according to headers last modified "Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:59:33 GMT"). MIWS also notices that the FTP site that the Etext Archives had is down. Some files that were in the pub/Politics/MIM and Politics/MIM directories at the FTP site appear in Google's index. From the viewpoint of preservation, to have a Web server still running and returning "not found" 404 status codes is worse than not having a server running at all, as pages will disappear from search engine caches sooner. Assuming that these caches are reliable, a window is closing for people to be able to determine for themselves what was on www.etext.org/Politics/MIM in case files are modified or corrupted.

A text repository, MIWS 1) is not a fan of nihilism, 2) sees no reason why thousands of perfectly good files should not be available on the Web, and 3) believes that the oppressed have a right to know why www.etext.org/Politics/MIM is gone; www.etext.org/Politics/MIM discussed reasons why it might be shut down. Already, with the passing of several days since www.etext.org/Politics/MIM was shut down and no duplicate of the site available on the searchable Web, potentially more than 1% of traffic for a year has been lost.

#3 is debatable. Arguably, it would not be necessary, and this announcement would not be necessary, if there were an online archive of www.etext.org/Politics/MIM comparable to the original site in usability and content. (The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is limited in both respects. For example, its latest copy of http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/whatsnew.html is for February 12, 2008.) On the other hand, there are things that could have discouraged having a mirror or archive on the Internet. Perhaps people in the Third World should maintain copies of www.etext.org/Politics/MIM themselves, not rely on First Worlders, and not be too concerned with what happens within the First World on a small scale, but MIWS does not want to say that people in the Third World should be additionally burdened with having to use technology to maintain such a large site when it might be necessary. Maintaining an unchanging copy of www.etext.org/Politics/MIM could be a good job for someone in the First World. People in the Third World need to look at what needs to be done.

While it reviews things, MIWS provides the following links. (Check your anonymity and browser object and script security.)

An archive of text files linked at http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/whatsnew.html as of November 20, 2008:

An archive of search-engine-cached text files linked at http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/whatsnew.html after November 20, 2008:

The IP address in the file names is the IP address of the Google server that served the cache files.

Unfortunately, Google's cache appears to not have http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/whatsnew.html, and the files referenced by links added to whatsnew.html, after December 19. Microsoft's cache has a more recent version of whatsnew.html, but not the files referenced by the new links.

Non-searchable scan PDF of MIM Theory 1:

Non-searchable scan PDF of MIM Theory 2&3:

These are based on, but not identical to, similarly named files that were on www.etext.org/Politics/MIM. An 84% file size reduction was obtained maintaining legibility. The goal was to make downloading easier. These are not ideal archive copies.

In theory, using something like Freenet for preservation would be ideal, but MIWS has not sufficiently studied Freenet to be able to recommend that system in particular.

The reason some of this is from a search engine cache is that this reviewer didn't download and store additions on a daily basis. It is faster and presumably more secure to download new or changed files than an entire Web site on a daily basis, but this reviewer did not make the assumption that it would be necessary to have the latest version of the MIM site on hand and was not using a mirroring tool that automatically checked for changes.

There were multiple indications that www.etext.org/Politics/MIM was not going to last forever, most decisively from a technical viewpoint a recent notice about some kind of lost data. It suggests the need to have a backup. Without a backup, a site cannot be recovered even to another address. This writer was not sufficiently motivated to back up the MIM site frequently. MIWS waited nearly six days before publishing this article. MIWS had hoped that the MIM would have come up with a solution for preserving www.etext.org/Politics/MIM. Some steps were taken, but the international communist movement is lacking in the ability to preserve a quantity of material on a Web site. It turns out that MIWS has to do things itself. It reflects a problem of the whole movement, not just lazy MIWS, which apparently expected too much. Although, since MIWS said it was a repository, but doesn't have an archive of www.etext.org/Politics/MIM, MIWS takes responsibility for possibly confusing people about what was needed. "Reposit" simply means to store, but one definition of "repository" is "a place where things may be put for safekeeping," which does not characterize MIWS.

By the way, it is hard to claim that MIWS intervenes in things when MIWS doesn't visit various sites for weeks and months at a time, let alone every day, and there can apparently be a delay of several months before becoming aware of new material on MIWS. Science can advance without visiting Web sites every day. No doubt, there are those who would criticize MIWS for not being more concerned about things. MIWS gets it both ways in different contexts.

