I often obsess over having all of my data and content stored and organized with a consistent structure and logic. At the same time, I make changes to the very platform on which I store and share this content frequently. Having just uploaded my first video to PeerTube, I am now facing a dilemma in that my previous method for sharing videos within Discourse posts is now redundant.
I have written elsewhere about how I have thought that a mailing list may have been a better choice for the content I am sharing here, and even have gone so far as to deploy GNU Mailman.
Having already had an established YouTube channel when I deployed this platform, I faced the same question: how can I store all of my data consistently when I keep changing the ways in which I am doing so? Unfortunately, it is extremely tedious to go back and reformat an entire catalogue. The solution in all of these cases, and probably most future instances, is not to reformat the old content but to archive it as it currently exists. I will probably not upload all of my previous videos to PeerTube, and I probably will not repost all of these threads should I decide to focus on a mailing list instead. Through a lot of experience, I think I’ve learned that my obsession to have a perfectly consistent library is counterproductive. The things I created in the past should be left as they are and new methodologies should be explored freely. So long as the original platforms are maintained, they all serve to tell part of the entire project’s story.