[andybak]

I think even leaving aside historians - the idea of making everything posting transient by default would have robbed us of a lot of stored knowledge. I'm feeling quite bitter about the rise of Slack and Discord over mailing lists and Usenet.

The ease in which one can find clues and solutions to decades old technical questions relies on everything being stored.

And more than just technical issues - I'm no historian but I've wasted endless hours following fascinating discussions from the past that suddenly become relevent because of recent events or unforeseen connections. I love how much is preserved by accident. It makes me slightly sad to think that it might be otherwise and that others would wish it otherwise.

[spockz]

And yet I used to regularly find answers on a Usenet or Google groups mirror with Google. Even sometimes in public irc logs. I have yet to find the answer in a public slack or discord log.