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I'm sure plenty of people with some tech skills would happily volunteer to manage to lparchive if he asked 
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Apr 3, 2019 18:47
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༼つ ◕_◕ ༽つ BALDURK TAKE MY POSITIVITY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
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Apr 3, 2019 20:46
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Disclaimer: this is in no way a stab at Baldurk or the work he does with the archive/lpix/testposter. It's a dig at the culture in this thread. It's been bugging me for a while: this thread really bumrushes anybody who comes up with legitimate concern about the archives. Yes, Baldurk does it for free, in his spare time, and even foots the bill for the site. And that is very great, no doubt about it. But bringing that up every time anybody mentions the archive is counter-productive. It legitimately is an issue that the banners linking to archive.org are invisible and the thread pretending like it is a user fault, also the 50th time it happens, is not productive and actually kind-of lovely. Same every time somebody mentions the update schedule of the archive. Maybe there are solutions or maybe the situation is fine as is, but I'm not sure that killing the discussion immediately every time is the best. Many years ago, every test post in here was met with "what do you bring to the table," to a point where many LPs were killed before they started. This bad habit was killed off, and both the thread, feedback and subforum got better as a consequence. Maybe it is time to do the same for the knee-jerk reactions to every question about the archives? I had some suggestions here, but this post is not about that: it's about the knee-jerk reaction that I think would be better gone.
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Apr 3, 2019 21:46
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I get a significant number of views from people checking out the Archive, so I feel bad when it's been a year since I finished an LP and it's still not available for people to know about. I know people have offered to contribute to the site in both time and money, and Baldurk refuses it, but I think maybe it's time he reconsidered. A lot of people care a lot about the Archive and want to do more than say "Hey when will this thing update again?"
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Apr 3, 2019 22:08
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klafbang posted:Disclaimer: this is in no way a stab at Baldurk or the work he does with the archive/lpix/testposter. It's a dig at the culture in this thread. The answer to the question "where's baldurk" is probably " he's busy" - there's little discussion to be held around that that won't inevitably turn a bit hostile against him for not updating as often as he used to. the alternative to waiting for the return of the king is probably making an alternative archive given that he's consistently said he'd not interested in help with the existing archive. This is something I suspect that most of us don't have the wherewithal to get off the ground, let alone foot the server bills for. If you have an alternative suggestion it's be nice for you to share it because at the moment you're just posting about posting (and so am i now).
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Apr 3, 2019 23:28
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Namtab posted:The answer to the question "where's baldurk" is probably " he's busy" - there's little discussion to be held around that that won't inevitably turn a bit hostile against him for not updating as often as he used to. I mean okay I guess. If the answer is that the guy adamantly refuses help on anything and won't update that's the end of it, but every time someone's mentioned it in the past year people have suggested he'll show up again as the response and so I was hoping for a more detailed understanding of what's going on, which I now have. It's really unfortunate, I'm not savvy with website design in any way so there's nothing I can really do there, but I'd be happy enough to get my wallet out if that was needed.
