this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
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datahoarder

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Who are we?

We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.

-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread

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[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 62 points 1 week ago (3 children)

As a sysadmin that's pretty much my worst nightmare. I really feel for those trying to pick the pieces back up again after that.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 74 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I feel your pain, but meanwhile I'm laughing. No backups, no fire suppression system, what the fuck are these clowns doing.

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 59 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Suppressing evidence? Looks like this was a deliberate oversight to later erase data.

Probably data retention safety was overruled earlier by one person.

So, I think the designed erase worked as designed .

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Pretty big conspiracy theory for a situation where incompetence doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

SysAdmins saying "We need X, we need Y", someone who signs the cheques saying "But it works fine! Why would there be a fire? We already spent so much on those UPSs"

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don’t know a lot at this time. The cool thing is this will be discussed for years , and any who follow this will know a lot more.

I’m just saying if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck it may not be a squirrel

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What you described isn't "looks like a duck, quacks like a duck".

This is a fire in a government (publicly-funded) location in an industry that's often overlooked and underfunded... in a traditionally conservative country (with a Liberal leader for the last few months) that is part of a very top-down hierarchical structure. Which would suggest that the complaints of a systems administrator are likely to be ignored. And that's assuming that the systems administrator is competent, which isn't a guarantee in and of itself.

I'm seeing what looks like a duck, I'm hearing the quacks. The conspiracy theory is that it's a squirrel in a duck costume that learned how to quack so people would toss it bread.

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Here we have a glass of water, it’s half full.

Did someone forget to fill it up, or did someone drink it.

Is it institutional incompetence or criminal conspiracy?

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't think changing the analogy makes your argument stronger

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

I don’t have any argument, just my natural suspicion only.

But you likewise are thin on facts, your natural inclination is to see this as more a system issue.

Either we will never know , or one of us will be correct later

[–] sadness_nexus@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

Hanlon's razor mate. I know it's entirely possible that it's a conspiracy, but it'd entirely possible (and more likely) that it's just incompetence and lack of communication due to inefficient and lackluster processes as well as too many levels of leadership.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 2 points 1 week ago

I don't know about deliberate, but it certainly crossed my mind.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

A nice clean start on a fresh install.

[–] TheOakTree@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You know for a fact that the people doing the largest share of the recovery effort have nothing to do with the decision to have no backups.

...but with the way social/work hierarchies work in SK, it was probably never brought up.

[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

You know for a fact that the people doing the largest share of the recovery effort have nothing to do with the decision to have no backups.

Exactly. How they got there is no consolation to those dealing with it now.