Yahoo Groups going away

[JohnElliott]

Yahoo are shutting down their groups system with effect from December 14th. If anyone wants to try and salvage the 7234 messages on the old MM/JSW group, now would be a good time to start.

 

There's some discussion of possible archiving tools at r/DataHoarder. I'm currently experimenting with YahooGroups-Archiver under Linux.

Edited October 17, 2019 by JohnElliott

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for this (sad) news, John!

 

Apart from the messages, photos are worth saving, too. IIRC, there are some of rooms from unfinished projects - games which were never released and whose files have not been available publicly. These pictures are all that is left of them in public, I believe.

[ceptimus]

I was interested (and alarmed) to read that UK phone number assignments are managed via a Yahoo group.

 

See https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/56646/simwood.pdf

 

 

Post-contract with BT and other directly connected networks, number ranges need to be data-filled on other networks. This takes place via the Ofcom (or rather the Oftel) Yahoo Group. A review might consider whether it is befitting for the world's sixth largest economy to manage critical national infrastructure via a Yahoo group but we would hope that is obvious.

 

On another forum I frequent, user lisarea commented, "I'm sure the official database is safe and secure on an AS/400 somewhere, remotely accessible via some 30 year old homegrown gateway."

[Spider]

I've not checked what is available (if anything) via WayBack, but even if it was its only going to be guest/visitor viewable items.

 

Depending on how any downloads are stored and served (assuming they are guest downloadable) also is likely to effect their availability too. Some kind of 'scraper' may be needed as J.E has kind of mentioned in a way. I've not examined the links provided.

 

For instance here: The downloads are "served" dynamically so that it is quite unlikely (not exactly by choice but it does prevent excess leeching and slightly mitigate any DDOS onto the Download system itself) that WB would not be able to archive them, it may be able to via a trick or three though, whereas guest viewable content is, I've made no efforts to restrict archive from erm 'archiving' the guest/visitor viewable areas of this site. :) Allowing bots access to things that a guest/visitor would see used to technically be known as 'cloaking' and was frowned upon with good reason. That aside the option to do this was removed quite a few versions back (it is possible but its not something I'd personally do)

[jetsetdanny]

I posted a farewell message on the Yahoo! Group today, or at least I tried to post one. Unfortunately, it hasn't shown up so far, either on the website or in the mail, and I haven't saved it. If it doesn't appear tomorrow, I probably won't bother to write another one (as I would have no certainty that it would ever get posted). Oh well...

[dm_boozefreek]

This topic is what finally brought me here :(

 

After receiving a post or 2 in my email inbox, which I rarely bother checking these days, I posted a message of my own on the JSW/MM Yahoo Group which I've been a member of for about 17 years.

 

Shame it's over, lot of memories on there :(

[jetsetdanny]

Drunken Master, it's great to see you here!  :D

 

Welcome, and I hope you've come here to stay :).

 

As for the Yahoo! problem, I think it may not be as bad as it looked at first. As per the latest posts over there, it looks like Yahoo! does not consider messages to be "content" - only files. It is actually still possible to post messages over there - and their deadline of 28 October, after which one was not supposed to be able to upload new content, has passed already. I am beginning to hope that after 14 December it will still be possible to post messages over there and they will be visible online, on the website (not just in our mailboxes), so - with the exception of uploading screenshots, which hasn't been used for a long time anyway - it will be business as usual. We'll find out in mid December.

 

In any case, this forum is really where most of MM/JSW action is these days, so again, I'm so glad you're here :). I am sure you will find this is a really friendly place, with some very knowledgeable people who can help out with various technical issues if need be  :thumbsup: .

Edited November 9, 2019 by jetsetdanny

[dm_boozefreek]

Thanks Daniel gotta say I feel kind of bad for not signing up here about 5 years ago when it first went online, but I was kind of out of the JSW loop, at least on the author side of things, don't get me wrong I had a lot of fun playing all the new games you guys on here have posted over the years ;)

 

Also you know how it is reality sucks, but unfortunately it's there, and I wasn't camped at my PC like I was back in 2002 churning out 5 or 6 games in 3 months, which I wish sometimes I could have  :lol:

Edited November 10, 2019 by dm_boozefreek

[Spider]

Its OK and thanks for joining :) :)

 

The content is 'guest / visitor' viewable with a couple of exceptions, a few 'member only' download categories:

 

Tools / Patches

Graphics, Styling

Other Resources

 

They are guest viewable in that a guest may see their content descriptor etc but not actually download them without joining. The main categories are obviously fully open to guests/visitors to download files. These are very clearly grouped together and marked in bold blue that they are 'member only' , note this is member only not contributor only, so all a visitor who requires something from one of these areas simply needs to do is join. :)

 

I've been very careful to not place games into these as that sort of is a negative factor if you attempt to erm "force" people to join to get ahold of a game, they will simply go elsewhere for it and may end up with something not the same as here. For the categories above I think it makes sense at the moment at least to keep those member only as their content is really aimed at 'game builders' who are likely (or hopefully will) be a member here already. :)

 

Those three categories: Well they are not really implemented (much) yet as such, they only contain some tools and a few other bits. I do plan to expand these eventually as time permits although having an ever expanding todo list does not help too much! :D

 

 

I know what you mean about time though, unsure if you have seen my 'BBC Micro' conversions of a few Speccy adventure games, these typically took me about 3-4 weeks each to write, allowing about 2/3 hours every day to do in the late evening. Last one I did was nearly 6 years ago, simply 'no time' to do them at the moment plus I think I slightly prefer JSW/MM game creation too ;) Just an example really of "time availability" rather than anything else.

[IRF]

I just posted a new message on the Yahoo group with no bother. ?