Web archive of old Usenet posts

Several times in the past I've ranted to this list about my hope for a more ancient version of DejaNews, a web archive of old Usenet posts. Below is an e-mail I received from someone who has the start of an archive. He's searching for more volunteers for the project. I think this would be a tremendous resource for classic computer collectors and historians. - John To: John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com> Subject: Re: Old usenet news? From: Michael Stutz <stutz(a)dsl.org> X-Mailer: MH-E (emacs20) X-Url: http://dsl.org/ Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 13:16:57 -0500 Sender: m(a)dsl.org Been thinking about a potential Usenet archive restoration project lately, how such a project might work. I don't think it's a one-man job -- too many people are probably going to have different ideas on how to store it, availability, interface, etc. This is what I think needs to happen: - there needs to be some kind of public discussion area for the project (like a newsgroup or mailing list) - a repository needs to be put in place, where people can send their archives. any size would probably be good enough to begin with, even a few gigs. hard drives are cheap now and it shouldn't be too difficult for someone to be able to get at least 10gb, which i think should be enough to at least begin assembling some of the old years, and whatever misc. stuff from pre-95 that people have? While I'm very interested in this, I don't have time to oversee or coordinate it. (I assume that you don't, either?) However, I've been assembling what notes I can -- URLs of known archives, addresses of interested people, related threads. I've begun putting all this together in html and plan on putting it on the web, just to make a convergence point for likeminded individuals -- maybe it might provide the impetus for someone else to begin such a project? Or at least get the attention of someone who has a 20gb hard drive on some ftp box at some university or organization somewhere, where some of the old archives could begin to be reassembled? (I'd think such a restoration project would make a great research project for someone, maybe?) As I think I mentioned before, I've got some archives from specific groups, and a lot of old threads and even single articles saved. If there was a coordinator and a system in place (even 1gb to start? or a box with access to a cd-burner or some other removeable media?), I bet a post to slashdot would draw in hundreds of people like me, or more, with their old archives. m P.S. On a related note, I'd like to see an open-source replacement for imdb.com happen, but again it's not a project I can take on right now.