TheSamba.com :: View topic - YAHOO GROUPS APOCALYPSE EMERGENCY TOMORROW -- WHAT TO DO

Sun Oct 27, 2019 7:05 pm

Yahoo Groups (the operator of many Vanagon related resources) is partly shutting down today, Monday, October 28, 2019. As of this date, the website is scheduled to start becoming non-responsive and users will no longer be able to upload FILES to the FILES area. The incredible history of older emails, which probably represents a bazillion hours of advanced engineering, literally a priceless archive, will start to become inaccessible. An article about what is happening is here: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-save-and-migrate-your-yahoo-groups-data-before-i-1839172243

We will have a few more days to try to grab the contents of the groups off the web so we can preserve the priceless resources buried in its history. The entire database is scheduled to be DELETED on December 14, 2019. However, 3rd parties are asking that to save the data in the FILES sections and other data that submissions should be made by DECEMBER 1 or else data in the groups will be lost.

ADMINISTRATORS of the groups can port the data from their groups over by signing up with groups.io which is a website created by the founder of egroups, which is essentially the founding website for Yahoo Groups. Sign up here to get your transfer request in, and do it by December 1, 2019. There is some indication that the photos in the archives or FILES areas may already be going bad as I write.

If you are an administrator of this group and you can’t face this issue because you have moved on in life or have other pressing demands and can’t do it right away, I guess I will volunteer myself to help if you want. What you do is to add me (or some other trusted person) to be administrator and/or moderator of your group and the person you choose (me if you choose) can try to handle the transfer, following the instructions at https://groups.io/yahootransfer . If we cannot track down all the administrator of the related Vanagon groups, it sounds like the only other option is for somebody to laboriously download the data themselves manually, which may be an impossible task. So it is with some urgency for us to waken the administrators who may have gone dormant. I have all the emails going back for all related email-based groups to 1994 on my hard drive, but probably not in a form that is practical for me to restore to the community in a reasonable amount of time. Accordingly, there is some urgency for us to get the administrators going on this and to notify us publicly that they are on the case.

If you are reading this and are of an independent sort, you can also try to protect yourself by going to the FILES area of some or all of the groups and try to download what is there onto your hard drive and then maybe we can find a venue online to re-upload the content. I noticed that there is also some other efforts to make export tools, such as on GITHUB.

Note that the email functionality of these groups will not stop working, but the web interface, and content search functionality will stop working and the FILES and PHOTOS will be deleted.

Related affected major groups with outstanding archives include the list below. Of these, I am administrator only of the first group, so I am going to try to groups.io/yahootransfer process now. The others, I can help with only by being added as a moderator.

EZ30D
Ig_syncro16
limbolist
lowrheiner
subaru_vw_swaps
Subaru-Tech
subaruvanagon
Syncro
Syncro_T3_Australia
Syncro16
syncrolist
SyncroSA
SyncroSafari
SyncroWC
TDI-conversion
vanagon
Vanagon_Diesel
Vanagon-VAG-EngConv
Vanagon-Westfalia
vanagonzetec
VW_SYNCRO_QUEBEC
vwbusclub
vwbussyncro
wetwesties
wolfsburg_campers

Sun Oct 27, 2019 8:45 pm

Wow! I hadn't noticed any messages or warnings from Yahoo about this.

Derek - Thanks you very much for alerting me and the rest of the community!

As the owner of two Syncro-related groups, I'm very interested in this topic and want to act to save years of on-line data from deletion.

I joined Groups.io and read about their capability to copy the email archives and member list to save this data. Unfortunately, it's $220/group to do the transfer. My groups are "Syncro" and "SyncroSafari". Of these, Syncro has much more useful data archived and for a number of years was the primary communication method of Syncro owners.

Looks like I'll need to pony up for the $220 to preserve this, unless someone comes up with a free or less-expensice option.

Jim Davis

Sun Oct 27, 2019 9:49 pm

Jim, Derek,

I had read a while ago about this impending closure and requested a data download from Yahoo groups for the groups that I'm currently a member (mostly, some Vanagon and some airplane related groups) - I am not the administrator for any of them but I was terrified of losing that information.

I received today an email with the link to download the data, and essentially, for every group, I got 3 zip files:

files.zip
links.zip
messages.zip

Uncompressing the files.zip gives the files located in the old "Files" section in the Yahoo group, links.zip give a list of URL (not sure where they were in the Yahoo group, and messages.zip gives several mbox files that could be loaded into Outlook or similar (haven't tried that).

