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ArchiveTeam had a similar project for Google+ and they also said they downloaded zillions of Google+ pages and uploaded them to archive.org, but I have never be

by svat 3y ago

ArchiveTeam had a similar project for Google+ and they also said they downloaded zillions of Google+ pages and uploaded them to archive.org, but I have never been able to find the Google+ profile of anyone I know via their uploads — try finding the Google+ posts of Linus Torvalds or Terence Tao for example (just to pick two people who used to post pretty frequently and whose posts I used to read). I don't think they ever did an investigation of why this happened; as far as I can tell they just lost interest after Google+ shut down, and did not try to figure out what went wrong or even try retrieving the posts of any public profile.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pests 3y ago
The ArchiveTeam project page for Google+ says it was ingested into the Wayback Archive, where I do find a complete Linus archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912 https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://plus.goo... Most of those are focused_crawls which would have been the result of efforts like ArchiveTeam. Then the full set is here: https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_googleplus https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_googleplus
- svat 3y ago
  Try clicking on any of the links. I only get 302 redirects and blank pages; I don't get to read any of the posts. Basically, just as testing recovery is part of a backup strategy, testing the usefulness of the “saved” information ought to be part of any “saving” strategy. Edit: You can try links posted to HN e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=plus.google.com%2F%2BLinusTorvalds&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... or https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=102150693225130002912&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... and see if you can read any of them via the archives.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    The posts I tried worked for me, but the profile pages have CSS with body { visbility: hidden; } that was probably supposed to be removed by JavaScript which is broken, if you remove it manually using the browser developer console you can see the content (with broken CSS)
  - Stagnant 3y ago
    I guess those captures from 2020-2023 are 302s or blank pages because google+ had already shut down. There are more working captures before that. For Linus Torvald's google+ this capture was one of the last and it was made by archiveteam [1]. I've found the cdx search feature of archive.org incredibly helpful to quickly find functioning pages (status code 200) and to see all contents that has been captured under a certain domain or page. For example, you can make a query using Linus's google+ page as the URL parameter with an asterisk as a wildcard[2]. This allows you to see all the captured content from Linus's Google+ profile, including individual posts 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20190331095744/https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912 https://web.archive.org/web/20190331095744/https://plus.goog... 2: https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912*&output=text&fl=original,mimetype,statuscode,timestamp,filename https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=https://plus.goog...
    - svat 3y ago
      Thanks that's useful. That seems to be a truncated snapshot of the profile page (your link 1 shows exactly 10 posts, with 8 of them posted between 2017–Oct–17 and 2017–Oct-25), rather than a true archive (a way to browse all the posts of a given person, without the text and comments being truncated etc). It's great that the reality is not "nothing is visible" but rather "a bit is visible" — still, the archive just isn't very useful, compared to the impression from statements like "98.6% of profiles saved" etc. A little bit of forethought or testing its usability would have made a huge difference (some js code to expand posts and comments before saving the page, for instance, as some other archiving scripts at the time did, which I used to save the profiles of myself and some of my friends… didn't run it on popular public profiles thinking that ArchiveTeam would have likely covered it in their 98.6%, but it turns out they did not).
- lopkeny12ko 3y ago
  Isn't this only useful if you already know that the previous URL for Linus's profile is https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912 https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912? Linus is a public figure, so this URL shouldn't be difficult to find. What about discoverability of lesser known individuals?
  - pests 3y ago
    I think that is a separate problem that requires a separate solution. Maybe we invent archiveDNS which maps urls -> archive urls. Still good to have it around for those who want to do the deep dive.

by svat 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pests 3y ago

The ArchiveTeam project page for Google+ says it was ingested into the Wayback Archive, where I do find a complete Linus archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912 https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://plus.goo... Most of those are focused_crawls which would have been the result of efforts like ArchiveTeam. Then the full set is here: https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_googleplus https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_googleplus

svat 3y ago
Try clicking on any of the links. I only get 302 redirects and blank pages; I don't get to read any of the posts. Basically, just as testing recovery is part of a backup strategy, testing the usefulness of the “saved” information ought to be part of any “saving” strategy. Edit: You can try links posted to HN e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=plus.google.com%2F%2BLinusTorvalds&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... or https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=102150693225130002912&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... and see if you can read any of them via the archives.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  The posts I tried worked for me, but the profile pages have CSS with body { visbility: hidden; } that was probably supposed to be removed by JavaScript which is broken, if you remove it manually using the browser developer console you can see the content (with broken CSS)
- Stagnant 3y ago
  I guess those captures from 2020-2023 are 302s or blank pages because google+ had already shut down. There are more working captures before that. For Linus Torvald's google+ this capture was one of the last and it was made by archiveteam [1]. I've found the cdx search feature of archive.org incredibly helpful to quickly find functioning pages (status code 200) and to see all contents that has been captured under a certain domain or page. For example, you can make a query using Linus's google+ page as the URL parameter with an asterisk as a wildcard[2]. This allows you to see all the captured content from Linus's Google+ profile, including individual posts 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20190331095744/https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912 https://web.archive.org/web/20190331095744/https://plus.goog... 2: https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912*&output=text&fl=original,mimetype,statuscode,timestamp,filename https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=https://plus.goog...
  - svat 3y ago
    Thanks that's useful. That seems to be a truncated snapshot of the profile page (your link 1 shows exactly 10 posts, with 8 of them posted between 2017–Oct–17 and 2017–Oct-25), rather than a true archive (a way to browse all the posts of a given person, without the text and comments being truncated etc). It's great that the reality is not "nothing is visible" but rather "a bit is visible" — still, the archive just isn't very useful, compared to the impression from statements like "98.6% of profiles saved" etc. A little bit of forethought or testing its usability would have made a huge difference (some js code to expand posts and comments before saving the page, for instance, as some other archiving scripts at the time did, which I used to save the profiles of myself and some of my friends… didn't run it on popular public profiles thinking that ArchiveTeam would have likely covered it in their 98.6%, but it turns out they did not).
lopkeny12ko 3y ago
Isn't this only useful if you already know that the previous URL for Linus's profile is https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912 https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912? Linus is a public figure, so this URL shouldn't be difficult to find. What about discoverability of lesser known individuals?
- pests 3y ago
  I think that is a separate problem that requires a separate solution. Maybe we invent archiveDNS which maps urls -> archive urls. Still good to have it around for those who want to do the deep dive.