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It's October, right? And Google is notifying anyone who creates a Page or File that the feature is going to go away in February? (And it looks like they start

It's October, right? And Google is notifying anyone who creates a Page or File that the feature is going to go away in February? (And it looks like they started doing so in September?) Seems like plenty of notice to me. One would assume that as the deadline gets closer, more prominent notices will be given. How many months do you need to move your data? Google should be held to high standards, both because they are an important part of internet infrastructure and because they've stated they aspire to high standards. Five months' notice meets those high standards as far as I'm concerned.

yesbabyyes 16y ago
"Beware of the Leopard."
- three14 16y ago
  I needed Google to decipher this excellent comment. In case it helps: "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
  - metageek 16y ago
    That's the display department.
- auxbuss 16y ago
  Hitchhikers' with allusions to Zork. Let's geek... "But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months." "Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything." "But the plans were on display ..." "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them." "That's the display department." "With a flashlight." "Ah, well the lights had probably gone." "So had the stairs." "But look, you found the notice didn't you?" "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
erikpukinskis 16y ago
I disagree. I have a friend whose mom died when she was in College. In the year following, she kept all her journals and poems in emails in her Yahoo mail account. That's a safe place for them, right? The years went on and she got a Gmail account, but she would log in to Yahoo every year or so to read through her old journals to help process what was going on in her life. Only one year she tried to log in and her account was gone. Yahoo, she learned, simply deletes your email if you don't log in for a year. And she had gone 14 months. Personally, I think deleting data like this--especially when the storage requirements are so tiny--is unforgivable. I can think of many, many reasons why someone would put something important on Google Groups and then not log in for six months. There are people away for Peace Corps right now. There are people deployed in Afghanistan. There are people hiking the Appalachian Trail (well maybe it's a little late for that). Many thousands of people will feel completely violated if Google does this. Google can count on that. For those people, Google will have simply destroyed their most precious data without warning. I used to think that one of the selling points of Google Apps was that I could leave my data there and trust them to protect it. No more worrying about crashed hard drives. But it's become clear that's not the case.
- coderdude 16y ago
  Do you believe it's reasonable to expect an account to not be deleted after 14 months of inactivity? That's not a short amount of time.
  - ams6110 16y ago
    Particularly for a free service. It's not reasonable to expect Yahoo to archive everyone's email forever. If you want something with more guarantees, you should probably expect to pay something for it.
    - Ygor 16y ago
      OK, you are not getting his point. You don't have to explain it to us, all of us here are aware of it. But, if there are users that don't understand it, than it means that they didn't deliver the message in a proper way. And obviously there are users that didn't get it (I know several cases for erased email accounts).
krschultz 16y ago
I use a Google group for a summer sport. Nobody logs in from August until May. Would have missed it if not for this notice.
jamesbritt 16y ago
I look after a few google groups but don't recall getting any notice on this. I was just looking at the settings for a group I set up recently and saw that there was an option to allow Google to contact the group admin. And it was off. I think I just do that out of habit on the assumption that it will just mean more noise, but of course it could also mean I'll never hear about upcoming group changes.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  Update: I got a notice yesterday.
oiuytgfrtgyhuji 16y ago
You only get told if you create a page - what if you only read it?
- duskwuff 16y ago
  The notice shows up prominently at the top of any Groups page that would be affected. It's pretty hard to miss.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

yesbabyyes 16y ago

"Beware of the Leopard."

three14 16y ago
I needed Google to decipher this excellent comment. In case it helps: "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
- metageek 16y ago
  That's the display department.
auxbuss 16y ago
Hitchhikers' with allusions to Zork. Let's geek... "But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months." "Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything." "But the plans were on display ..." "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them." "That's the display department." "With a flashlight." "Ah, well the lights had probably gone." "So had the stairs." "But look, you found the notice didn't you?" "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

erikpukinskis 16y ago

I disagree. I have a friend whose mom died when she was in College. In the year following, she kept all her journals and poems in emails in her Yahoo mail account. That's a safe place for them, right? The years went on and she got a Gmail account, but she would log in to Yahoo every year or so to read through her old journals to help process what was going on in her life. Only one year she tried to log in and her account was gone. Yahoo, she learned, simply deletes your email if you don't log in for a year. And she had gone 14 months. Personally, I think deleting data like this--especially when the storage requirements are so tiny--is unforgivable. I can think of many, many reasons why someone would put something important on Google Groups and then not log in for six months. There are people away for Peace Corps right now. There are people deployed in Afghanistan. There are people hiking the Appalachian Trail (well maybe it's a little late for that). Many thousands of people will feel completely violated if Google does this. Google can count on that. For those people, Google will have simply destroyed their most precious data without warning. I used to think that one of the selling points of Google Apps was that I could leave my data there and trust them to protect it. No more worrying about crashed hard drives. But it's become clear that's not the case.

coderdude 16y ago
Do you believe it's reasonable to expect an account to not be deleted after 14 months of inactivity? That's not a short amount of time.
- ams6110 16y ago
  Particularly for a free service. It's not reasonable to expect Yahoo to archive everyone's email forever. If you want something with more guarantees, you should probably expect to pay something for it.
  - Ygor 16y ago
    OK, you are not getting his point. You don't have to explain it to us, all of us here are aware of it. But, if there are users that don't understand it, than it means that they didn't deliver the message in a proper way. And obviously there are users that didn't get it (I know several cases for erased email accounts).

krschultz 16y ago

I use a Google group for a summer sport. Nobody logs in from August until May. Would have missed it if not for this notice.

jamesbritt 16y ago

I look after a few google groups but don't recall getting any notice on this. I was just looking at the settings for a group I set up recently and saw that there was an option to allow Google to contact the group admin. And it was off. I think I just do that out of habit on the assumption that it will just mean more noise, but of course it could also mean I'll never hear about upcoming group changes.

jamesbritt 16y ago
Update: I got a notice yesterday.

oiuytgfrtgyhuji 16y ago

You only get told if you create a page - what if you only read it?

duskwuff 16y ago
The notice shows up prominently at the top of any Groups page that would be affected. It's pretty hard to miss.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]