Many have claimed to believe that www.etext.org/Politics/MIM is useful, but most would, revealing something about themselves, see a stink to be made if anyone were to preserve material that was on it while progressing in a direction different than theirs. There were a thousand more words here addressing provocations and possible provocations against MIWS in connection to not participating in a public opinion campaign against the MIM, a campaign utilizing Liberal prejudice. This writer left them out. Hopefully, they will not need to be published. MIWS will just touch on a few points.

MIWS reminds people that MIWS is an anonymous theory Web site and necessarily has an emphasis on general knowledge. Apart from this, while in some cases perhaps reflecting a limited perspective and ignorance of things revealed by multiple organizations in 2008, this writer's critical ideas about www.etext.org/Politics/MIM have always been specific and confined in their scope, nothing that would justify being in a united front with the Central Intelligence Agency, for example, or FBI public relations people discrediting the scientific discussion of repression. Now, www.etext.org/Politics/MIM is not there.

There needs to be policies about provocations, not just reactions to provocations. Obvious things are either obvious, and MIWS does not need to talk about them as a theory site, or they aren't.

First Worlders who can't stomach scientific struggle, but think they can handle provocations successfully, are wrong. They should not try to get others to discuss things on a level where are one-liners, a focus on personality and style, deception and hype in the place of substance, and a risk of provocations.

MIWS is both less knowledgeable and more knowledgeable than some may have estimated. When people raise certain questions, it does not put themselves in the best light in MIWS's eyes. Some knowledge that MIWS has, passively acquired by observation of things in public and inference, MIWS does not express, simply because it is not relevant to MIWS's function. It may make MIWS seem more oblivious than it is. What MIWS knows about looks worse than anything anybody could have conceivably interpreted MIWS's writing as saying about them. Some people are better off realizing that MIWS is not competing with them for recruits, that it would be more accurate to say that MIWS competes with the International Journal of Ecological Economics & Statistics for "recruits," to an ideology, and that they should not waste effort attacking MIWS more than necessary for their pre-scientific-Amerikan-recruiting struggles MIWS does not give a shit about.

Separating publishing theory material from other aspects of party-building, MIWS does not engage in some power struggle, but MIWS is not insulated from possible efforts to eliminate Maoist Web sites. There is a kind of power struggle reflected on MIWS in the domain of theory, but that is not to say that MIWS floats above all other power struggles. Some of the knowledge that the wetware behind MIWS has that is not on MIWS may become relevant in contexts where the question is whether MIWS is going to exist in the first place, a meta-MIWS question.

January 11, 2009, postscript: It appears that this writer did not understand Google's cache. On January 9, when this writer typed "Google's cache appears to not have http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/whatsnew.html, and the files referenced by links added to whatsnew.html, after December 19," Google was returning whatsnew.html as of January 2, 2009, 04:47:34 GMT. Now, Google returns a January 6, 06:13:03 GMT snapshot of whatsnew.html, and its cache also has copies of the items added to whatsnew.html after December 19, 2008, as of January 6. So, the second zip file that MIWS gave a link to is not as complete as it could be. Rather than give a new link, MIWS will wait until things settle down more in Google's cache.

MIWS would also like to add that http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/whatsnew.html does not record all additions and changes to www.etext.org/Politics/MIM that MIWS has come across, important to know if restoring the site.

Lastly, nobody has done more to promote anonymous reasoning than the MIM. MIWS has various policies relevant to anonymous reasoning. In general, the drawback of distributing archived files is that spies and crackers (in the computing sense) may have made unauthorized changes, insertions, etc., in which case the distribution might perpetuate problems. This would be less of a problem with readers used to anonymous reasoning and ignoring information that is extraneous for them. Some recent changes to www.etext.org/Politics/MIM complicate putting up an archive, but at this point MIWS is not willing to second-guess doing so, rather than choosing what things should be left out. That is not a decision for MIWS or the Internet Archive to make, though of course people should do what is possible to prevent problems from building up on perfectly good Web sites. Because of the gradual way some things developed on www.etext.org/Politics/MIM while normal activity continued, it would not be easy for MIWS to pick a cut-off point of two months or even two years ago.

About | Home | Theory | Reviews | Document Archive | What's New?