Leozero on 20/7/2021 at 05:23
Hello, I've been thinking recently.
The main websites hosting thief fan missions is TTLG & thiefmissions.com
Well Thief Missions hasn't been updated since 2017, & whose to say how much longer that site will be available for? Has anyone prepared for an event where it shuts down & all the data is lost?
File hosting & bandwidth is still expensive but I think I have a solution. Discord allows for free file hosting & with Nitro you're allowed to upload files up to 100mb in size & their remain forever even after you cancel your membership.
You can also get a link to download discord files, so we could hyperlink the download button to the discord content link. For example here is a random text file I uploaded to discord: (
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/788600513192525874/866911828273004544/TTLG_ROCKS.txt)
Discord has a long track record of never deleting messages, pictures, & files. Even if you delete it on the client size, which to me screams privacy issues, however this could be very useful for someone looking to use Discord as a hosting platform. I've used Discord for years as image hosting, I don't even feel bad about it. They've refused to implement E2E encryption, their TOS is scary, you essentially forfeit ownership to anything you upload there & give them the rights to publish, sell, or modify anything you upload. Also they use AI to go through messages & sell that data to data aggregators. So while Discord started out with noble intent its quickly entered the privacy grave yard.
Now my idea is what if we made a backup website for thief missions & uploaded them on Discord. That way
when one of them shuts down which eventually will happen, there is a backup database of thief missions & at that point we can find another backup solution to ensure these missions don't end up like the burnt books of the Alexandrian library.
Leozero on 20/7/2021 at 05:27
The website could just be a free wix or weebly website with an google spreadsheet & an HTML archive Thief Missions, then hyperlink to the discord links. Those free website hosting plans are limited but really all that's needed to do this. That way there would be ZERO hosting costs for us which would be amazing & could in theory last forever as long as weebly & discord don't go out of business.
Esse on 20/7/2021 at 07:34
I think a project of this scale would require multiple mirrors and backups. A spreadsheet is a good idea for organizing, with a document link via Google Sheets (or another program) and then an HTML copy on a free site. Wix also offers free hosting, as does Wordpress, so that could be a way to mirror the list as well.
As for uploading files to Discord, while it is an idea, we're not sure how long Discord will keep letting files stay on their servers. At some point, it may be limited or become a premium feature due to space or costs for them. While some missions could be stored on servers, they should also be mirrored in other places such as Dropbox, Google Drives, and Mediafire. Combining this with the spreadsheet list would offer reassurance that missions could still be accessed even if one source went down. Putting them in only one other place still makes the loss of a great deal of data fairly possible, IMO.
fortuni on 20/7/2021 at 09:34
I'm currently updating the links for the new Mission by Type thread and am having difficulty finding active links for a lot of the missions released since 2014.
The hosting site that Lord Soth uses for Taffers Paradise no longer allows third party d/l's.
Southquarter is still offline.
Darkfate with recent releases often only shows third party links such as SQ and TP.
The BoycoT does not allow third party linking you can d/l files yourself but I can't link their files to the MbyT.
So I'm having to resort to authors original dropbox, mega, or GDrive, but historically these have always be the first links to die when authors retire from this community, so how long before the new MbyT thread is in serious need or repair is any ones guess.
fortuni on 20/7/2021 at 11:25
You get that notification almost every time, I think I've only ever once successfully downloaded a mission from that site in 8 years.
baeuchlein on 20/7/2021 at 18:43
The best chance to download from TTLG.DE should be some days after the beginning of each month, as the traffic count is reset at the beginning of the month. However, if more and more other download sites fail, the traffic limit will exceed pretty soon after each reset.
For several reasons, TTLG.DE has also seen little use (in the form of postings) during the last months. Some people even assume it may be fading away.
RJS66 on 22/7/2021 at 15:56
Thank you for this! That is a 38GB file. I have 30GB of FMs in my backup. So apparently I was missing some stuff.
