"That belongs in a museum!" - Archiving PA History on CoRe

jdarksun

Delzhand wrote: »

Maybe it's a moot point. Aside from Fishman's XCOM LP and some phallas nobody has suggested any threads to preserve

I apologize, I didn't see this thread until recently. I've been much busier than anticipated.

I have multiple bookmark folders of individual posts and threads that I occasionally refer to for nostalgia, character ideas, etc. Many of them are a decade+ old, and some of the participants of the threads have been banned or otherwise are no longer present on this forum.

Maybe providing a tool (or a PM to a bot) to archive a thread would suffice for many of those sorts of threads? While they're "important" to me, I'd struggle saying we need to port one of my fizzled PbP games to the new forum.

...though I do think *all* off the Phalla games should make the cut

Delzhand

I actually think a tool that can preserve a thread as it exists right now for some kind of unofficial archive-safe review isn't a bad idea. Basically, I'll make a data file (possibly with an associated folder of images) that any interested parties (maybe some kind of archival committee/working group?) can comb through together and parse out/replace any usernames, nicknames, references.

Once it passes muster it can be re-incorporated in the CR archive. What the community process for sanitizing that document looks like is up to the groups and would probably need review by the board or something.

jdarksun

Delzhand wrote: »

I actually think a tool that can preserve a thread as it exists right now for some kind of unofficial archive-safe review isn't a bad idea. Basically, I'll make a data file (possibly with an associated folder of images) that any interested parties (maybe some kind of archival committee/working group?) can comb through together and parse out/replace any usernames, nicknames, references.

Once it passes muster it can be re-incorporated in the CR archive. What the community process for sanitizing that document looks like is up to the groups and would probably need review by the board or something.

Trying to be helpful, so I gotta ask a few questions;

1. User anonymization. I believe the goal is to get active consent (traceable, clear, "yes I consent to this specific information being attributable to me") when/if porting any data from Ye Olde Forums to CR. Is that correct?
2. If that is correct, preventing de-anonymization would also be something we want to consider. Is that correct?
3. If both of those are correct, would it be possible to:

1. For any given thread we'd like to port over in an anonymized fashion,
2. "Anonymize" posters as the thread is parsed; eg, for this thread, the first user to post would go from "Zonugal" to "User 1" (or U1, or, e7c8e8d2-0abf-44fb-99bf-6bfb3412a5fb, or whatever). So the posts in this thread would like they're from U1, U2, U3, U4, U5, U5 (U5 again because RatherDashing posted twice in a row), then back to U1 because Zonugal posted again.

This would allow for tracking within thread - localized contextual information remaining, but user metadata being scrubbed.

...are you allocating "user" space in the new forums for the anonymized posts?

...maybe i should start by going back and digging in to all the technical discussion before suggesting things without knowing what's possible and what's planned.

Solysp

Obviously we must archive "They fucked on the boat" or no newbies will understand us

discrider

I believe we actually ditched the boat in the dead zone because there was no point carrying it to the final arena in the battle Royale Phalla.

Fencingsax

I don't know if they are still on the forums, but @Bobby Derie's restrospectives on cerebus from GV were pretty good, and I really enjoyed the actual play from @Jacobkosh of his Agents of Strike game.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Infidel

There’s a lot of energy given to stuff CoRe has no control over. It just is a matter of what and how they want to BRING content over.

The stuff isn’t otherwise just going away.

Jacobkosh

Fencingsax wrote: »

I don't know if they are still on the forums, but "Bobby Derie"'s restrospectives on cerebus from GV were pretty good, and I really enjoyed the actual play from @Jacobkosh of his Agents of Strike game.

@Fencingsax I plan to repost the whole thing from scratch, like a director's cut. A bunch of the original image links got nuked when imgur did their big stupid a couple years ago, and there are typos galore. Also I might need to re-do the bbcode tags for some stuff? I haven't been following the CoRe technical side.

Earl Grey

I nominate the wonderful Driving Miss Daisy film analysis that @Atomika wrote. That thing truly deserves to be preserved for future generations.

Atomika

Akilae wrote: »

I nominate the wonderful Driving Miss Daisy film analysis that @Atomika wrote. That thing truly deserves to be preserved for future generations.

I think that was @Astaereth iirc

Good Lord that was like a decade ago!

IceBurner

FWIW, I hereby consent to any and all of my posts being archived, no anonymity required.

There's so much good info in Games & Technology, and Tech Tavern threads. I have to do what little I can to give any of it a shot at sticking around.

