Mark Pilgrim and “Infosuicide”

dive into python, originally uploaded by kendrak.

Today on /. there is a story Searching for Mark Pilgrim., linking to the blog post of Eric Meyer.

Just yesterday, I took a screenshot of the title page of Dive Into HTML5 to include in a presentation as a highly recommended resource. Now it’s gone. That site, along with all the other “Dive Into…” sites (Accessibility, Python, Greasemonkey, etc.) and addictionis.org, is returning an HTTP “410 Gone” message. Mark’s Github, Google+, Reddit, and Twitter accounts have all been deleted. And attempts to email him have been bounced back.

I was using Dive Into Python to learn Python. When you go to it now, you get the picture above – gone. (Thankfully there’s already a mirrored version.)

I also wonder why Mark Pilgrim decided to wipe all of his work from the web, but also the implications of infosuicide. A lot of the information sharing on the web is done with a level of trust. I trust that you won’t just delete everything and make it all disappear. I guess it’s a matter of degrees – a one off site is fleeting. A whole brand, you think that would have some permanence.

Infosuicide worries me for the long term implications for the community. I don’t like gaps, but I also don’t think we can avoid it. The Wayback machine can work, but it’s not capturing everything. And so is the ephemeral nature of the internet….