In reply to:

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And... we have to live with the fact that this is a discussion forum and old threads cannot be saved forever.

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I disagree entirely. In fact, if it weren't for the fact those old threads are going to be archived and will be accesible once more I'd be more than a little distraught. Sure, a lot of the posts back then were mindless twaddle, much like now - but there was a myriad of brilliant thoughts, hilarious comments and thought-provoking speeches contained within those threads. And not just my posts - but other people's too. That there was one of those hilarious comments of which I spoke, in case you missed it.

And a life-span encourages a "chat" mentality. I'm sure some posters here would fully advocate this mentality, but Evan has always maintained from the beginning that this is not to be one of those types of message boards - which I completely stand by because those types of message boards are, to be fair, complete shite.

And with a life-span people are less likely to strive for "classic" threads. It may be hard to believe, but I've created threads myself that I simply wouldn't have considered worth the effort if they were going to disappear within a few months. As pretentious as this might sound (and I'm actually not talking about my posts for this) a good piece of writing deserves to be maintained for all time, whether it's a book, a poem, or a post on an internet message board. I don't think we should "live with the fact" that they can't be kept forever, I think we should do anything we can to keep them.

I, for one, would gladly pay real money for a disc of all the threads currently AWOL.

I could be a genius if I just put my mind to it.