Reports that there is an extension of the deadline to download groups until Jan. 31 are a smokescreen put up by Verizon. The Dec. 14 deadline still holds, but they will take requests of users for their data until Jan 31. This is a fail because:
From Yahoo's reply to the modsandmembers group: "The Groups Download Manager will download any content an individual posted to Yahoo Groups. However, it will not download attachments and photos uploaded to the Group by other members. For those that are having difficulty with the files delivered, this help article explains the types of files within the .zip file sent ... "
The point made on IRC:
The important point is they won't give you the vast majority of photos and attachments. They also don't export databases at all, which are important for certain groups. It's completely arbitrary too, because they give you files other people posted...
Apparently now that they have gotten through the Fandom groups, and are working through the groups that were requested to be archived, they are ranked in order of number of members. So they are working on progressively smaller groups.
I got into this tangentially because of a community and ecosystem of Y-groups that I've been involved in. When I found the Archive Team's efforts, I hitched my wagon - though I'm not at all central to that group.
Yes, exactly. Other groups have medical tests uploaded to the files section, to be shared with other members and discussed on-list. And yet others had artistic works or literature.
Well, it was actually intentional. While a lot of us were backing up our groups as individuals (whether as owners or just members), and having no trouble there, the Archive Team was taking requests. So there was volume involved, and they have been in touch with Yahoo who refused to be supportive of the archive effort. So their target really was these guys specifically. Not just the ToS, but these guys in the context of an archive effort at a point of "ToS" (Termination of Service).
I don't see why not. Point Thunderbird at it or something and then just transfer the mails over to somewhere else if you want that - but this is not about mail. Rather it's about Yahoo Groups, whose archives are about to go away.
Wait. You're saying that the owners of the .org TLD could put restrictions on the use of those domain names? And something like "can't be used for archiving" is a legal possibility?
I admit to legal ignorance, but this does seem over the top.
Using the interface wouldn't block scrapers, yes? They do use the interface. But, this is academic I think. They offer a broken way to get our stuff, and say that we can't do anything else. Should we acquiesce to this?
As for bogging down the servers, my understanding was different from what the author said. They hadn't started to archive, but were in script testing mode and were accumulating yahoo accounts. What I saw of their activities, they were very careful about not overloading the servers. (I know that because I was backing up my own groups independently at the time, and I was able to do it. Luckily.)
Someone else mentioned that group on this thread. A group member. Scroll to the second page. He mentioned it along with a number of other groups worth archiving.