Long projects accumulate their own gravity.
More pages.
More traffic.
More routines.
More maintenance.
More reasons to keep doing what has always been done.
The source essay is unusually explicit about the intended result of a long-running archive: make a particular body of work publicly available and keep it findable.
That clarity is more important than the specific archive.
Every long project benefits from an answer to the same question.
What result is all this activity intended to produce?
Traffic is not automatically the result.
Volume is not automatically the result.
Longevity is not automatically the result.
They may be measures, means, or side effects.
Without an intended result, maintenance can become self-justifying.
With one, old practices can be reconsidered.
Does this still serve the result?
Does this page need to exist?
Does this process help people reach what the project exists to make available?
A long project needs memory.
It also needs a purpose strong enough to edit that memory.

A reflection on long-running projects and archives: activity, scale, and traffic are not substitutes for knowing what result the work is intended to produce.

Long projects accumulate their own gravity.

More reasons to keep doing what has always been done.

The source essay is unusually explicit about the intended result of a long-running archive: make a particular body of work publicly available and keep it findable.

That clarity is more important than the specific archive.

Every long project benefits from an answer to the same question.

What result is all this activity intended to produce?

Longevity is not automatically the result.

They may be measures, means, or side effects.

Without an intended result, maintenance can become self-justifying.

With one, old practices can be reconsidered.

Does this process help people reach what the project exists to make available?

It also needs a purpose strong enough to edit that memory.

A Long Project Needs an Intended Result