That said, I can't think of any practical way to go about meeting the archival requirements for knowledge from typical G&T threads. Things like game-specific threads or Tech Tavern hardware discussions. There's generally too many users, some or even many of which may no longer be active, and the troubleshooting/modding/shopping/setup/gameplay info isn't concentrated enough into single posts. I can't help but feel we've set a darn near impossible hurdle for any of that to survive.

Tox

It's unfortunate that, in our youth, we collectively didn't have an instinct for preservation. I hope we are more conscious of this on the Coin Return.

It sucks that we waited so long to start thinking and talking about this

Earl Grey

Atomika wrote: »

Akilae wrote: »

I nominate the wonderful Driving Miss Daisy film analysis that @Atomika wrote. That thing truly deserves to be preserved for future generations.

I think that was @Astaereth iirc

Good Lord that was like a decade ago!

No wonder I haven't had much luck trying to find it under your posts!

Sadly Astaereth hasn't shown up since... January...

Bogart

I have a couple of threads in CF that were PBP threads of D&D that reached completion I’d like to preserve. Thom’s threads of film recommendations also had a lot of good, interesting stuff about films.

The Choose Your Own Adventure [chat]’s I did I probably need to sort out on my own because there’s no way I’m getting permission from everyone who posted in those.

Zonugal

Just a reminder, if folks want specific posts or threads archived, ya gotta private message me.

Powerpuppies

Bogart wrote: »

I have a couple of threads in CF that were PBP threads of D&D that reached completion I’d like to preserve. Thom’s threads of film recommendations also had a lot of good, interesting stuff about films.

The Choose Your Own Adventure [chat]’s I did I probably need to sort out on my own because there’s no way I’m getting permission from everyone who posted in those.

Those were very fun

RMS Oceanic

I'd be interested in preserving the D&D Secret Santa threads because a record of classiness is always welcome. Tracking down permission for it would be hard beyond my own OPs

Zonugal

I am currently having to go to BluSky to secure consent from a few forumers who have not frequented this website for YEARS for a particular thread I want archived.

The process can be demanding, but I have also found it enjoyable actually rolling up my sleeves & engaging with an actual attempt at archiving what I find special to me.

Earl Grey

Did we ever figure how to archive something like Fishman's X-COM LP? Lots of users involved, usernames scattered all over screenshots, etc...

Gnizmo

Akilae wrote: »

Did we ever figure how to archive something like Fishman's X-COM LP? Lots of users involved, usernames scattered all over screenshots, etc...

Yes, but it would be tricky. You have to do what Zonugal just said he is doing.

Perrsun

I was thinking about this re: SE++ EPYC threads.

Currently, I have the text/bbcode for all EPYC posts saved as plaintext, which includes urls to images hosted on the forums.

My issue with archiving them myself is the images, and the prospected tedium of manually saving them, then uploading them somewhere else.

I don’t think the entire thread needs to be archived, but I would like the chain-end-results to be archived.

Does the transition team have a way to mass save/move/update the links for a bunch of images? (I honestly hadn’t even seen/paid attention to if CoRe will be able to host its own images)

Phyphor

Do you care about it specifically being on coin-return.org?

Perrsun

Not specifically, no. The images can be hosted wherever.

RandomHajile

I haven’t posted here regularly in A WHILE, but I have to say it’s a bummer that it has to be this way. I understand why and I’m not arguing against it. But I will say that this place got me through some really tough times in my life and I will miss it. Would I ever need to look at those archived threads? No, I’m sure I wouldn’t but I’ll still be sad when they’re gone.

Maybe this will give me a chance to come back with the new site. I did register my name over there already.

Minor edit: I would like to see the GOTY threads archived in some way. I know they haven’t happened in quite a while but they were my favorite thing we ever did on these forums. I put a lot of work into assisting with the statistics and I’ll definitely miss those threads.

syndalis

RandomHajile wrote: »

I haven’t posted here regularly in A WHILE, but I have to say it’s a bummer that it has to be this way. I understand why and I’m not arguing against it. But I will say that this place got me through some really tough times in my life and I will miss it. Would I ever need to look at those archived threads? No, I’m sure I wouldn’t but I’ll still be sad when they’re gone.

Maybe this will give me a chance to come back with the new site. I did register my name over there already.

Minor edit: I would like to see the GOTY threads archived in some way. I know they haven’t happened in quite a while but they were my favorite thing we ever did on these forums. I put a lot of work into assisting with the statistics and I’ll definitely miss those threads.

on that note, both mcc and infidel are posting at the new shores...

