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Why wouldn't these groups for which Yahoo seems to be a critical service have done this work weeks ago? Either it's important and you make an effort yourself,

Why wouldn't these groups for which Yahoo seems to be a critical service have done this work weeks ago? Either it's important and you make an effort yourself, or you do nothing, which clearly indicates that it is not important. I'm having a hard time getting worked into a lather over this one like it seems everyone else is - it's been announced for 2 months - ample time to save what you needed.

perl4ever 7y ago
‘There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.’
- jefftk 7y ago
  This was on the front page here in October when it was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269614
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    How many non-technical readers are a) going to see that HN post, and b) have any idea what the gobbledygook in those first few posts means?
    - jefftk 7y ago
      Yahoo sent out email notifications to every group owner and member. I got mine on November 1st. Yahoo is definitely handling this badly: they should have offered an export tool, given a longer window, and been clearer in their messaging. But the claim that they didn't notify people (and just put the information up in a place no one would see) is wrong.
      - Diagon 7y ago
        A lot of people apparently didn't get notified. The platform regularly lost emails. (Fifteen years of being on it, such problems were not irregular.) Also, they did offer an export tool, but the results were/are incomplete. I'll add that some group owners/moderators have not even been able to log into their groups. Yahoo was doing something with needing a yahoo email to get in as admin, even when a non-yahoo email was associated with the account. Those people that lost access to their yahoo email account have been totally SOL.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        November 1st? That's barely a month ago. The Vogons broadcast to the world what they were doing just before they did it, too.
      - hiccuphippo 7y ago
        They could have put a notice in the footer they always add to the messages.
      - plorg 7y ago
        I was a member of a single Yahoo group, a local recycling cooperative. I got a notification about the shutdown in mid-November and promptly sent a download request (not a full export). It took literally weeks before I was notified that the download was ready.
        Diagon 7y ago
        And how complete was it? Have you checked? You may be disappointed. You might want to check out one of these while you have the chance: https://github.com/IgnoredAmbience/yahoo-group-archiver https://github.com/IgnoredAmbience/yahoo-group-archiver https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/yahoo-group-archiver https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/yahoo-group-archiver
Diagon 7y ago
Actually, it's not. We were given 13 days for the shutoff of archives, with another 7 when there was an outcry. Most owners of groups are non-technical and have no idea how to get their data; this is why the archive team put up a request page for owners who wanted their groups archived (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Z-lODnyXsE2kiu8uL01L--10nDq3b_lowT88aB447-E/viewform?edit_requested=true https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Z-lODnyXsE2kiu8uL01L--10nDq...). Their more crowd sourced approach, which has been hard at work for these months, has been actively interfered with by Verizon (see the link of the OP). Verizon should be supporting this attempt to preserve this material.
dredmorbius 7y ago
For groups, especially, this simply isn't realistic to expect. When the G+ shutdown was announced (see earlier comment, I was one of the "Plexodus" organisers), the whole question of what to do about Communities migration hadn't even occurred to me. It wasn't until a community moderator happened to mention that they had a group with 400,000 subscribers and no idea at all to even begin that I started looking into this. The first result was to create at least a framework for organising and planning: https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Migrating_Google%2B_Communities#Organising_and_Timing https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Migrating_Google%... It's a really basic thing. I've found no evidence that any such guide has ever existed online. I make no claims that what I came up with was the best, or even effective. It does seem to have been the first. Win, me. We created a "short FAQ", formatted for posting to G+, which we posted again and again and again and again and again, to as many communities and spaces as we could. Because when you're trying to reach a mass audience (10ks to millions of users, 10ks to 8.1 million communities), mass repetition is necessary. https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/G%2BMM_Short_FAQ https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/G%2BMM_Short_FAQ It's hard enough to motivate people to turn up at one place once every couple of years to mark a few spots on paper, when they all know that this happens regularly -- election turnouts tend around 30-40%. Getting mass compliance on a complicated, unexpected, and technical process (with social and legal entanglements) is far harder. Many groups glide by on minimum maintenance for years. Whatever initial technical competence was required to set up the group be long-lost. At best, moderation skills are known (and even that is a long stretch). Migration is an entirely different skillset, one rarely exercised, and, as noted above, extraordinarily poorly supported. TL;DR: your expectations are entirely unreasonable.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  If Google ever wonders why their newer ideas failed to gain traction they should read your comment. For every early adopter pissed off there will be a hundred or more people that never make it to your new and shiny project. So piss off enough early adopters and whatever you launch will be a dud.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago

perl4ever 7y ago

‘There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.’

