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500 luftballoons - Labster - 06-02-2017
![[Image: yuku_maint.png]](http://static.yuku.com/error/bypass/images/yuku_maint.png)
I'm sure seeing this image a lot today. Generally I have to refresh a couple of times to get the page to load.-- ∇×V
- Bob Schroeck - 06-02-2017
When that happens to me, the worst part is that even the support forums throw it at me.
Edit: I suppose it's time to see what alternatives to Yuku exist. Things were fine until the last buyout, and now it looks like it's never going to go back to how dependable it used to be.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- robkelk - 06-02-2017
Bob Schroeck Wrote:...1) Can we get an extract of our data, or will we have to crawl all the threads?
Edit: I suppose it's time to see what alternatives to Yuku exist. Things were fine until the last buyout, and now it looks like it's never going to go back to how dependable it used to be.
2) If we're going to do our own wiki server, we may as well do our own forum server as well. As an end-user, I'm comfortable with vBulletin - a majority of the forums I post to use it.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
- Bob Schroeck - 06-02-2017
You know, I didn't think of that -- one solution to two different problems.
But, as you point out, we have fifteen years' worth of history here; is it even possible, let alone practical, to port it over to a different forum system? I'll see if Yuku even makes it possible to get an archive of the board contents, but I suspect that even if it does, we're going to have to do some fancy footwork to import into a new forum.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- Bob Schroeck - 06-02-2017
Well, whaddaya know.
First, Yuku's Knowledge Base is completely borked. Lovely table of contents, less lovely lack of contents to go with the table.
Second, we wouldn't be the first to want to transfer forum data. Surprise, surprise, it's a Terms of Use violation. At least that post was considerably more straightforward than an older one from 2011 with made vague references to violations of individual users' copyrights inherent in transferring forum contents. Also, it's from over two years ago, and predates the acquisition by Tapatalk.
On the off chance that they're still applicable, I'm looking for these terms of use, but so far all I've found is an End-User License Agreement for Tapatalk which refers specifically to those who use the plug-in or visit Tapatalk.com. Since we don't live on Tapatalk.com, and as far as I know none of us use the "plug-in", I don't think it really applies to us.
(Anyone know what the Tapatalk "plug-in" is, while we're at it? I came across a "Lisence" (sic) agreement for it while looking for those Terms of Use. Anything which uses such bad spelling in such a large font always catches my eye.)
There's a Tapatalk Terms of Service, but again it very clearly does not mention Yuku, and is all about being on Tapatalk.com and using their API. Now, the use of the API may be happening behind the scenes as part of the transition of Yuku -- something we might want to be aware of, as we may already unknowingly be subject to these TOS.
But frankly, folks, if those "Terms of Use" cited in the first link still exist, they're very thoroughly hidden. And nothing I can see in any of the "Terms" and "License" pages explicitly bans us from archiving our content and using it elsewhere. But it might be good if other pairs of eyes go over those pages and check my interpretation.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- robkelk - 06-02-2017
Bob, your agreement was with ezboard, right? Do you remember what their ToU was, and did you ever sign an amendment to that agreement?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
- Bob Schroeck - 06-03-2017
I may have saved a copy, long ago, but I certainly don't remember what was in it off the top of my head now. And I don't remember any amendments. I can't look now, in 15 minutes I have to switch to my work laptop and take part in a production push.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- Bob Schroeck - 06-03-2017
...and I just discovered that at some point, somebody with the authority to do so has had the Wayback Machine exclude ezBoard.com and everything on it. Grrr.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- LynnInDenver - 06-03-2017
Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:It would not shock me if it was Yuku when they were doing the takeover. Probably to ensure that things completely switched over, instead of a corner of the web "remembering" that EZ was a thing, rather than maliciously keeping us from finding the old TOS.
...and I just discovered that at some point, somebody with the authority to do so has had the Wayback Machine exclude ezBoard.com and everything on it. Grrr.
BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if the "please don't migrate" in the TOS is meant as a posterior cover for Yuku, both in terms of "we don't allow it because we might get legally zinged for letting migration happen when some users don't want their posts moved" and "crawling the forum feed to scrape all the posts might exceed what we consider realistic traffic and will be throttled" as the unspoken.
Regarding the TOS, I'm willing to put out here right now that I consent to having my posts moved to wherever you want to move things to.
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
- Bob Schroeck - 06-03-2017
Thank you.
In the meanwhile, I have done a search of my hard drive and email archives (which go back to the 90s), and I do not appear to have saved -- or saved and kept -- a copy of ezBoard's Terms of Use.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- robkelk - 06-03-2017
JFerio Wrote:Regarding the TOS, I'm willing to put out here right now that I consent to having my posts moved to wherever you want to move things to.And you already have my license, posted somewhere in the IST threads.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
- Shepherd - 06-03-2017
Perhaps if you do move the forum elsewhere, you can add your own legal boilerplate stating that posting on the forum counts as consent to copy the posts to a different forum should you ever change providers?