We could probably easily secure permission to migrate the content of the OPs and Results of the GOTY threads. The important meat is really in a small number of posts, and we don't need every person who ever posted in the thread to just carry the results across.

Solysp

What do people think about moving the Q&A thread over once it's locked? Might be good to have access to what we've said to keep the Board honest.

minor incident

Solysp wrote: »

What do people think about moving the Q&A thread over once it's locked? Might be good to have access to what we've said to keep the Board honest.

Yeah, I think something like that's the best option. I had planned on copying it over a day or two ago but the more I thought about it, it just seemed like it'd split everyone's focus and cause more chaos, duplicate questions, missed questions, etc.

Infidel

syndalis wrote: »

RandomHajile wrote: »

I haven’t posted here regularly in A WHILE, but I have to say it’s a bummer that it has to be this way. I understand why and I’m not arguing against it. But I will say that this place got me through some really tough times in my life and I will miss it. Would I ever need to look at those archived threads? No, I’m sure I wouldn’t but I’ll still be sad when they’re gone.

Maybe this will give me a chance to come back with the new site. I did register my name over there already.

Minor edit: I would like to see the GOTY threads archived in some way. I know they haven’t happened in quite a while but they were my favorite thing we ever did on these forums. I put a lot of work into assisting with the statistics and I’ll definitely miss those threads.

on that note, both mcc and infidel are posting at the new shores...

We could probably easily secure permission to migrate the content of the OPs and Results of the GOTY threads. The important meat is really in a small number of posts, and we don't need every person who ever posted in the thread to just carry the results across.

I have the pages hosted offsite, everyone is welcome to link to those!

Also I think I posted all the results OPs for like the last five years of them, I would be happy to repost them with the link and my commentary at least.

Perrsun

Edit: whoops

Expendable

X

furlion

The GOTY polls were something i really enjoyed. Sad the participation dropped off but maybe we can try again.

je2 healthcare

There's nothing specific I want preserved, most of what I find value in a secondhand record of internet rot. Browsing chat threads from 10-20 years ago reveals people hyping links to vanished youtube channels, webcomics, political op-eds, ancient blogs, marketing campaigns for defunct tech, and long-bankrupt gaming/music/comic review sites. At least from there I can fetch them from the internet wayback machine and continue down the rabbit hole to kill an evening with. Theses forums were once my navigator for discovering new things on the web before the algorithms, and now it's a navigator for discovering new-old things, and with the forums gone there may be no record on the clearnet of a lot of stuff. Ah well.

It's kind of remarkable how much the internet diverges the further back you go. There was once over a dozen youtube competitors.

Jazz

je2 healthcare wrote: »

There's nothing specific I want preserved, most of what I find value in a secondhand record of internet rot. Browsing chat threads from 10-20 years ago reveals people hyping links to vanished youtube channels, webcomics, political op-eds, ancient blogs, marketing campaigns for defunct tech, and long-bankrupt gaming/music/comic review sites. At least from there I can fetch them from the internet wayback machine and continue down the rabbit hole to kill an evening with. Theses forums were once my navigator for discovering new things on the web before the algorithms, and now it's a navigator for discovering new-old things, and with the forums gone there may be no record on the clearnet of a lot of stuff. Ah well.

It's kind of remarkable how much the internet diverges the further back you go. There was once over a dozen youtube competitors.

Yup. Once upon a time, Google Video was one of them. YouTube had a ten-minute limit at the time and GV didn't so they immediately lent themselves to different forms of content.

Then Google opened its wallet the next year and here we are.

syndalis

thebigmack

syndalis wrote: »

seeing this just made my back start hurting

Yellowhammer

Jazz wrote: »

je2 healthcare wrote: »

There's nothing specific I want preserved, most of what I find value in a secondhand record of internet rot. Browsing chat threads from 10-20 years ago reveals people hyping links to vanished youtube channels, webcomics, political op-eds, ancient blogs, marketing campaigns for defunct tech, and long-bankrupt gaming/music/comic review sites. At least from there I can fetch them from the internet wayback machine and continue down the rabbit hole to kill an evening with. Theses forums were once my navigator for discovering new things on the web before the algorithms, and now it's a navigator for discovering new-old things, and with the forums gone there may be no record on the clearnet of a lot of stuff. Ah well.

It's kind of remarkable how much the internet diverges the further back you go. There was once over a dozen youtube competitors.

Yup. Once upon a time, Google Video was one of them. YouTube had a ten-minute limit at the time and GV didn't so they immediately lent themselves to different forms of content.

Then Google opened its wallet the next year and here we are.

Everything bad can be traced to google opening it's wallet.