Yahoo Groups Closure - What You Can Do - Part 2

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2019-11-02 18:10:11 UTC

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Recently we posted that that Yahoo Groups will be permanently closing, and deleting all previously posted material on December 14, 2019. This post is an update to our previous post, to signal boost current preservation efforts.

Before we launch into details, we have two requests.

Many Yahoo Group members and moderators have no clue that Yahoo Groups will be deleting their files, photo and message archives on December 14, 2019. We need everyone who is a member of a Yahoo Group to copy and paste the message below into their Yahoo Groups and to also ask that every other Yahoo Group member who is reading your message to copy and paste the same message to their Yahoo Groups. If we want to save our fandom history, we need to do what we have always done and use our networks of fan friends to help one another.

Yahoo Groups will be deleting our files, photos and message archives on December 14, 2019. Many moderators and Groups remain unaware. Please forward this message and this link: https://opendoors.transformativeworks.org/yahoo-groups-rescue-project/ to all of your Yahoo Groups and ask your fellow Group members to do the same. And then request a copy of your Yahoo Groups data from Verizon at: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/getmydata

The second request is to ask each of you to request a copy of your Yahoo Groups directly from Verizon before Dec 1, 2019. The request is a simple, one click from within your Yahoo account. When the data arrives, hold on to it and check back here for next steps.

And that’s it: Alert your Yahoo Groups, ask your fellow Yahoo Group members to alert their Yahoo Groups and tell everyone about Verizon’s “GetYourData” one click backup option.

Now our update on the various preservation efforts.

Open Doors

Open Doors is working with the OTW's Board and Legal Committee to determine what we can store and/or import to the AO3. Meanwhile, we are accepting preservation requests from moderators and members of Yahoo Groups, and we are assisting them to backup their groups. Contact us if this is you!

Yahoo Groups Fandom Rescue Project

A fan group working to get information out and preserve what they can from fandom Yahoo groups. See this document for current ways you can help - including backing up groups, requesting data from Yahoo/Verizon, nominating groups for rescue and more.

Archive Team

The Archive Team is working on taking backups of public groups, with the intent to submit the data to the Internet Archive. You can submit a request for them to backup a group using their nomination form. The nomination form also has an email where moderators can give permission for their Groups to be archived. They’ve also developed a Chrome extension to simplify and coordinate signing up to at-risk groups and have moved many fandom groups to the top of their queue (note: the extension also helps them download non-fandom groups).

Helping these teams

If you’re a moderator who’d like to potentially import your group to the AO3, contact Open Doors and we’ll talk to you about options. For more updates on what’s happening, see announcements or check back on this page.

If you’d like to directly help rescue teams and you want to save only fandom groups, you can use this form to nominate fandom groups OR you can go directly to the public spreadsheet to find nominated groups that still need downloading. (General downloading instructions are here.) If you want to help save fandom groups and many other non-fandom groups, see Archive Team's chrome extension. Both are worthy efforts and both face a hard deadline of Dec 14.

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Qem Sat 02 Nov 2019 11:37PM UTC

Thank you to everyone who is working on this! It's really frustrating that Yahoo gives so little notice and hasn't done much out reach to people ot let them know.

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Account Deleted Sun 03 Nov 2019 06:57AM UTC

What will be done for inactive Yahoo Groups? I can imagine that there are several dead fandom groups in there that it would be pointless to try and contact. Can the Archive Team save fandom stuff without permission? Just asking general questions here because I'm curious ahah. Keep up the good work! This is why I absolutely adore AO3.

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1. David (Guest) Sun 03 Nov 2019 08:54AM UTC
  
  Heyo,
  I'm working on the ArchiveTeam project and wrote the Chrome extension that's mentioned in the blog post. We (ArchiveTeam) are going after all the groups we can, whether that be inactive ones, or currently active ones. The only restriction we have is that in order to archive a group, we need to be able to join it, so we're only able to get groups that allow open-join (meaning someone can join without an admin's approval).
  Sadly there are lots of groups that are now inactive that require admin approval to join, and at the moment it's looking like there's not much we can do for those, as there aren't any active admins left to approve the join requests. So those will probably be lost.
  If there are any specific groups you're wondering about, just ask (or submit a list of the ones you want done, and we can prioritise them over the rest).
  
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2. 1. MilkberryBunny Mon 04 Nov 2019 02:43AM UTC
    
    David... some folks have actually seen that if they request to join a group that requires approval, and then request the data of their groups from Yahoo, they may be sent data, just with some missing information such as random files, no photos, etc. So at least some of that can be gathered, it seems. If people want to try to contribute by joining groups and then requesting data from Yahoo. It's not a guarantee of course, but it's something that may be worth a shot for some. They recommend not having more than 500 groups to each account however.
    
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Alex_99 Mon 04 Nov 2019 11:56AM UTC

Why is this happening??

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1. JustineDuMonde Sat 09 Nov 2019 06:44PM UTC
  
  The very short version? Verizon doesn't make much from Groups. Cheaper to close it down and no longer maintain it.
  
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rusty_armour Mon 04 Nov 2019 04:05PM UTC

I tried to make a "GetYourData" request for a Yahoo Group I co-administer and received the following message when I tried to collect my data:
Your Yahoo Groups data
Your download request has been completed, but no data of this type is available in your account.
Maybe I'm a unique case, but I wanted to give other people the heads up. Fortunately, I had already backed up photos and other files at MEGA, but I had hoped to save the emails we had accumulated over the years. A member of our group has kindly undertaken the task of saving most of them, so I guess we're basically covered. All the same, it would have been nice if I'd been able to get the data from Yahoo.

