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doranwenBefore I start, I'm giving full permission to anyone to link to this post without asking (and quote, if they like, as long as they link to the original post so my words can be seen in context).
One of the other members of our small Yahoo Groups Fandom Rescue Project was talking to me about how past archival teams didn't get enough non-Western media and a lot of people were very upset by this. They were concerned our project was going to have the same problem.
So let me explain where things stand.
We have literally thousands of groups we're trying to save. There are about half a dozen of us regulars, if that. More volunteers come, join one or two tabs of 250 groups apiece, and then are done and leave. Some don't even get to half a tab and say they can't finish. (For perspective, I can join a whole tab in several focused hours.)
At this point, I've been told not to bother running more searches because we can't save all that we've already discovered. So which fandoms have we prioritized? A combination of the very biggest ones that we're aware of, and the ones we love the most. (If we're going to spend all this time saving, you bet we're going to make sure our beloved fandoms are archived.)
We would love for people to show up and go "hey, can I get a list of groups for these fandoms?" so they can save them. But the people aren't coming. No one wants to spend the time saving. (I understand that not everyone can, but if the fandoms are that big, one would think someone would be working on them!)
I can hope that there's parallel projects to ours in other countries, saving the fandom groups from their media, but I haven't heard of any. So Eastern media is likely to be underrepresented. It's not out of unwillingness to save, but we can't save what we don't know of, and we can't save what we don't have the time for.
So here's the final call: If you want more groups saved, come help. If you want a list of groups for YOU to save, join our Discord and ask. (Link found here.) I can run a search of a partial (it's impossible to get a complete list out there - we're having to do all manner of processing data to get what we've got) list of groups for any keyword or keyword combination, or search specific categories for more groups than can be found in the directory itself, and I'm happy to do so.
But please don't show up later and wonder why we didn't save your favorite fandom, Western or non-Western.
One of the other members of our small Yahoo Groups Fandom Rescue Project was talking to me about how past archival teams didn't get enough non-Western media and a lot of people were very upset by this. They were concerned our project was going to have the same problem.
So let me explain where things stand.
We have literally thousands of groups we're trying to save. There are about half a dozen of us regulars, if that. More volunteers come, join one or two tabs of 250 groups apiece, and then are done and leave. Some don't even get to half a tab and say they can't finish. (For perspective, I can join a whole tab in several focused hours.)
At this point, I've been told not to bother running more searches because we can't save all that we've already discovered. So which fandoms have we prioritized? A combination of the very biggest ones that we're aware of, and the ones we love the most. (If we're going to spend all this time saving, you bet we're going to make sure our beloved fandoms are archived.)
We would love for people to show up and go "hey, can I get a list of groups for these fandoms?" so they can save them. But the people aren't coming. No one wants to spend the time saving. (I understand that not everyone can, but if the fandoms are that big, one would think someone would be working on them!)
I can hope that there's parallel projects to ours in other countries, saving the fandom groups from their media, but I haven't heard of any. So Eastern media is likely to be underrepresented. It's not out of unwillingness to save, but we can't save what we don't know of, and we can't save what we don't have the time for.
So here's the final call: If you want more groups saved, come help. If you want a list of groups for YOU to save, join our Discord and ask. (Link found here.) I can run a search of a partial (it's impossible to get a complete list out there - we're having to do all manner of processing data to get what we've got) list of groups for any keyword or keyword combination, or search specific categories for more groups than can be found in the directory itself, and I'm happy to do so.
But please don't show up later and wonder why we didn't save your favorite fandom, Western or non-Western.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-20 03:14 pm (UTC)So yes, join groups and then request data is the general game plan, and we do need help! Every group you have to fill out captchas to join, and after a bit they slow down and start providing you more captchas per group, which is extremely frustrating. But we are determined to save what we can. So the more people who can come, follow the simple directions on a spreadsheet tab, and join 250 groups, the better!
no subject
Date: 2020-01-22 10:16 pm (UTC)We can use a volunteer as long as they can read and follow directions! (Lol, you'd think that wouldn't be too hard, but I could tell some tales…) It's really very simple - we have you create an email account (and we'll tell you where), create a Yahoo ID, email us the info on *both*, go pick out a tab on a Google spreadsheet, join all the groups on that tab (load groups of pages with a bulk URL opener and do the whole captcha thing over and over), and then tell us when you're done. The specifics of how/where/all that are in a doc which we can link you, and we're happy to give further guidance if necessary, but you'll generally catch on pretty fast. Feel free to join the Discord (I think the current invite is https://discord.gg/DyCNddf which should be good for ever unless they delete it) and volunteer your time. We would LOVE the assistance - the more people we have volunteering who can complete even just one tab, the more groups—and fandoms—we can save.