datahoarder

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Who are we?

We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.

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How do you store your metadata? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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By metadata, I'm talking about things like text descriptions of a photo/video and where they come from, or an explanation of what a certain binary blob contains, its format, how to use it, etc.

The best solution I have right now is xattrs, but those are dependent on the file system, and there's no guarantee that they will stay when the files get moved, especially if the person moving them is unaware of its existence. The alternative is to keep a plaintext file with this metadata alongside every photo/video/binary/etc, but that would be a huge pain to keep in sync since both files have to be moved together.

So my question to you: do you keep this kind of metadata? If so, how do you manage them?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I also use xattrs, too, actually. I generally take care to make sure they’re copied over during backups etc., and when I’m sending files to other people I either tell them about the xattrs or copy them into a text-file that I archive with the file. It’s the nicest way of keeping metadata imo, even if it is a bit opaque.

but that would be a huge pain to keep in sync since both files have to be moved together.

It’s only a pain if you’re moving them by hand, btw. :^)