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Apr 3, 2019 23:32
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If I throw up an Archive, people would donate to a patreon for it? It's not that hard to archive threads and host them online. E: Would it have to be hosted online, or could I just archive old threads and let people download them to watch/read them on their own. Because you can very quickly archive an offline version of a thread with free tools online. E2: Like you just use offline explorer to rip the files, and then host them on square space. E3: Here's another thread I archived to see what it would look like: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19NLd_zvT9sGepffExgJs4iYCPbnv-bMX/view It download every image / video it can, and if it can't it just leaves the youtube videos alone. E4: I could very easily set this up on squarespace I think, whatever I host it on, hosting is gonna be expensive.. Turtlicious fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Apr 4, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 23:35
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Namtab posted:The answer to the question "where's baldurk" is probably " he's busy" - there's little discussion to be held around that that won't inevitably turn a bit hostile against him for not updating as often as he used to. There was a point to keeping my post to posting about posting only: it’s shutting anybody down when the bring up legitimate concerns that irked me, and as I cannot offer to actually do anything myself due to limited time, I didn’t want “idea manning” getting in the way of that. But sure thing; I see three options: 0) change nothing; the archive exists and maybe there’s less point to archiving today since most LPs are on YouTube anyway. 1) Baldurk agrees to let a few people help with archiving and running the current site; he's refused this help in the past but people and situations change, so maybe that's an option. 2) hand over the current archive to somebody else with more time; nobody can or should be expected to do free work for an extended time, and there has already been a precedent for this. 3) archive the current archive and set up a new one; people have already asked to donate and it's not impossible it could be funded using Patreon. Turtelicious has already mentioned something like this, and while I think it is a very good thing to have discoverability by tags and online search and browsing, a first step could simply be an open S3 bucket of zipped LPs. It is not impossible that archive.org could help in hosting; they already host some video LPs. klafbang fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Apr 4, 2019 |
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Apr 4, 2019 06:53
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The recent drought is certainly my fault, I apologise for that. The excuses are pretty much what you'd expect - life getting busy and not having as much time to dedicate to this, combined with just putting things off. I kept thinking I would find the time sometime soon but that's easier said than done as I never found a weekend to catch up. The main issue I have finding time is that while some LPs only take a couple of minutes to process, others can take an hour or more. That means I get blocked on a particularly time-consuming LP even as a backlog of 'easy' ones builds up, and I don't want to queue-jump because I know if that happens then the difficult LPs will just get continually deferred and never processed. The bottleneck is me doing manual edits - I've got the scripts to the point where most things are automated for an LP in an ideal format. Where it falls down is things like an LP with an inconsistent or badly formatted TOC, posts in the thread that aren't linked or are linked outside the TOC, generally anything that doesn't fit the regimented format that the scripts expect. In the past I've tried to be really generous about manually massaging an LP on behalf of authors into the right form out of whatever is in the thread, but that's what takes the bulk of my time. Being realistic that's going to have to change because I clearly can't afford to do that anymore. I'll start pushing back that work onto authors - asking them to make changes in the original posts to align to what I need to be able to run the scripts, at least when those changes are non-trivial. Similarly with any formatting/spelling/grammar fixes. About people helping out - my concern in the past has been that this is how the archive used to work years ago, with people encouraged to run the scripts themselves and gather the thread for their LP or someone else's LP. It was a nice idea but in practice it ended up being more work to correct any mistakes and double check the contents (since with a zip of html it's hard to know if something somewhere got broken) than it was to archive the thread myself. If I'm pushing more of the work back onto the authors to edit in their threads then it's something that people could help out with, but it'd need the authors to share their posts onto the sslp test poster somewhere and ask someone to help with that. I will go through the backlog this weekend and clear it out. After that I'll post guidelines on what will make my life easier - it's going to seem picky & anal in places, but I guess it's better to be picky and active than tolerant and go ages without updates.
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Apr 4, 2019 10:17
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Thank you for taking your time out to reply and address some issues baldurk. I think that it is more than reasonable to be strict with submissions to make life easier on yourself.
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Apr 4, 2019 11:42
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baldurk posted:In the past I've tried to be really generous about manually massaging an LP on behalf of authors into the right form out of whatever is in the thread, but that's what takes the bulk of my time. Being realistic that's going to have to change because I clearly can't afford to do that anymore. I'll start pushing back that work onto authors - asking them to make changes in the original posts to align to what I need to be able to run the scripts, at least when those changes are non-trivial. Similarly with any formatting/spelling/grammar fixes. I agree with the person above, all you're saying is completely reasonable. Decent chance I'm responsible for one of the worst LPs in your queue right now (Bravely Default SSLP), and I'd much rather do any work I can cleaning up the monster myself than have you stressing out doing it.
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Apr 4, 2019 12:16
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100% agreed that it's fine to put the onus on the author to make the LP archive-ready. They're much more familiar with the content of the LP and of the thread than you are, after all.
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Apr 4, 2019 15:41
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Is there anything financially we can do to help support the archive (Patreon, donation link, etc.)? I don't know how profitable the Project Wonderful ads were to begin with, but surely they were worth more than the $0 of ad revenue the archive has made since PW shut down back in August.