----------------------------------------------------
"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV
- Dartz - 06-04-2017
Do people actually worry about such things as ToS?
And the fucker just ate a post I spent an hour writing up on the new Wonder Woman film.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
- LynnInDenver - 06-04-2017
Quote:Dartz wrote:The only concern is if they notice, and decide to act upon it and prevent the forum from being copied for a move. As I noted, I expect it's a posterior cover, including the "we're not obligated to preserve your forum for transfer if we decide to close it because you're doing something wrong".
Do people actually worry about such things as ToS?
And the fucker just ate a post I spent an hour writing up on the new Wonder Woman film.
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
- Labster - 06-04-2017
CrowdGather User Terms and Conditions Wrote:(k) Other Prohibited Activities. You agree not to use the Site (or assist or encourage others to use the Site) in order to:So we're not allowed to scrape the site and can be deleted for doing so... except we also have the sole responsibility to backup data in ALLCAPS. Welp.
14. Attempt to harvest, scrape, copy or otherwise collect
information, User Generated Content or Content from the Site, to
retrieve or index any portion of the Site or collect information about
Company users for any purpose not expressly authorized by Company,
including, without limitation, republishing the same on a third party
website, either manually or through any engine, software, tool, agent,
or other device or mechanism (including without limitation browsers,
spiders, robots, avatars, site search/retrieval application,
intelligent agents or other device);19. Use “ad blocking” software or similar built-in web browser options
designed to hide, block or prevent the proper display of online
advertising (if any) while using the Sites;
Any violation of this section may subject you to civil and/or
criminal liability. Additionally, if you commit any of the above,
Company may, in its sole discretion, and without limiting any of their
other remedies, terminate your password, account or ability to use the
Site, and remove and discard any User Generated Content within the Site.
10. Data Back-up. We are not responsible for backing
up your data or any User Generated Content or other type of data
attributed to your participation in forums or use of the Site. YOU
EXPRESSLY AGREE TO ASSUME THE SOLE RISK OF BACKING UP ALL USER GENERATED
CONTENT THAT YOU CONTRIBUTE TO THE SITE AND EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT WE
WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY WITH RESPECT TO LOST USER GENERATED CONTENT,
WHETHER YOUR OWN OR THAT BELONGING TO THIRD PARTIES.
I'd also like to see using an ad blocker opening one to civil or criminal liability, somehow. Hey Yuku, I'm using an ad blocker right now! Go ahead and file a lawsuit against me. I'd be happy to share that story with HN.
But really, if we need it, I'd be happy to have a face-to-face with these people. Calabasas is pretty close to me.
Dartz Wrote:And the fucker just ate a post I spent an hour writing up on the new Wonder Woman film.When you've just lost a post: Open browser development tools. Go to the console part. Hit "try again" or refresh or whatever it takes to resend the request. If that request doesn't succeed, inspect it the request in the dev tools. You'll need to find the part that shows the params you sent to the server. Your post should be there.
-- ∇×V
- LynnInDenver - 06-04-2017
Quote:vorticity wrote:The data backup, I'm interpreting as another posterior cover. Basically, they're disclaiming any responsibility for any and all potential dataloss on their end. How to implement backups without falling afoul of the scraping prohibition means it's up to individual posters to save their posts in some sort of offline format.
Quote:CrowdGather User Terms and Conditions wrote:So we're not allowed to scrape the site and can be deleted for doing so... except we also have the sole responsibility to backup data in ALLCAPS. Welp.
(k) Other Prohibited Activities. You agree not to use the Site (or assist or encourage others to use the Site) in order to:14. Attempt to harvest, scrape, copy or otherwise collect
information, User Generated Content or Content from the Site, to
retrieve or index any portion of the Site or collect information about
Company users for any purpose not expressly authorized by Company,
including, without limitation, republishing the same on a third party
website, either manually or through any engine, software, tool, agent,
or other device or mechanism (including without limitation browsers,
spiders, robots, avatars, site search/retrieval application,
intelligent agents or other device);19. Use “ad blocking” software or similar built-in web browser options
designed to hide, block or prevent the proper display of online
advertising (if any) while using the Sites;
Any violation of this section may subject you to civil and/or
criminal liability. Additionally, if you commit any of the above,
Company may, in its sole discretion, and without limiting any of their
other remedies, terminate your password, account or ability to use the
Site, and remove and discard any User Generated Content within the Site.
10. Data Back-up. We are not responsible for backing
up your data or any User Generated Content or other type of data
attributed to your participation in forums or use of the Site. YOU
EXPRESSLY AGREE TO ASSUME THE SOLE RISK OF BACKING UP ALL USER GENERATED
CONTENT THAT YOU CONTRIBUTE TO THE SITE AND EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT WE
WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY WITH RESPECT TO LOST USER GENERATED CONTENT,
WHETHER YOUR OWN OR THAT BELONGING TO THIRD PARTIES.