jefftk 7y ago
This was on the front page here in October when it was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269614
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  How many non-technical readers are a) going to see that HN post, and b) have any idea what the gobbledygook in those first few posts means?
  - jefftk 7y ago
    Yahoo sent out email notifications to every group owner and member. I got mine on November 1st. Yahoo is definitely handling this badly: they should have offered an export tool, given a longer window, and been clearer in their messaging. But the claim that they didn't notify people (and just put the information up in a place no one would see) is wrong.
    - Diagon 7y ago
      A lot of people apparently didn't get notified. The platform regularly lost emails. (Fifteen years of being on it, such problems were not irregular.) Also, they did offer an export tool, but the results were/are incomplete. I'll add that some group owners/moderators have not even been able to log into their groups. Yahoo was doing something with needing a yahoo email to get in as admin, even when a non-yahoo email was associated with the account. Those people that lost access to their yahoo email account have been totally SOL.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      November 1st? That's barely a month ago. The Vogons broadcast to the world what they were doing just before they did it, too.
    - hiccuphippo 7y ago
      They could have put a notice in the footer they always add to the messages.
    - plorg 7y ago
      I was a member of a single Yahoo group, a local recycling cooperative. I got a notification about the shutdown in mid-November and promptly sent a download request (not a full export). It took literally weeks before I was notified that the download was ready.
      - Diagon 7y ago
        And how complete was it? Have you checked? You may be disappointed. You might want to check out one of these while you have the chance: https://github.com/IgnoredAmbience/yahoo-group-archiver https://github.com/IgnoredAmbience/yahoo-group-archiver https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/yahoo-group-archiver https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/yahoo-group-archiver

Diagon 7y ago

Actually, it's not. We were given 13 days for the shutoff of archives, with another 7 when there was an outcry. Most owners of groups are non-technical and have no idea how to get their data; this is why the archive team put up a request page for owners who wanted their groups archived (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Z-lODnyXsE2kiu8uL01L--10nDq3b_lowT88aB447-E/viewform?edit_requested=true https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Z-lODnyXsE2kiu8uL01L--10nDq...). Their more crowd sourced approach, which has been hard at work for these months, has been actively interfered with by Verizon (see the link of the OP). Verizon should be supporting this attempt to preserve this material.

dredmorbius 7y ago

For groups, especially, this simply isn't realistic to expect. When the G+ shutdown was announced (see earlier comment, I was one of the "Plexodus" organisers), the whole question of what to do about Communities migration hadn't even occurred to me. It wasn't until a community moderator happened to mention that they had a group with 400,000 subscribers and no idea at all to even begin that I started looking into this. The first result was to create at least a framework for organising and planning: https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Migrating_Google%2B_Communities#Organising_and_Timing https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/Migrating_Google%... It's a really basic thing. I've found no evidence that any such guide has ever existed online. I make no claims that what I came up with was the best, or even effective. It does seem to have been the first. Win, me. We created a "short FAQ", formatted for posting to G+, which we posted again and again and again and again and again, to as many communities and spaces as we could. Because when you're trying to reach a mass audience (10ks to millions of users, 10ks to 8.1 million communities), mass repetition is necessary. https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/G%2BMM_Short_FAQ https://social.antefriguserat.de/index.php/G%2BMM_Short_FAQ It's hard enough to motivate people to turn up at one place once every couple of years to mark a few spots on paper, when they all know that this happens regularly -- election turnouts tend around 30-40%. Getting mass compliance on a complicated, unexpected, and technical process (with social and legal entanglements) is far harder. Many groups glide by on minimum maintenance for years. Whatever initial technical competence was required to set up the group be long-lost. At best, moderation skills are known (and even that is a long stretch). Migration is an entirely different skillset, one rarely exercised, and, as noted above, extraordinarily poorly supported. TL;DR: your expectations are entirely unreasonable.

jacquesm 7y ago
If Google ever wonders why their newer ideas failed to gain traction they should read your comment. For every early adopter pissed off there will be a hundred or more people that never make it to your new and shiny project. So piss off enough early adopters and whatever you launch will be a dud.
- dredmorbius 7y ago