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

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

#71

Post by betamaxthetape »

patcon wrote: post #55
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?

Maybe those who care (we?) could organize a campaign to get customers to commit to leaving Verizon if they let the messages be deleted without archive? That would convert it into the language they understand. To raise the perceived threat level, many folks could support in building tooling or docs to help ppl migrate as easily and streamlined as possible, to minimize the tax on consumer time that they rely on. (E.g.,…

There is a campaign already. https://modsandmembersblog.wordpress.com/

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

#73

Post by aspaceman »

piroux wrote: post #49
jedberg wrote: post #10

It's like the burning of the Library of Alexandria all over again. We don't know exactly what was in the library when it burned. We assume it was all great works of intellectualism, but it could very well have been the fanfics of their time.

Except that the Library of Alexandria never actuelly burnt ! That is a very good ol' myth ;) - https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/06/the-perni... - https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/making-myth-li... - https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/677/what-knowled... But anyway, no one should delete human littérature, be it inadvertently or by lack of effort.

These articles seem more concerned with detailing how important it is that it wasn't Christians. Makes sense for a organization centered around "religion and public life", I guess. Quite the angle.

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

#75

Post by aspaceman »

Diagon wrote: post #72
aspaceman wrote: post #62

They want to wipe their hands clean of it. They don't want a record of it.

Is this something you know from the inside, or your (probably good) guess?

Just a guess to be clear. Not an employee myself.

I would imagine there's a lot of porn, sex work, stuff Verizon is trying to wash its hands of lately with Tumblr.

EDIT: Ah yes HN - where admitting that you're just speculating wildly like everyone else gets you the downvotes -_-

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

#76

Post by betamaxthetape »

umeshunni wrote: post #27

I'm confused why Archive.org is attempting to archive and expose to the public what is essentially private communications? My usage of Yahoo groups in the early 2000s was mostly to communicate with my high school / college / dorm groups and the last thing I want is for embarrassing messages from 20 years ago sent to a private group to be archived.

Clarification - we're not archive.org. Archive Team and Internet Archive are completely separate.

And we're only archiving things that "any guy on the internet" can see. If someone can access the messages simply by joining a group (with no moderator approval), I'd argue it's fair game.

We're not going to be unreasonable, though. If something private slips through and we receive a takedown request from the author, we typically remove it.

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

#77

Post by Diagon »

paggle wrote: post #56

I am a self interested party, but I’m personally glad since there’s a post in a Yahoo Group that’s findable through Google, that would absolutely ruin my reputation and life if discovered.

Individuals have always been able to delete their own posts. If you log in there, you can still do it (before the 14th).

Also, see betamaxthetape, above. If anything is archived, they will respond to takedown requests.

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

#78

Post by Thorentis »

I'm genuinely curious from an ideological perspective, why archivists think all this material is worth saving?

People often compare the shutting down of sites or the banning of content (e.g. When Tumblr banned porn, or now yahoo shutting down groups) to the burning of the Library of Alexandria. But there is a huge difference. The LoA held knowledge collated and collected by the best thinkers of the time. The Internet is not that. The Internet is an open platform where anybody can say anything like that. Most comment sections are filled with all sorts of material ranging from factual to entirely fictional.

I realise it is hard to decide what is worth keeping (and therefore erring on the side of saving it all), but I'd wager that the vast majority of archived content is not useful at all. The Wayback machine is a perfect example. Lots of great stuff, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the vast amounts of useless, or even redundant information stored.

It is a lot of resources thrown at saving, not the equivalent of the Library of Alexandria, but the public toilet block graffiti wall.

Anybody want to share what drives them to do this?

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by [deleted] »

john_moscow wrote: post #46
betamaxthetape wrote: post #3

disclaimer: I'm a Member of Archive Team who's helping coordinate the joining of Yahoo Groups in preparation for archival. Yahoo's banning of a large amount of the accounts we were using is a huge setback for us. In total we lost over access to over 55,000 Yahoo Groups, many of these will now not be archived and will be lost when Yahoo deletes everything on December 14. Particularly disastrous was the loss of access…

Forgive my naivety, but why would blocking of your accounts delete the data you have already backed up? This sounds like you are doing it the wrong WAY, IMO.

[deleted]
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