perlmeditation arashi <p>A few years back I came across a site that was a fairly interesting read. Since then, I've sent many friends who were interested in the topic to the site. I recently went there and found that the site isn't really updated anymore, the author removed his email address, and the forum is almost a ghost town. I began to worry that this good resource might disappear, and I want to preserve it if I can.</p> Now, I eventually found the author's email address and sent him a message about this, but this whole situation got me to thinking, <b>what exactly do we do with dead websites, if the information can be of use to people?</b></p> <u>Here's a sample scenario:</u><br /> A website falls into disrepair and the author can no longer be contacted, yet you have an interest in the content and feel it should be preserved, what should you do? <p>Should you just let it fall into obscurity?</p> <p>Should you take it upon yourself to preserve the information?</p> <p>At what point would it become stealing, even if you have good intentions?</p> <p>Is it ethical to reproduce the information without permission if you can't get the permission?</p> <p>Personally, if I felt that the information was worth saving, and I had the resources to do so, I would mirror the site and write a disclaimer to the effect that my attempts were only to preserve the information, and that it would be taken offline at the authors request.</p> What would you do?