We have been set an assignment to appraise the website http://minecraftmuseum.net/. The website is a user orientated forum which allows fans to upload digital images of their creations. We have been asked to consider appraisal in the traditional archival sense and consider the significance from a digital curation point of view. As a group we pondered on a question of whether this website was worthy of preservation.
Minecraft is a digital version of lego where users can construct literally anything from portraits to complex fantasy landscapes. Beginning in 31st May 2009, the museums archive holds the evidence of the users creation in the form of an uploaded digital image. The administrator ensures users follow the rules of the site. (Basically no violence) There is no financial fee involved for joining the forum. And by a rough estimation there is around 10000 images averaging in 1700 new images per year, and the total storage of the whole site will be around 1.5GB.
Despite the website still being presently used, the fact there is only one administrator implies this is not a heavily used resource. Again we return to the question of whether this website is worth saving? Is there any value here? You could argue that every image is a record of a creative act. Each image is linked to a members profile. Whilst you could argue this is evidence of interaction or community, one can assume that if these creations had any personal value to them it would be stored within home computers?
The website at creation established no classification system within it’s archive. A visitor needs to scroll through pages of random photos with no ability to leave comments. Nor can you have an option to search subjects generically. Considering there are 12000 subscriptions to the website, this also implies users generally upload a limited number of photographs. Already it’s becoming obvious that to catalogue and preserve this website would take huge resources, especially in creating a classification scheme. An archive would need to hire specialist staff and continually migrate the data with new technologies. On the face of it there is no immediate value with this data.
Over time the website has changed, it used to have user comments and introduced advertising in 2012. The back ground, design, layout, has been refreshed on numerous occasions however the website looks out dated and under used. The difficulty is Minecraft is a huge interactive entertainment but this museum site only holds a static image. Users want to use the data rather than just observe. There are websites offering surrogate copies of constructed data so users can recreate for free complex scenes, and add to the construction. Considering technology has advanced to such a level where users can save, send, recreate the actual landscapes, significant effort has been pouring into preserving the process of the game rather than the infinity of options.
Investing in preserving the games process makes far more economical sense rather than trying to classify the millions of random images that is produced by the product. The website just does not hold enough important data to warrant spending time and money on preserving it.
ambiguous imps 
I realise the possibility of archiving this site would be an enormous undertaking and may probably not appear to be financially viable, so at face value it would seem not worth the trouble to do so. Also as Minecraft is a game that exists virtually in a 3d landscape, perhaps 2d representations may not seem worthy of preservation.
However, I would argue that a resource of so much collective creativity is unique and more so because the type of images uploaded here span such a huge spectrum, it would be worth considering the possibility of preservation. The very fact that the collection has been brought together by many, many users over a period of time from a wide range of cultural, geographical and creative backgrounds seems like such a waste of effort to allow to dissappear completely. Obviously we can never know who might find this informstion useful or valuable in the future, but perhaps it would benefit scholars from sociology, art history, media studies or games studies backgrounds in future research.
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That is reassuring that you came to the same conclusion as us. I am interested to see if anybody disagrees. It is also interesting that both of our groups have come to the same decision, when both have artists within them – which I think is relevant given that the some of the screenshots are essentially showcasing pieces of digitally constructed art. I say this because our lectures this week have made me quite conscious about thinking as a resource-user, rather than an archivist – about considering what users opinions would be upon consultation. Where the archivist may look at the pieces as a collection and value the site as a whole, in their context as relates to the game, society, technology etc. a user may be more concerned with the site as a tool – a gallery for publicising/showcasing their creations. It is a very personal point of view, but I know that if I had put one of my pieces online I would probably unconcerned as to whether it were archived or not, as I would certainly retain the original screenshot. If valued it would then form part of my personal archive. As I say – a very personal view from someone who doesn’t use Minecraft – but I just thought it was worth chewing over.
Anyway I thought you made some very interesting points in the blog, especially as regards the potential use and reuse of the data from the game itself.
Lucy (from group 6)
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