Hi Community!
We often act like and think that things are, well ... forever (even our own
lives!). But Time waits for no one. So...
I had posted this over in the LD4 Slack channel but thought that this would
be good for folks here to at least always be aware of and think about in
our growing Linked Data world.
----
All Linked Data efforts need stable identifiers (on both ends of a
"link"). I.E. linking is only good if the other side will be retrievable
and available (online or offline through web/archives/files) throughout the
expected lifetime of an effort and beyond. Think closely about "knowledge
retention" (libraries/books hold knowledge for hundreds of years!) and what
the Linked Data lifecycle itself that ideally will do that for your
projects. Then look towards not the tools, but instead the communities
that are well established and have the likelihood to continue to provide
stable identifiers that are retrievable well into the future + another 100+
years. This might include government efforts, or communities that have
foundations behind them that are well grounded through philanthropic means
with perpetuity ... to avoid link rot or non-retrievability through
complete void of the knowledge or stable identifiers in the future.
I'm hopeful that communities will think about data retention policies and
generally "Linked Data Availability" much more deeply and seriously. This
could be likened to something like GitHub's Arctic Vault, Internet Archive,
or decentralized storage solutions like Filecoin, to be able to backup and
retain the knowledge for thousands of years, if need be.
---
Thad
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/
https://calendly.com/thadguidry/