Chapel Hill Technology Advisory Committee

["Steve Irving" <wsirving AT morgancreek.net>]

Terri and all,

 

I spent the weekend contemplating whether it would be productive to respond to your latest salvo (Fri 8/26/2005 10:32 AM) in support of deleting the supposedly non-existent UNC message archive dating back to 2001. Although I’m still not convinced this will be productive by any conceivable measure, the tipping point came when I went back to the UNC listserv site and found that ch-tech-advisory no longer exists.

                                                                                   

You stated (Fri 8/26/2005 10:32 AM):

 

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According to the UNC technician assigned to the data recovery question, "The ch-tech-advisory list is set to keep archives for only one day. Since messages older than one day would automatically be purged each night, there are no messages past that one day archive we'd have."

 

This report is consistent with my own investigation of the UNC list archiving capabilities ...

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First, is this anonymous technician willing to come forward and discuss the issue? I would like to know the basis for the “one day” comment, and how this squares with the actual existence of an archive which far exceeded one day. I would also like to know whether there is any likelihood that the recovery will succeed and whether the recent disappearance of our forum is a part of the recovery process or an indication that the towel has been thrown in.

 

Second, your own investigation of the UNC List archiving capabilities does not appear to have been terribly thorough, or included the simple steps provided in my earlier message (Thu 8/25/2005 8:36 PM), or made use of your resources – such as the Anonymous Technician – at UNC.

 

You go on to state (Fri 8/26/2005 10:32 AM):

 

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If Steve found a full archive of the UNC list, I applaud his technical skills and feel sure the UNC staff would be interested in knowing where their archiving process is faulty.

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No special technical skills were required (although I appreciate you compliment and its thinly-veiled sarcasm), and I have not alleged any fault in their archiving process, which seems to me to have worked just fine until immediately after the messages were deleted.

 

Last Wednesday evening, before the messages were deleted from the UNC listserv, I took a snapshot of the cover page of the message archive. This can now be viewed at http://www.morgancreek.net/tc_unc_listserv/Messages.htm, and I hope it will be useful in clearing up the misconceptions you and the Anonymous Technician hold.

 

My thanks to all for your forbearance, and apologies to any who find this to be an unproductive rant.

 

Steve