I'd also like to see using an ad blocker opening one to civil or criminal liability, somehow. Hey Yuku, I'm using an ad blocker right now! Go ahead and file a lawsuit against me. I'd be happy to share that story with HN.
But really, if we need it, I'd be happy to have a face-to-face with these people. Calabasas is pretty close to me.
I do agree there is, on paper, a conflict, but I'm betting they would just say, if pressed, "well, it just means you lost it. We're not responsible." Because, well, how would you restore it?
Definitely sliding into territory that it really is ceasing to matter if we can move the content or not, moving to a system controlled completely by Bob (praise Bob!) will have nothing but benefits. This is the third place the forum's effectively been, and Bob hasn't even actually moved it himself, the provider's been bought out twice now, and Yuku had multiple issues with changing the ad system, and the ads (linked words in posts) leaking in when there were paid pageviews set up to avoid ads in the first place, to say nothing of the server issues currently.
(As an aside, I wonder if those sorts of issues go away if people ask for their board to be migrated to the new owner's own system? Something to ponder, and none of the outcomes are good.)
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
- Bob Schroeck - 06-05-2017
Brent, what page is that passage on? Everything I managed to find explicitly assumes you're either on crowdgather.com or its "plug-in", whatever that is. Does this document have a broader definition for the site that includes yuku.com?
And frankly, I just have to ask, if the scraper acts slowly enough, how can they distinguish it from a reader? I mean, I regularly browse old threads, sometimes to find something specific, sometimes just for kicks. (Which reminds me, we still have a pile o' threads which got blanked by that crash, what, ten years ago? I should go in and delete them.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- Labster - 06-05-2017
Got a 520 Error while trying to post this, natch.
Bob: Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Legal". Agreed as far as I can tell, nowhere does it say that CrowdGather is Yuku, but that's a small detail, right? Right?
CrowdGather User Terms and Conditions Wrote:We encourage you to read through and review these Terms and Conditions each time you access the Site.ahahahahahahahahahahahaha
JFerio: I'm pretty sure that the ALLCAPS wins out; those are supposed to be important provisions. In fact, I would say that this section "expressly authorizes" taking a backup. IANAL, but if you tell a person that they have sole responsibility for doing something as part of a contract, as part of that same contract you cannot tell the person they are not allowed to use the tools required to complete their responsibilities.
If a scraper is slow it would be hard to tell, but not impossible. I'd probably look for patterns where the same IP hits a lot of different pages on the same domain. Most real users would have a pattern of switching between threads a lot, or reading only the latest posts in a thread. And they'd tend to not read every thread sequentially. And if you use a scraper, sometimes you get a unique user agent. So yeah, there's forensics you can do, even with low request rate.
But are they doing forensics? Gosh I hope not, with all of the errors we've been getting. With this much instability, I'd hope they were working on that instead.
-- ∇×V
- Bob Schroeck - 06-05-2017
Quote:Bob: Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Legal".How did I miss that?
Quote:But are they doing forensics? Gosh I hope not, with all of the errors we've been getting. With this much instability, I'd hope they were working on that instead.You and me, both.
Quote:In fact, I would say that this section "expressly authorizes" taking a backup.Well, then, we should find a way to implement a proper backup. I have some thoughts about that; the next time I have the time at home and I'm not so exhausted as to be brain dead (all too common recently), I'll drop you an email about it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- Black Aeronaut - 06-07-2017
Regarding the Tapatalk App...
...Basically, it's an Android app that lets you use forums that are under the CrowdGather umbrella (I assume so, anyhow). I've tried it before. The app sucks, and the mobile website is barely any better.
Regarding backing up the forums, well...
...this might be helpful: http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best- ... pages-deep
- Bob Schroeck - 06-07-2017
Hmmm, thanks, BA!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- LynnInDenver - 06-07-2017
I think I fiddled with the Tapatalk app myself, once. I didn't like it at all, it was incredibly clunky as browsing apps go. And any site using it tends to shove "use the app" in your face when you're trying to browse in a mobile browser, which is annoying.
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
- Black Aeronaut - 06-08-2017
You're welcome Bob. It's as much for my own good as everyone else's here - it'd be a pain in the ass to go through and rescue all my stuff... Including the stuff that I posted waaaayyyy back when I was still using NeoRavenK7 as my handle.
- LynnInDenver - 06-24-2017
And to add to it, got a run of "blue maintenance balloons", that would clear with a reload of the page in question.
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
- Bob Schroeck - 06-28-2017
Well.
I just got an email -- the forums are being migrated to Tapatalk in about a week, whether I want it or not.
The backup/move question just stopped being theoretical.
And frankly, I have no idea where to go from here.
Edit: And I forgot to mention -- in a bit over a week we're going off on our annual Long Beach Island vacation, so my ability to access the boards during the transition is at the mercy of whatever wifi connection we'll have once we're there. Joy.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.