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Apr 4, 2019 16:09
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baldurk posted:The recent drought is certainly my fault, I apologise for that. The excuses are pretty much what you'd expect - life getting busy and not having as much time to dedicate to this, combined with just putting things off. I kept thinking I would find the time sometime soon but that's easier said than done as I never found a weekend to catch up. That sounds like a good way to go about things. Thanks! Just one point of note: with this approach you are somewhat condemning yourself to respond to authors within a couple of months of them submitting a thread, because if they need to go back and make edits, that can only happen before the thread gets locked by the forums for forum archival.
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Apr 4, 2019 18:38
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Was archiving fixed? Last I heard threads were basically never dying.
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Apr 4, 2019 18:48
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Don't thank me just for apologising and promising to do better, wait 6 months to see if I'm doing a better job  .oldskool posted:Is there anything financially we can do to help support the archive (Patreon, donation link, etc.)? I don't know how profitable the Project Wonderful ads were to begin with, but surely they were worth more than the $0 of ad revenue the archive has made since PW shut down back in August. Money isn't the issue, I can keep the server running at least for the foreseeable future if not indefinitely. It's more about my time as a bottleneck, and if I can put more strict requirements on authors submitting LPs for archive then that helps. Carbon dioxide posted:That sounds like a good way to go about things. Thanks! This is certainly true, and there'll be a bit of a transition period with all the old LPs in the queue at the moment. I'm hopeful that if I just stop doing anything that takes more than 5-10 minutes for an LP then I can keep on top of the requests that come in in a timely manner.
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Apr 4, 2019 18:52
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Was archiving fixed? Last I heard threads were basically never dying. They don't go into the actual archives thing but they still get locked in a way that I think mods can't undo.
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Apr 4, 2019 19:02
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Carbon dioxide posted:They don't go into the actual archives thing but they still get locked in a way that I think mods can't undo. Indeed. There’s two different types of archiving, there’s the Archive Server, which you need to actually buy archives access to in addition to platinum status to be able to read threads that have been moved to the archive server. Usually only threads that are super old get archived in that manner. The second type of archiving is the Archive Lock. This happens when a thread hasn’t been posted in in about 3 or 4 months. It used to be 2 months but ZDR kicked it up a bit because of peoples’ habits of going on extended hiatuses between updates. If a thread is archive locked, it can’t be edited or tweaked. These are the types of LPs that baldurk was kind of alluding to as being a pain to get up on the Archive because they need to be manually edited by him in case you want any spelling errors fixed or anything changed or added to it after the fact that you could otherwise slip in via editing your posts on a live thread. This is why I kept bumping my various Ace Combat LP threads over the years to keep them editable, but now most of them have been archive locked anyway. Sooo It is technically possible to reverse an archive lock, just really freaking hard, as it involves a complicated process involving the forums back end coding, and the only person who could have even done it (ZDR), is now gone, unfortunately, and there is no guarantee that whoever Lowtax eventually gets to replace him (if he ever even does) will be able to figure out how to do it as well. So if your thread has been archive locked during baldurk’s time away and you want it up on the LP Archive anyway, things might get a little hairy from here out...
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Apr 4, 2019 19:32
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nine-gear crow posted:So if your thread has been archive locked during baldurk’s time away and you want it up on the LP Archive anyway, things might get a little hairy from here out...  At least I didn't ask for any changes!
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Apr 4, 2019 19:40
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Thanks for the reply. If you need any help with the cost of maintenance at all and you threw up a patreon I'd gladly donate.
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Apr 4, 2019 20:17
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baldurk posted:Don't thank me just for apologising and promising to do better, wait 6 months to see if I'm doing a better job I just really appreciate the communication and having an understanding of what's currently going on with the Archive. I think a lot of times, people get nervous/anxious because we have no information and are left to our own assumptions, hence why every few months someone ends up asking if the Archive is dead.