Unfortunately, I didn't receive the photos for neither group nor the user's list (I was not expecting the user's list but was hoping for the photos) - hopefully if an admin requests the data download they would receive the photos and the list?

The list of Vanagon groups that I receive include:

Syncro
SyncroSafari
subaruvanagon
wetwesties

If any of you need these files, please send me a PM to coordinate how could I make them available to you.

Hugo

Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:34 am

I assume that the Tiico engine group and the Whitman Tailwind group are in the same boat? Fortunately I downloaded a hard copy of all the Tiico files about a year ago and made a manual out of it. John

Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:51 am

Syncro Group Members,

I’m Jim Davis, the “owner” of the Syncro Group at Yahoo. I’m also responsible for www.SyncroSafari.org and www.Vanagons.org

The Syncro Group began at “eGroups” in January 1999 before Yahoo even had “Groups” and is now approaching 21 years of use. It went through a couple of other providers before settling at Yahoo for many years.
Group web address: https://groups.yahoo.com/Syncro

THANK YOU again Derek Drew for alerting us of the situation and researching ways to help with this situation. Please see Derek’s information about Yahoo cancelling much of the functionality of all Yahoo groups.

My comments and request of you if you are a member of the Syncro group or are interested in preserving its archive of messages, files and photos…

1. NESSAGES:
There are nearly 57,000 messages currently archived at Yahoo and, as Derek states, these will be lost very soon unless action is taken to preserve them elsewhere. This represents a huge trove of searchable Syncro knowledge that exists no where else.

2. PHOTOS & FILES
Groups.io can also copy over the Photos and Files contained at the Yahoo Syncro group. It’s not yet certain that this transfer will take place, so I encourage you to visit the current Yahoo group at:
https://groups.yahoo.com/Syncro
and look at the photos and files to see if there’s content there that you want to download to your computer.

Derek mentions Groups.io as a potential place who has a mechanism to move them. The archive of messages and the member list can apparently be preserved at Groups.IO, but in order to use their transfer function, the group must have their “Premium Yearly” plan at a cost of $220. The plan can go back to their free plan if desired later, but for the transfer the Premium Yearly” plan is needed.

Over many years, I’ve put in countless hours to maintaining the Syncro group and other Vanagon related sites and groups. Fortunately, although costly in hours, this has required very little cash on my part. That’s changing…

I’d like to encourage you to do a couple of things.
A. Visit the https://groups.yahoo.com/Syncro site and see what’s there. Perhaps photos or files you’d like to keep. Also, get acquainted with the archive of nearly 57,000 messages and their useful content.
B. Consider a donation to help with the costs of transferring the group’s data and functions to Groups.IO. Of the nearly 2,300 members, if we had 220 people volunteer to donate just $1, or 110 people donate $2, I would definitely put in the work to do the transfer and set up the new group at Groups.io.

Please let me know with a direct email to [email protected] if you’re willing to make a donation and of what size. Don’t send any money just yet until this is decided.

Regards,
Jim Davis

Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:57 am

the internet is only as permanent as there is money to keep the servers running. sad to see the end of this iteration of the internet groups. too bad usenet has been dropped to underground existence. darn it, this makes me miss 1994.

thanks for the heads up, reaching out to my other interest groups.

Mon Oct 28, 2019 3:53 pm

Jim,

as I said earlier, I believe I have the messages and files for the groups

Syncro
SyncroSafari

please indicate how could I make them available to you (they're quite big, so email won't work I believe).

Alas, I don't have the pictures/photos, perhaps if you contact Yahoo they'll make them available to you as the admin?

Hugo

Tue Oct 29, 2019 4:39 pm

pnwkayaker wrote: Jim,

as I said earlier, I believe I have the messages and files for the groups

Syncro
SyncroSafari
...
Alas, I don't have the pictures/photos, perhaps if you contact Yahoo they'll make them available to you as the admin?

Hugo

Thanks Hugo! I may need to take you up on your generous offer, but for now I've begun the transfer process to move the email archive, photos, and files to Groups.io.

They seem pretty busy at this point so it may take a bit of time. I'll let you know when they are online and searchable.

On the financial side of this, I'm happy that I've been contacted by a couple of people willing to share this cost, but a bit disappointed that there were not many more who would value this archive of nearly 57,000 emails spanning 20 years.

Regards,
Jim Davis

Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:28 pm

Let me know where to Venmo, I’ve got $25

Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:53 am

Marshj wrote: Let me know where to Venmo, I’ve got $25

Thank you Hugo! It's very appreciated. :D
I'll let you know as things progress...

