On content ephemerality

We could classify content based on its ephemerality:

• evergreen
• cactus
• deciduous
• dayflower

"Evergreen" content

"the encyclopedia"

• content that usually stays relevant for a long time, if not forever, without any updates:
  • for common knowledge that rarely changes
    • mathematics
    • academic papers
    • biographies of deceased persons
    • cooking recipes
• usually located on an "official page" that won't suffer from link rot
• accessible long after its publication date

"Cactus" content

"the sports and weather"

• in between "evergreen" and "deciduous", the content changes frequently to stay relevant:
  • for common knowledge that frequently changes
    • weather
    • sports scores
    • stock quotations
    • biographies of living persons
• usually located on an "official page" (or some site using the official site's data API)
  • past data gets archived, but usually on an URL with a query string or parameter, e.g. mlb.com/standings?date=2025-09-13
• as a cactus stores water to stay alive, a piece of cactus content stays relevant with someone maintaining it

"Deciduous" content

"the trends"

• content that usually stays relevant only for a while, but reaches an eventual end-of-life:
  • for knowledge that can change or become obsolete
    • web development
    • software releases
    • developing stories about major disasters
    • entertainment / travel / restaurant reviews (i.e. trends)
• usually a blog post or a forum post
• accessible long after its publication date but its timestamp remains important
  • content becomes slightly more irrelevant each day

"Dayflower" content

"the news"

• "du jour" content that usually stays relevant for only a short time period:
  • news stories about recent events
    • developing stories about minor disasters
    • sportswriting
  • opinions about recent events
• usually a blog or, much more commonly now, a social media post
  • (news sites are blogs, btw)
• accessible possibly long after its publication date but could be removed without notice without anyone really caring