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Apr 4, 2019 20:48
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Doc M posted:Well, that'll teach me to send in my archival requests super late like I did with Jade Empire. Sorry about that, I didn't realize it was such a pain in the rear end. 
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Apr 4, 2019 20:48
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I told you all to believe in baldurk and you scoffed at me but I was right!
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Apr 4, 2019 22:21
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Apr 4, 2019 22:30
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Really happy to hear this. I'm all for more strict requirements to reduce your work load. I was asking around a few months ago for any ways in which I could make my request as easy to process as possible. Either way, thanks for all the work you do Baldurk.
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Apr 4, 2019 22:46
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We already have a few guidelines to make baldurk's job a little easier. Though, if I can make it easier still by taking off a bit of the load and spend some time on that versus baldurk having to do that times however many archive requests there are at any giving time then I'll happily do that.baldurk posted:Money isn't the issue, I can keep the server running at least for the foreseeable future if not indefinitely. It's more about my time as a bottleneck, and if I can put more strict requirements on authors submitting LPs for archive then that helps. Some of us being willing to support you in running the archive isn't necessarily about just covering your costs but more about just giving back a little. Just archiving these LPs, even the bad ones, has more value than most people might think. And you do it all, essentially, for fun. I got into LPing some time in 2009 or so because of the archive and I found many hours of entertainment just by browsing the place and got inspired to make my own. Getting an SA account was out of the question at the time because I wouldn't get a credit card just for that so having a place where I can essentially read LPs without having to sign up or be paywalled was the best. Whether you want that or not is up to you but based on some peoples responses I'd wager there's more than just one person willing to throw in a buck or two.
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Apr 4, 2019 23:30
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With threads that have fallen into the forums archive while I've been backlogged I'll do any manual edits on my side, it's not that big a deal if I spend an afternoon/evening on saturday one last time finishing up and then put in new requirements for any requests that come in after this weekend. They'll likely evolve organically a bit, though the biggest thing is having a consistent & accurate TOC in archive order. But if I run into something where I go "oh, that's way too hard to deal with" I'll feedback and add a new guideline. Jamesman posted:I just really appreciate the communication and having an understanding of what's currently going on with the Archive. I think a lot of times, people get nervous/anxious because we have no information and are left to our own assumptions, hence why every few months someone ends up asking if the Archive is dead. It's no secret I don't post much on the forums anymore. PMing me or posting here is probably not going to get my attention, and the archive email unfortunately gets a lot of spam so unless an email comes in with a thread link there's a good chance I'll miss it. Emailing me directly at my personal email or a twitter DM is a better bet of getting a hold of me. I'd seen the odd post in the past but like I say I never had any intention of abandoning the archive so it didn't make much sense to post "I'm still here I'll try and get to it soon". Someone pointed out to me that there was posting here with concern I'd disappeared for good which was the kick in the pants I kind of needed. IGgy IGsen posted:Some of us being willing to support you in running the archive isn't necessarily about just covering your costs but more about just giving back a little. Just archiving these LPs, even the bad ones, has more value than most people might think. And you do it all, essentially, for fun. I appreciate the thought but really I think it'd have a negative effect if anything. I don't expect or want anything in return for running the archive and financial incentives no matter how well-intentioned can affect things on both my end and users end. baldurk fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Apr 5, 2019 |
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Apr 4, 2019 23:59
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I'm on foodstamps and disability, money is the only reason I'd be willing to set up an alternative archives, but if it ever gets too much for you, I'm willing to step in with my own project. E: I do disagree with your archives cutting out the in between posts, since those are super important to a lot of different LPs. My personal opinion is that an archive of an LP on the forums, should look exactly like it did when the thread was made.
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Apr 5, 2019 00:02
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Baldurk I do agree with the critique about the internet archive banner though and I hope you can do something to make it stand out better. As a suggestion moving forwards maybe put another banner + link above the video list itself?