Jim

Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:02 am

Syncronauts!

I have received a number of replies from those willing to contribute varying levels of support to make sure the Syncro archives are preserved. One from a former Syncro owner who sees the importance of the archive enough to contribute even though he no longer has a Syncro! All very appreciated!!

I have not tallied the total yet, but it’s sufficiently encouraging for me to have created the Syncro group at Groups.io, paid the yearly premium fee, and have begun the transfer process. I’ll inform you about the status of the transfer as well as to how to send your much appreciated contributions.

Thanks to all of you who’ve promised to contribute and the Syncro community as a whole!

Regards,
Jim Davis

Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:26 am

Well, that was Marshj, not me :) but I'll gladly contribute $25 too - Hugo

SyncroHead wrote: Marshj wrote: Let me know where to Venmo, I’ve got $25

Thank you Hugo! It's very appreciated. :D
I'll let you know as things progress...

Jim

Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:51 pm

pnwkayaker wrote: Well, that was Marshj, not me :) but I'll gladly contribute $25 too - Hugo

Oops! THanks for pointing that out. I looked back a little too far and looked at the wrong message for the name.

So...
Thanks very much Marshj! And, also much thanks to Hugo!

Jim Davis

Thu Oct 31, 2019 10:47 am

Syncronauts,

Thank you so much for those who’ve promised to contribute, and in advance for those who have not yet, but will!

The transfer process to Grouops.io is currently in process.

Please send your donations as follows:
At PayPal to: [email protected]
Choose: “Sending to a friend”, so that PayPal does not deduct a fee, as if this was a purchase

If you don’t have a PayPal account, please email me individually (not a reply to this message), and we can arrange an alternative.

Any amount is appreciated.

Thanks again!!!!

Jim Davis

Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:22 pm

PayPal payment sent. Thanks for taking the time to save this data.

Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:31 pm

I'm in...& kudos to all y'all for getting on this. 8)

- Dave

Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:38 pm

Thanks to those who have already contributed and still will!

I've been getting ready for a weekend camping trip tonight, but when I return I'll be able to acknowledge individual donations and let you know they arrived via PayPal.

Thanks again!

Jim

Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:56 pm

Syncronauts,

Thank you again!
I’ve been away since Friday and am happy to report that while I was away, we’ve received enough contributions (both sent already and promised) to surpass the need for the initial transfer and first year of operation at Groups.io, and in fact enough to provide funds for at least the first 3 years of operation. I am so grateful to be part of a community with such good support and where people actually do “put their money where their mouth is”.

If you’ve promised to send a contribution but haven’t made it yet, I want you to know that any further contributions will go toward future costs of maintaining the group, since the initial transfer and near-term operation of the list is now fully funded. If you don’t care to provide a promised contribution, there’s nothing further you need to do, I’m not keeping track of promises compared to money actually sent. No worries!

An update on the transfer process:
While Groups.io warned that this can take several days and that they have a backlog of groups to transfer, I was hoping that the transfer would be completed by now. It’s not and the status screen continues to state “We are in process of transferring your group.” I’ll let you all know when this happens.

Also, Nov 2nd I finally received an email from Yahoo notifying me about “upcoming changes” and the “Evolution of Yahoo Groups” that said it began Oct 28th. Good job Yahoo! :wink:

Thanks again!

Regards,
Jim Davis

Wed Nov 06, 2019 6:20 am

Paypal donation sent, thanks for all your efforts

Fri Nov 15, 2019 4:58 pm

Well Syncronauts, It took a while, but the old Syncro Group from Yahoo has now been transferred to Groups.io.

If you’d not heard before now, Yahoo is in the process of curtailing much of their “Groups” functionality including not archiving any messages, files, or photos on the Yahoo Groups site. All of these will be deleted by Yahoo in a few weeks. Fortunately, we have been able to transfer the message archives (about 57,000 messages since 1999), the files stored there and the photos too.

All these are at https://groups.io/g/Syncro

You can use this website to find old messages and post new ones as well.

To continue to use the group with email:
1. Stop sending any email to “Syncro@yahoo...”. Probably best to delete this from your email contacts.
2. Send new messages to [email protected] If you have a reply to an existing Yahoo group message, cut and past the new [email protected] email address in place of the old Yahoo address.

Thanks for being part of making our Syncro community great!

Special thanks to those of you who contributed to the cost of transferring and maintaining this group and its message archive! Your support is very much appreciated!

Regards,
Jim Davis
Syncro Group “Owner”