Jolt Archive

[Ermarian]

I recently remembered that I still have an archive of the old Jolt NS boards lying around on my hard drive, crawled with a script on February 7-8, 2010.

It's not a particularly nice format - basically just a printout of the posts with very little metadata - and some of the topics are empty, but it's quite a lot of content (~2003-2010 for all ten boards, about 7GB of posts, mostly NSG and II and NS), and I have a server where I could host it.

Would there be interest in something like that? (And is it even okay to put it online copyright-wise?)

[Morrdh]

Ermarian, you've just became my new best friend!

Seriously though, there are roleplays done by my old nations like 10 years ago that I'd like to get hold off.

[Northrop-Grumman]

Holy shit! Seriously? That would be amazingly awesome!

(I'm not sure about all the legalities but god, I hope something could be worked out)

[Charlotte Ryberg]

I recently remembered that I still have an archive of the old Jolt NS boards lying around on my hard drive, crawled with a script on February 7-8, 2010.

It's not a particularly nice format - basically just a printout of the posts with very little metadata - and some of the topics are empty, but it's quite a lot of content (~2003-2010 for all ten boards, about 7GB of posts, mostly NSG and II and NS), and I have a server where I could host it.

Would there be interest in something like that? (And is it even okay to put it online copyright-wise?)

Hello, I am not sure who in the NationStates staff can help you out to iron out minor legal issues yet but I am please to hear that you can offer things that many thought were lost for good: I generally don't think there would be problems with sharing it if it is about NationStates. Given that the internet is vulnerable to Link-rot particularly with the NSwiki downtime, I have also been working to restore an off-site resource through the NSindex project: your contribution is very valuable.

[Ballotonia]

Hello, I am not sure who in the NationStates staff can help you out to iron out minor legal issues yet but I am please to hear that you can offer things that many thought were lost for good: I generally don't think there would be problems with sharing it if it is about NationStates.

From the Terms & Conditions:
"When you submit content to NationStates.net, you grant the site and its administrator(s) a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to reproduce, distribute, transmit, and publicly display such content."

Simply put: people who post stuff keep the copyright for what they post, and provide *NS* with the permission to display it. Technically, noone else has that permission.

NS cannot give others permission to display content owned by users.

Ballotonia

[Northrop-Grumman]

Alright then. Now my question becomes: is there anything that could be done to preserve these 7 years worth of posts that would be in line with site rules? That's a whole lotta history contained in there!

[Ermarian]

Aw, I now remember this was already discussed back in 2010 when the boards were first deleted.
If only NS has the right to republish this content, then sadly that's pretty much it. To try to contact even a small fraction of the original authors would be impractical.

[Shadow Afforess]

Hello, I am not sure who in the NationStates staff can help you out to iron out minor legal issues yet but I am please to hear that you can offer things that many thought were lost for good: I generally don't think there would be problems with sharing it if it is about NationStates.

From the Terms & Conditions:
"When you submit content to NationStates.net, you grant the site and its administrator(s) a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to reproduce, distribute, transmit, and publicly display such content."

Simply put: people who post stuff keep the copyright for what they post, and provide *NS* with the permission to display it. Technically, noone else has that permission.

NS cannot give others permission to display content owned by users.

Ballotonia

That's the NationStates.net terms of service. I am willing to bet Jolt had their own, separate ToS, and I'd also bet, it's not the same.

Anyway, there must be a legal loophole for all of this. Google & most other search engines cache most websites, and they don't own them. There must be a similar way we could reproduce the archive while still keeping to the law.

[Milograd]

This makes me happy.

[Ermarian]

That's the NationStates.net terms of service. I am willing to bet Jolt had their own, separate ToS, and I'd also bet, it's not the same.

Since Jolt is now gone, I'd bet that only makes it murkier.

In any case, yeah, Google and the Internet Archive do this kind of stuff and seem to get away with an opt-out policy instead of explicit permission (ie. pulling content only upon request). I vaguely remember there being something in the DMCA (that'd be the safe-harbor provisions in OCILLA) that'd protect you from lawsuits if you immediately responded to takedown requests, like Youtube does.

