"Rackensack" (=Arkansas) query

[Grant Barrett]

On 2/2/02 19:03, "Bapopik at AOL.COM" <Bapopik at AOL.COM> wrote:

>  I posted "Rackensack" right here on ADS-L, in a citation from about the
> 1840s.  I looked in the old archives and couldn't find it.  I couldn't even
> find Cohen's "clean your clock."
>  How did the archives become such a mess?  Three years of my work, and almost
> all of it is destroyed.
>

As usual, Barry, your willingness to fly off the handle is irritating and
your exaggerations are insulting.

During the last three years, I have repeatedly explained to you in private
email as well as on the list that the archive contains everything I was ever
given. Everything. The fact that much of it exists at all has more to do
with the pack rat nature of some of our members than it does with anyone
recognizing early on that an archive of the email list would be a good idea.

The new archive, hosted by LinguistList, has everything starting from April
1999. The old archive contains as much as possible for dates from some point
in 1992 up to April 1999, including files from the list from well before I
was a member, from disparate sources in disparate forms (individual
messages, automated digests, saved text files, even Bitnet messages). I and
others have freely given of whole days of work, hundred of hours in total,
to make something reasonably coherent out of the 17,000 plus records in the
old archive database. I know it is not complete. I am certain there are gaps
but I have been unable to fill them. I have in the past posted requests for
old email from members and I have accepted hundreds of digest messages in
hopes of uncovering even just one missing day.  I have checked and rechecked
my saved files here, even plumbing my own own backups hoping for anything I
might have overlooked.

So, my response to you, Barry, is to please keep your frustration in check.
I take personal offense at your comments. "Almost all of it" is NOT
destroyed. Relatively little is missing, to the best of my knowledge.

And in any case, I would encourage you as I have repeatedly not to trust a
single repository with your great research and your excellent discoveries.
You should arrange redundant storage, Barry, rather than trusting in the
fickle and ephemeral Internet. I recommend something in print that can be
distributed to the editors of newspapers in the Big Apple and the Windy
City.

Grant Barrett
ADS Web Geek