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.
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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.
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