Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14 • Hacker News Board

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#261

Post by BlueTemplar » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 4:44 AM UTC

blihp wrote: post #24

dessant wrote: post #6

What prevents Verizon from donating the Yahoo Groups database to the Internet Archive? What does Verizon have to gain from preventing the archival of Yahoo Groups?

Companies don't typically operate that way. All else being equal (especially when there's no $$$ in it for them) when given the choice between doing something and doing nothing, they usually choose to do nothing. It's often not malicious, but an overabundance of caution. (i.e. lawyers raising red flags about liability, 'our IP' etc... it's a real pain even from the inside getting large companies to do anything differ…

It is kind of incredible that they are expecting to be protected by IP laws, and yet aren't willing to put the slightest effort to archive the content that they are taking down...

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#262

Post by jefftk » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 4:52 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #259

jefftk wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was on the front page here in October when it was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269614

How many non-technical readers are a) going to see that HN post, and b) have any idea what the gobbledygook in those first few posts means?

Yahoo sent out email notifications to every group owner and member. I got mine on November 1st.

Yahoo is definitely handling this badly: they should have offered an export tool, given a longer window, and been clearer in their messaging. But the claim that they didn't notify people (and just put the information up in a place no one would see) is wrong.

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#263

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 4:54 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #206

yladiz wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely having something more easily accessible to less technical people, plus being able to view the history of posts in the browser, are some reasons.

"biohackers"... "Less technical people"

What is this supposed to mean?

You can have an avid interest in one field and know nothing about others.

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#264

Post by BlueTemplar » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

oneepic wrote: post #248

I wonder if this would be a workable idea: Create a service for long-term storage with an easy integration API; the idea would be that if you integrate your data with our service, and you eventually (maybe you're going out of business, or something) make a call to delete data, that data is first transferred to our service before deleting it on your end. Integrating with us is basically like making a reservation in ad…

P2P software has solved this problem a while ago?

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#265

Post by a3n » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 5:03 AM UTC

Don't use free corporate services for shit you care about. Or think you may care about later.

Don't use any service that suffers from a single point of control.

How much anguish when Facebook inevitably either goes away or pivots entirely?

Or HN, for that matter?

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#266

Post by D-Coder » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 5:12 AM UTC

lsiebert wrote: post #247

frustyycomb wrote: post #121

yahoo is going to keep the messages but just delete the art and other uploads or attachments to the messages correct? although apparently they will make some groups private as well essentially closing access.

Nope, they are deleting everything

Any recommendations for a good replacement site?

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#267

Post by slenk » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

a3n wrote: post #265

Don't use free corporate services for shit you care about. Or think you may care about later. Don't use any service that suffers from a single point of control. How much anguish when Facebook inevitably either goes away or pivots entirely? Or HN, for that matter?

I don't believe that point is necessarily up for debate. At this point we are just trying to save the data that we know will be lost.

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#268

Post by Diagon » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 5:15 AM UTC

ec109685 wrote: post #260

Diagon wrote: post #2

Extensive history is about to be lost. Despite being broken, many organizations still use it. Examples from that post: A police cooperative in Washington DC that was using them as a network to communicate with their respective neighborhoods with over 17,000 members. A phone company in the UK that assigns phone numbers using the groups and now will lose all those phone designations when it’s deleted. A Birding group i…

Not to be flippant, but wouldn't one of the members of these groups have a copy of the group in their email? Given gmail and whatnot store things virtually indefinitely, couldn't the contents be recovered that way? -EJ

Some of these groups are decades old. For them, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who was there for the whole history of the group and kept them all. Also, yahoo was often a headache, dropping emails to individuals - you'd have to go to the website to read them. And furthermore, there is a lot more than emails stored on the platform: files/images/links/calendars/databases ...

To add to all this, it's not an individual project. Most people done' have technical competence. They need someone to help. That's what the Archive Team has been trying to offer (if not for Verizon).

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#269

Post by ranger_lennier » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 5:20 AM UTC

hota_mazi wrote: post #250

jstanley wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to do this but upon clicking the purple "Join Group" button Yahoo is giving me an error saying my email address is not linked to a Yahoo account: > Your email address is not linked to a Yahoo ID. To join this group, you need to link your email address to a Yahoo account. When I click "link your email address", it just takes me to a page called "Personal info" which doesn't have any obvious way to link my emai…

How long did it take you between adding the email address and being able to join the group? Seeing the same thing now, I added an email address and verified it, but I'm still not allowed to join the group.

It didn't take long at all for me after verification. Although I have sometimes randomly gotten that error message. Interestingly, sometimes it actually had joined the group anyway. The site has been a little glitchy off and on, but it's working for me right now.

Re: Verizon/Yahoo Blocking Attempts to Archive Yahoo Groups – Deletion: Dec. 14

#270

Post by Diagon » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #262

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many non-technical readers are a) going to see that HN post, and b) have any idea what the gobbledygook in those first few posts means?

Yahoo sent out email notifications to every group owner and member. I got mine on November 1st. Yahoo is definitely handling this badly: they should have offered an export tool, given a longer window, and been clearer in their messaging. But the claim that they didn't notify people (and just put the information up in a place no one would see) is wrong.

A lot of people apparently didn't get notified. The platform regularly lost emails. (Fifteen years of being on it, such problems were not irregular.) Also, they did offer an export tool, but the results were/are incomplete.

I'll add that some group owners/moderators have not even been able to log into their groups. Yahoo was doing something with needing a yahoo email to get in as admin, even when a non-yahoo email was associated with the account. Those people that lost access to their yahoo email account have been totally SOL.