Saved RDF threads - thank you

[NineBerry]

AWESOME, Nineberry!! I was just looking at one of the most active threads in RDF history-which has all 7k posts linked on TalkRational-and thinking what a loss it would be to the history of this historic thread. (It now has over 30k replies on TR) I can't thank you enough for taking the time to save all that. You've got one lifetime fan for you efforts for certain, and I suspect the gratitude of thousands.

Others doing the job, as well. We are using different strategies. We'll see which one gives the best result. If they really pull the plug prematurely, we might even have to combine our attempts

I have got 66% now. So it's looking good.

[life]

Ah well, international laws tend to be a bit more lax on these issues. German law is a bit stricter AFAIAA, so I tend to be rather careful. But even better if we can make it available to anyone

I'm behind an anon proxy
Besides, I wanna see someone knocking down my door for downloading legal content

[hackenslash]

It's all nonsense anyway. Clearly, permission has been given in every legal sense in the document announcing the demise of the forum.

We will leave the current forum up for 30 days, giving regular users an opportunity to locally archive any content they value.

The foundation has effectively relinquished all copyright claims to any of the content on the forum not actually generated by the foundation, and all rights belong to the authors of that material. The announcement to the users forms a legal document, if it were ever to go to court.

I have some experience in copyright law, and I have a few contacts, as well. They wouldn't have a leg to stand on in any attempt to press a claim.

[Strontium Dog]

It's all nonsense anyway. Clearly, permission has been given in every legal sense in the document announcing the demise of the forum.

We will leave the current forum up for 30 days, giving regular users an opportunity to locally archive any content they value.

The foundation has effectively relinquished all copyright claims to any of the content on the forum not actually generated by the foundation, and all rights belong to the authors of that material. The announcement to the users forms a legal document, if it were ever to go to court.

Ha, I've been meaning to post something to this effect all day, and when I finally make my mind up to do it, you got there a few minutes before me

But as you say, they've given us clear permission in that announcement to grab whatever content we like. You don't need to be a legal expert (and I'm not) to see that.

[Apollonius]

It would be funny to mirror the whole thing, load it on a different server that works, and everyone just pick up where they left off, minus dickhead..

[fuck you & fuck your god]

Hey.

Got most of the forum saved for offline viewing (almost done).
Anyone interested? Several gigs so far...

I'll see if I can include a fulltext search function.

That would be marvellous. Truly marvellous. Would there be any possibility of hosting somewhere online - even through a file-sharing app or something? Or is it too big? I'm suspecting it might squish our servers here if it were hosted...

Sure thing. I will upload it asap. I'm considering to send out DVDs as well if people are not too scared to give me their shipping address
My upload speed is not that fast...

I have all the space you could need and unlimited bandwidth, but I am no software guy, I'm not clear on what you want to do with it, for someplace that anyone could get to to just download it, I can do that. To run a mirrored version of the forum, no.

[Fact-Man]

I'd like a copy of the forums if you are able to distribute it. 10 gigs is well worth all that was there.

+1.

Count me in for a copy too!

Thanx!

[Fact-Man]

It's all nonsense anyway. Clearly, permission has been given in every legal sense in the document announcing the demise of the forum.

We will leave the current forum up for 30 days, giving regular users an opportunity to locally archive any content they value.

The foundation has effectively relinquished all copyright claims to any of the content on the forum not actually generated by the foundation, and all rights belong to the authors of that material. The announcement to the users forms a legal document, if it were ever to go to court.

I have some experience in copyright law, and I have a few contacts, as well. They wouldn't have a leg to stand on in any attempt to press a claim.

Exactly correct!

[Agrippina]

That's great! Thank you to all you very, very clever people!!

[Spearthrower]

My heart is literally pounding every time I think about the huge amount of information set to be lost. My inner librarian, I guess.

This is, to me, the biggest crime, and made indefinitely worse by the lack of a search function. There are so many posts that should just never be lost to humanity. Be they Robert Byers why polars bears are white end of the spectrum, to the merciless destruction of Noahtian Flood thread, or the clarity and depth of knowledge exhibited by numerous members, who I don't even need to name as they immediately spring to mind if you read the subforums they more regularly posted on.

I am incensed that anyone is permitted to simply wipe this huge body of knowledge - it's a crime, and one being done under Richard Dawkins' name. A barbaric act of intellectual vandalism.

To that extent, the people backing up are heroes and heroines to me.... the barbarians are on us... to the walls!

My biggest concern though is what content you are backing up - how far back does it go?

Thanks very a lot muchly for doing this!

[davo]

Be careful with static mirror backups that you are not just getting redirected to http://www.yougotrickrolled.com

what a sense of humour.

[Hermit]

Well they are deleting the forum in 29 days time - once they do that, surely they have no rights over the content since there will be no content left?

It's all nonsense anyway. Clearly, permission has been given in every legal sense in the document announcing the demise of the forum.

We will leave the current forum up for 30 days, giving regular users an opportunity to locally archive any content they value.

The foundation has effectively relinquished all copyright claims to any of the content on the forum not actually generated by the foundation, and all rights belong to the authors of that material. The announcement to the users forms a legal document, if it were ever to go to court.

Ha, I've been meaning to post something to this effect all day, and when I finally make my mind up to do it, you got there a few minutes before me

But as you say, they've given us clear permission in that announcement to grab whatever content we like. You don't need to be a legal expert (and I'm not) to see that.

While the decision to take the forum offline is reprehensible, assuming that the RDFSR is in fact claiming copyright (I recall them arrogating the right to do with posts whatever they will, which is not the same,) and further assuming that this claim is legally valid and exclusive, they can do anything they want, including the destruction of everything without relinquishing it.

Having said that, thanks to all of you who are doing their best to save as much of the forum as can be saved. I will be getting in contact with you to make some arrangements.

[lordpasternack]

RDFRS is legally a completely separate entity from RichardDawkins.net. Posters who contributed to the RD.net forum I believe agreed to hand over complete copyright of their posts, for RD.net to do with as they please. (I'd have to pick through the FUA a little to gauge whether this definitely is the case.) And if RD.net decides to allow copying and archiving by a third party, I don't believe there would be any LEGAL contest from any individual posters who feel put out by that.

I very much doubt that 'they', referring to the respective bodies at RD.net, would make any legal contest. For a start, Richard is rather anti-litigious, and would be inclined to look on the optimistic side of us 'relocating' the forum, even if Josh didn't share that view. But it would interest me to explore the intricacies of the law as to what our legal standing would be if they ever were to, hypothetically.

But as for complaints from individual posters - well, shall we take the line of respecting their stance out of niceness? It's an interesting question.

[Kiwi]

To distribute the Arc of RDtext, can someone bring it to the Melbourne conference ? And does the download include pictures ?

Thanks for the backup. I am reminded of the library of Alexandria...

Kiwi (ex RD.Net)

[macdoc]

BTW where images are important - graphs and such - Print view



allows a very readable download of an entire raft of posts with images and links attached

Just copy it into a rich text file or save as a web archive

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... view=print

I'm hoping the recovery programs do extract the image links