ClustrMaps Archival For 2007-2008

Just a quick note to bring your attention to an annual event that is about to take place. Our ClustrMap will reset itself in a few days (predicted on the 10th), as part of the normal routine that this service provides. As this is the first time we will have experienced it on Triskelos, I am not 100% certain how it will look when the archiving happens.

From what I understand, we will start losing hits that occured over 365 days ago (our subscription anniversary), but it is possible I am misunderstanding, in which case we will be completely reset to zero. I have included above the present image map of our hit history for your review. Also, there will be a feature added to our ClustrMap site upon archiving where you can see our previous hit record.

For more explanation, please see ClustrMaps policy below:

This notification (and the sudden disappearance of dots) means that a regular (normally yearly) archive has either just occurred or is imminent (for some users, this happens monthly or weekly, as explained below). Your old thumbnail maps (or bigger maps for ClustrMaps+ users) will remain available in a stored archive, which is accessible as follows: when you zoom in to the world map, you'll see (high up on the page) a line labelled:

Navigation: Map with smaller clustrs | Maps Archive | Notes | Full Map Key

The second link ('Maps Archive') will take you to the page where your previous thumbnail map is stored (ClustrMaps+ users have a large list of complete earlier maps, including all the zoomed-in maps). You can click on the dates shown or 'turn thumbnails... on' to see the earlier map.

Explanation: Maps get archived at regular intervals (weekly, monthly, or yearly), as described in our explanatory timeline. The interval is specified by you on your Admin page see the 'Admin' link at the top of any ClustrMaps page). By default, archives happens yearly, but are sometimes delayed until a suitable current update has occurred, which is probably what has just taken place in the case of your own maps.

Naturally, people always like to have ever-more-dots, but the regular archive is the only way we can avoid having the maps turn into a 'giant red smear', and continue delivering the scalable service that everyone has come to expect.

If it helps to explain things to your own readers, you can always copy and paste the archive map referred to above, and add that in to the appropriate page near your current active ClustrMaps thumbnail map with a suitable commentary (e.g. "Last year's totals:"). Note that for users of the free ClustrMaps service, only the thumbnail maps, i.e. NOT the large maps, are saved in the archive! This news does not do you much good after-the-fact, but we're trying to make it more obvious in advance in other places throughout the site, and as of October 2007 we have added advance warning emails to let you know when this is about to happen so you can save a snapshot of your older map.

When you are warned in advance, the predicted date of the archive is only approximate because there can be small delays when a heavy archiving load is incurred. Finally, note that even when a map archive has just taken place, the existing map will stay displayed until the NEXT map update. This helps to avoid displaying a totally empty map until there are fresh dots to show!