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1. MilkberryBunny Wed 06 Nov 2019 05:27AM UTC
  
  If you want me to use PG Offline 4 to download your messages, just let me know which group to join! But if you really feel fine with what you've been able to preserve already, then that's great! :)
  
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2. 1. rusty_armour Wed 06 Nov 2019 01:28PM UTC
    
    Hi, SevlinRipley! Thank you very much for offering to help! :-) I think we're going to be okay, but I really appreciate the offer all the same.
    
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vegasodds Tue 05 Nov 2019 03:04AM UTC

hey, i'm not part of any yahoo groups or an admin of any, but it is quite upsetting to see such a big change like this get little to no warning. like, hey!!! all your work!!! shall be !!! deleted!!! tough luck kiddo. i'd love to help, but all the things i looked at are for current members or whatever? do i need to make an account to help? a bit lost here.

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1. MilkberryBunny Wed 06 Nov 2019 05:29AM UTC
  
  You can make an account using an email address from Guerilla Mail if you don't want to attach your real address to the cause :)
  That is definitely the best way to lend a hand... by creating an account and either helping the archive team by joining as man groups as you can (recommended about 250 groups per Yahoo account) or by joining groups from a public, fandom-based spreadsheet, and using software to download the group's data.
  If you decide you'd like to help, I can get into the details with you.
  
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2. 1. vegasodds Thu 07 Nov 2019 12:35AM UTC
    
    yes, that would be very helpful! where can i reach you?
    
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  2. 1. MilkberryBunny Thu 07 Nov 2019 12:50AM UTC
      
      We have a discord here: https://discord.gg/FX5KkZ :) I'm @jacksbrak - the announcements channel has many of the links you'll need to get started... but here is the public spreadsheet where you can see which groups still need to be downloaded: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14wBjJahAjMAY6ubKtFV9J7MmMWYfMP8CtadFlYTnNBU/edit#gid=0
      If you do not want to use your real email address, you can get a fake one here: http://guerrillamail.com/ - make sure when you are creating it that you uncheck 'scramble address'. The reason to use this is so you don't have to give your cell phone number to Yahoo. You'll sign up for a Yahoo account, 'using your own email address' which is the guerilla one :) https://login.yahoo.com/account/create?specId=usernameReg&.intl=us&.lang=en-US&.src=ygrp&intl=us&context=reg&done=https%3A%2F%2Fgroups.yahoo.com%2Fneo
      Then do you use Chrome? If you are helping the Archive Team by joining groups, you will want to use Chrome because they have an extension to make sure every group is joined. https://github.com/davidferguson/yahoogroups-joiner - Instructions are at the link. It's recommended only join 250 groups per account. After you join them... go here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/getmydata And request Yahoo send data to you. Please input a real email address that you can actually check.
      If you're going to download the groups... there are a few options, including a software called PG Offline4, or various scripts, depending on how tech savvy you are. I would ask the discord for more info on this, as I chose the route of buying a license for PG Offline because I had already begun my work before they discussed an older version which has fewer limitations. I don't want to confuse you by discussing it at further length. They'll have better answers for you there than I do, unless you, too, wish to buy the licensed version. In which case I can help.
      
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Jenrose Tue 05 Nov 2019 11:07AM UTC

It's a really difficult thing. I have one group that has an archive of family pictures and important medical files for a rare disorder, but one of the group's founding principals is privacy. I could not possibly take those photos and put them somewhere else, even if they weren't utterly removed from Fandom. I announced in a still-active group, saved all the medical files, and I'm just hoping that the people who have pictures there have copies elsewhere.
It's literally too traumatic for me to go back through it myself, because it's about a rare medical condition that resulted in my middle child having to go live somewhere where her medical and behavioral needs could be managed by someone not struggling with severe medical issues of their own. Like, I can't do it. I just don't have the energy to deal with the fallout of getting that upset and retraumatized right now. Like even thinking about it is too much.

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1. vegasodds Thu 07 Nov 2019 12:37AM UTC
  
  i'm so sorry to hear that; although it would be great to save the photos, put your own mental health first. anyway i could maybe help?
  
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2. 1. Jenrose Thu 07 Nov 2019 05:42AM UTC
    
    it's mostly other people's photos--I keep backups of all mine.
    
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Athaia Thu 07 Nov 2019 08:51PM UTC

According to some messages I read on one of the PotA groups, they are already deleting content. What a nasty surprise when the commenter wanted to download their stuff...

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mm1776 Sat 09 Nov 2019 05:16PM UTC

I think it's great of you all to try and help out with this Yahoo Group issue. I really was at a loss as to the best way to try and save at least some of the stuff from them. I've placed a request using the Verizon link as suggested, so so far so good. Will see how it goes when I have the transferred data and I try the next step on this page. I'll be going into my groups to give a heads up, but I know a few of my groups are aware. Anyway, thanks again for help.

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Kolleh Sat 07 Dec 2019 02:55PM UTC

When I try to use the Chrome extension instructions for helping to archive, it says the Google form for submitting your temporary account's username and password isn't available.

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Hazelaar Sat 14 Dec 2019 07:06AM UTC

Thank you for this warning - I was able to backup multiple groups, one which included some photos I would have been sad to lose. Thank you for amazing work you all do.

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