Just realized the dead link archive I curated actually got cited in a research paper

I've been running a small site for about 4 years that just logs 404 errors from old GeoCities pages. Nothing fancy, just screenshots and the broken URLs. Last month a professor from a university in Ohio emailed me saying they used my archive in a study about early web culture. Never thought anyone would care about that stuff besides me. I still wonder if they found it helpful or just funny. Has anyone else had their weird hobby project get taken seriously?

2 comments

2 Comments

brooke5335d agoMost Upvoted

That prof probably loves how dead web stuff is preserved.

karen2755d ago

Honestly, @brooke533 you're so right about that "loves how dead web stuff is preserved" part. It's wild to think about like old GeoCities sites or early 2000s MySpace profiles that are still floating around somewhere on the internet. Profs who dig into that stuff probably get a kick out of seeing the weird animated gifs and the super basic HTML layouts. Tbh it's kind of cool that all that old digital junk doesn't just vanish into thin air. It's like a time capsule of how people used to express themselves online back then.