[ga] The Disappearance of ALAC's Forum Archives

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought I would look back at the contributions anyone had taken the time and trouble to send to one of the ALAC forums in 2004, and to analyse how much of a "graveyard" the ALAC forums had become.

First I went to:
http://forum.icann.org/alac-forum/

15 posts between Oct 16 and Feb 16 (if you exclude spam). That is barely one post a week (and over half of those were from Danny Younger or myself).

So then I clicked on the link on that page which says: "Messages posted prior to 1 Oct 2004". This took me here:
http://forum.icann.org/old-alac-forum/

Now I thought I could read through all the older messages which I and others had sent prior to Oct last year.

I clicked on:
Comments regarding Domain Name Registration Issues. But oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding WHOIS. Oh-oh again... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding SPAM. Well oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding IDNs... oops, no I didn't... no comments were ever submitted so there is no link

I clicked on:
Comments regarding New TLDs. And oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding WIPO. Same again - oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding WSIS. Guess! Oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding Registry Service Changes... Yawn, oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding Verisign. Dur - oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Miscellaneous Comments. Any chance here? Nope, oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Comments regarding At Large Organizing. Thousands of posts here surely, but no, oh-oh... "Page cannot be found"

I clicked on:
Two other links but all roads led to: "Page cannot be found"

In short, it seems as if all the posts submitted to the ALAC forum prior to October 2004 have *VANISHED* in the twinkling of an eye. Please could we have them back? I think it is widely accepted that messages sent to the ICANN's various mailing lists and fora should be archived and available for review in an open and transparent fashion.

I admit that the ALAC forum is a graveyard. But we should still be able to go and lay flowers, and remember, and say a little prayer for the At Large. Does this mean that one day any other ICANN archive can just be removed and disappear without trace?

Yrs,

Richard Henderson