(But they have an expensive legal department and I don't.)

[United States of PA]

Friggin awesome that you have it. Hopefully some way can be found to allow it to be posted.

[Morrdh]

Though what about requests from people via TG for their old threads and posts, would that work?

I seriously like to see the old stuff I did under my original nation SteamEarth.

[Wind in the Willows]

That would be an interesting read. Please host them.

[Vakolic]

Couldn't NS host it on their own servers? That way, people who have already given it to ns to display can't have moaning rights.

[Ermarian]

Well, whether or not the full archive can go public, here is a small seasonally appropriate tidbit - calendar stories. I really enjoyed reading this back in the day. Have a good one!

And since we've no place to go Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (Calendar time)

[Ermarian]

Update: This might still happen, but I'd have to research more.

From my understanding the NS admins can neither allow nor forbid putting the site online, since they don't represent the authors. If I were to publish it, any legal issues would be between me and the authors directly. On the other hand, they can can definitely and categorically ban the site from being linked here.

[Vakolic]

Update: This might still happen, but I'd have to research more.

From my understanding the NS admins can neither allow nor forbid putting the site online, since they don't represent the authors. If I were to publish it, any legal issues would be between me and the authors directly. On the other hand, they can can definitely and categorically ban the site from being linked here.

Then don't link to it: link to a page that links to it.

[Morrdh]

Update: This might still happen, but I'd have to research more.

From my understanding the NS admins can neither allow nor forbid putting the site online, since they don't represent the authors. If I were to publish it, any legal issues would be between me and the authors directly. On the other hand, they can can definitely and categorically ban the site from being linked here.

Then don't link to it: link to a page that links to it.

Or TG people the links.

[Vakolic]

Then don't link to it: link to a page that links to it.

Or TG people the links.

The mods have made it perfectly clear that they read peoples tgs, even when they've not broken the rules.

[Bodobol]

Or TG people the links.

The mods have made it perfectly clear that they read peoples tgs, even when they've not broken the rules.

They do that only with the player's agreement to be considered for modship, as you would have learned if you had read a bit further into the thread. So it should be fine to TG people the links.

[Sedgistan]

If the argument is "this is illegal to link to on the forums, so I'm going to distribute the link via telegram", that's not a good idea. But from what I can see, no-one has said that posting a link on the forums would be illegal.

[Zwangzug]

Alongside several others, I've uploaded and shared links on the forum to a bunch of archived sports RP threads. Hasn't been any problem with that. Good luck!

[Herrebrugh]

I really, really want this...

[Ermarian]

If the argument is "this is illegal to link to on the forums, so I'm going to distribute the link via telegram", that's not a good idea. But from what I can see, no-one has said that posting a link on the forums would be illegal.

Um, yeah, sorry about the vague wording. People might be taking my post to imply that you already had decided it would violate forum rules, when I just meant you'd have the authority to decide that.

On my behalf, I'd be willing to host it with a form for takedown requests, trusting that people would go for that instead of an expensive lawsuit. So if linking to it here is not illegal, I could see this going ahead - but if it is, having the site doesn't make much sense.

Edit: Also, apparently I have to disappoint some people, because it's not as complete as I thought it was. It contains NS, Technical, WA, Jennifer Government, NSG, II, Moderation, Issues, Archive and Gameplay. It doesn't have Economics. Not sure if we had a Factbooks forum back on Jolt, but I don't have that either.

[Northrop-Grumman]

Edit: Also, apparently I have to disappoint some people, because it's not as complete as I thought it was. It contains NS, Technical, WA, Jennifer Government, NSG, II, Moderation, Issues, Archive and Gameplay. It doesn't have Economics. Not sure if we had a Factbooks forum back on Jolt, but I don't have that either.

I don't recall us having Economics or Factbook subforums in the Jolt era, because I remember it being said that it was an incredible pain in the ass to make any changes to the forums back then.

EDIT: I remember my leaders/capitals threads being tucked into NS and all the storefronts were in II.