Hi folks,

I'm writing to inform you that I lost part of the Gambia-L archives at the
Univ. of Washington (UW), Seattle.  And it's a huge part, because it covers
over a year, from most of Mar., 1998 to May 1999.

Here's what happened: When we moved Gambia-L from UW to it's present host at
St. John's, I asked Ms. Rebekah Skiver of UW Computing Services to make the
file of the archives available to me so I could download it.  She did, and I
did download the file to my own PC, and later uploaded it to my fanafana.com
Website.  And I thought that was that, until I uncompressed the file to access
the files of postings for different periods while Gambia-L was hosted at UW.
To my horror, I got an error message to the effect that there was an unexpected
end-of-file in the file I was uncompressing.  The files available after
uncompressing the archive file covered the period from Jan., 1996 to early
Mar., 1998, meaning that we had lost postings from most of Mar., 1998 to May,
1999 when we moved Gambia-L to St. Johns.

I suspect that the problem was caused by an incomplete downloading (from UW to
my PC) or uploading (from my PC to fanafana.com) of the archive file.  And
because I did not catch in time, it has not been possible to recover the
original file. I wrote to Ms. Skiver a while back about the problem, and she
was unable to find a backup copy of the file.  For your information, and for
the record, I am fowarding a copy of our latest exhange of e-mails on the
issue.

I would also like to say that I take total responsibility for what from all
indications seem like a irreversible loss of a good part of the Gambia-L
postings.  It's really unfortunate, and a loss that I will mourn forever.
Please accept my sincere apologies, and promise to make sure that such an
incident does not happen again.

Have a great weekend, and best wishes.

Katim
ps:  Following are my exhanges with Ms. Skiver on the issue of the Gambia-L
archives.

----------
> From: Rebekah Skiver <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Katim S. Touray <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Gambia-L archives
> Date: Thursday, October 28, 1999 11:13 AM
>
> Katim,
>
> I actually searched the system-wide backups as well but they are very
> intermittent when the time-frame is longer than a week ago.  I have a
> backup for May 12 which is too early (the archives weren't on my account
> until ~May 20) and another one for July 12 which is after I had deleted
> the file from my account. There are no backups for any time in between.
>
> Sorry!
>
> --
> Rebekah Skiver                  Client Services
> [log in to unmask]      Computing & Communications
> 206-543-8121                    Box 355670, University of Washington
>
>
> On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Katim S. Touray wrote:
>
> > Hi Rebekah,
> >
> > Thanks for your e-mail.  And thanks too for taking the time to search for
the
> > Gambia-L archives.  Actually, I thought that you might have a system-wide
or
> > whole-server backup tapes somewhere.  I can imagine you being pressed for
> > space, and so it would make sense that you would clear your account out as
fast
> > as possible.  However, I still would like to think that I'm a lucky dog
enough
> > that, somewhere, there just MIGHT be a tape-backup of your server.  It's
not
> > the end of the world if my hunch is false, but I'd be thrilled to hear it
> > indeed is the case.  Again, thanks so much for everything.  And best
wishes.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Katim
> >
> > ----------
> > > From: Rebekah Skiver <[log in to unmask]>
> > > To: Katim S. Touray <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Subject: Re: Gambia-L archives
> > > Date: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 10:33 PM
> > >
> > > Hi Katim,
> > > I'll keep my eye out for them. I searched my hard drive and my accounts
> > > for a backup but didn't find any. But that's not to say one doesn't exist
> > > somewhere! :) I'll let you know if I come across one.
> > >
> > > You have a good weekend too (and a good week)!
> > >
> > > --
> > > Rebekah Skiver                  Client Services
> > > [log in to unmask]      Computing & Communications
> > > 206-543-8121                    Box 355670, University of Washington
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>

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