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Apr 5, 2019 00:22
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Hi Baldurk, since you're here I'd like to bring this to your attention again. Hopefully I'm right about it being a simple fix.Geemer posted:
E: Also I'm guessing I'm poo poo outta luck on LPs that had their videos on Viddler, like the Yume Nikki one. And the personal email link in your post is broken. Geemer fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Apr 5, 2019 |
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Apr 5, 2019 00:25
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Turtlicious posted:I'm on foodstamps and disability, money is the only reason I'd be willing to set up an alternative archives, but if it ever gets too much for you, I'm willing to step in with my own project. How is that different from SA auto-archiving threads?
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Apr 5, 2019 00:27
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I love you Baldurk.
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Apr 5, 2019 00:49
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Geemer posted:Hi Baldurk, since you're here I'd like to bring this to your attention again. Hopefully I'm right about it being a simple fix. Broken youtube links can probably get fixed automatically but I've already got enough on my plate with catching up on queued archives, let's see if that can get sorted first before adding more work to my pile. There's also the issue of all the tindeck links across all LPs that need to be fixed at some point. Namtab posted:Baldurk I do agree with the critique about the internet archive banner though and I hope you can do something to make it stand out better. As a suggestion moving forwards maybe put another banner + link above the video list itself? Unlikely to ever happen as it means manually editing in something on every LP with an archive.org mirror. At the moment it's added as part of the page whenever an archive.org link exists in the database, so feasible changes are ones that only change the styling. I still think that anyone blind enough to completely ignore it especially when there are no other banner ads is unlikely to ever pay attention no matter what it looks like.
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Apr 5, 2019 00:53
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Maybe just make it a different color? IIRC, the Internet Archive banner is primarily red and white, and with the rest of the site also having a primary red/white color scheme, it might be blending in a bit?
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Apr 5, 2019 01:02
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Leal posted:I love you Baldurk. 
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Apr 5, 2019 01:22
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baldurk posted:Broken youtube links can probably get fixed automatically but I've already got enough on my plate with catching up on queued archives, let's see if that can get sorted first before adding more work to my pile. There's also the issue of all the tindeck links across all LPs that need to be fixed at some point. I didn't mean to rush you or pile more stuff on, so I'm sorry if I came across like that. I genuinely appreciate all the effort you put into the archive, lpix and now also working on being a tindeck backup. And if it weren't for the archive, I would've missed out on some amazing LPs that directly lead me to becoming a huge fan of a couple of game series. Leal posted:I love you Baldurk.
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Apr 5, 2019 01:50
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Oh geez, I was under the impression that the method to necro archived but not in the archived section of the forums was still available. That's going to be very hairy to fix on my end since there were a ton of edits I wanted to make to one of my LPs before I sent it off for archival. But I had to put it off since my life got busy. I was hoping to at least get the bbcode from my LP posts so I could store those for later to edit on my own time, but that might not be feasible now?
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Apr 5, 2019 02:35
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Turtlicious posted:I'm on foodstamps and disability, money is the only reason I'd be willing to set up an alternative archives, but if it ever gets too much for you, I'm willing to step in with my own project. I think your last post on this showed you really don't understand how much of a project archiving threads is and I think you should probably drop the subject
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Apr 5, 2019 08:56
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Being a filthy commie Jew, I never understood proper protestant work ethic and the point of not taking money people are willing to give you with no preconditions in order to keep doing what you're already doing.
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Apr 5, 2019 09:11
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Xander77 posted:Being a filthy commie Jew, I never understood proper protestant work ethic and the point of not taking money people are willing to give you with no preconditions in order to keep doing what you're already doing. I can definitely understand why Baldurk would be hesitant. The introduction of money changes things, no matter how well intentioned. When people start forking out money for something, they have an expectation of results. So what was a generous hobby and service to the forums starts to morph into a "job". Even if nobody starts complaining, I'd imagine Baldurk would feel more pressure to deliver if money were involved. So if he believes he doesn't need donations to keep things going, then I can see why it's better not to accept them. Not saying anyone here would pull that kind of poo poo. I know I'd be happy to donate a bit if it meant just keeping the archive alive. But there's always people out there that would start in with the old "He's earning money for it now, so why isn't he devoting more time to it?" crap.
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Apr 5, 2019 13:32
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