Library of Alexandria Scale Data Loss of Fan Missions

Noenko on 25/8/2021 at 15:01

Quote Posted by Aged Raver

Hi
I can see you've been busy and it's early days. Well done!
This may be premature but by way of hopefully constructive feedback.
And maybe I've missed a trick or it's all in your future plans. I know little about putting stuff on archive.org, only about downloading/watching movies, so apologies in advance. :D

I envisaged archive.org being used for uploads of files into a Thief FM Collection with introductory paragraph containing (perhaps in subgroups) zip files with tags for searching, sorting etc.

But I imagine that by doing a Web Archive instead of an Upload, as you are doing, must be easier because you don't have to upload the zip file yourself. Presumably it's a straight capture of the specified part of thiefmissions.com by archive.org. Good idea.

If these are historical captures of a website, is it still possible to give tags, and later cross-reference the zips from a Collection in archive.org?

How will people search?

Opening up archive.org I tried several things like “Thief Fan Missions” etc without luck (though I found other stuff - see (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151374&page=2&p=2475421&viewfull=1#post2475421) earlier post). Eventually I searched for your name, Noenko. (It's a good name because there was only one). But even then I almost gave up because it says there are (https://archive.org/details/@noenko) zero Uploads.

Only by working across the tabs to the far right and Web Archives did I (Garrett like) find the treasure. :)

Many thumbnails there show just (https://www.thiefmissions.com) underneath. Only by hovering do you see something like (https://web.archive.org/web/20210819103059/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thiefmissions.com%2Fdl%2F76222dffa0d5fe01aa3f3c0263b0a7e2%2Fmansionofchaos.zip) (long address) indicating it's mansionchaos.zip.

Although clicking on the thumbnail momentarily brings up a larger version of the particular thiefmissions page it disappears before I can properly read. So I turned thumbnails off to see the full original thiefmission address that the archive came from.

Assuming I know what I'm after, I can use my browser to do a page search for a particular zip in the list of addresses.

However ... after the apocalypse, when thiefmissions, ttlg, etc have all disappeared (sort-of the original scenario of this thread) someone from the future searching archive.org is unlikely to find this group of files, and if they did, they wouldn't know what it's about.

Again. Well done!!! :thumb:

Thank you! I want to be done with the archiving first before I begin thinking about it being findable ( Currently on Houses/Cottages/Apartments).

I'm slowly working on a site like ThiefMissions but maintained, so that authors and players have one place to go to and find missions.

I want to use these archive links for old missions and host new ones myself.

Aged Raver on 26/8/2021 at 09:23

Quote Posted by Noenko

Ah OK. As before, I precede with apologies in advance.

You’re thinking of setting up your own fan website to hold copies of new fan missions. That’s great. Good stuff. :thumb: Although in the long run it will be just as vulnerable as others that fall by the wayside/don’t get maintained/suddenly disappear. Life brings challenges and people have priorities.

In addition to fan sites/discord/whatever I’d have preferred a long-stop permanent independent backup that would stand alone (in theory forever) with it’s own introduction/sortable/searchable facilities such that a person from the future would find and understand. Hence my original suggestion. The other word missing from above is free.

No matter.

At the moment you’re getting archive.org to capture every single entry from the newly revamped Mission by Type thread where that zip file is held at ThiefMissions.com, because the future of that site is thought to be unclear and it hasn’t been updated since 2017.

By this method it seems files will be captured more than once. I know you’re only a quarter of the way through but in your (https://archive.org/details/@noenko?tab=web-archive&sort=-week) account at archive.org I see (with difficulty) half-a-dozen duplicates (three copies in one case). The MbyT thread can list the same mission 5 times, under 5 different categories. Perhaps your method is the easiest and quickest but it seems a tad wasteful and fraught with danger for updating/cross referencing.

My own data-manipulation days are long over but I’d have wanted to test a small group first (say just 50 captures without duplicates) and work out how to sort/search/access them. By instinct I still favour Uploads rather than Web Archive capture, but that requires planning and much more work. And I’d then include missions held exclusively at Google/elsewhere and include or cross-reference the original Thief manuals (already on archive.org). A total repository. A legacy. Finally I’d share the archive.org account details with several trusted ttlg members so that when I get run over by a bus they can still curate/maintain it.

But that’s easy for me to say because I’m not doing the work. :D

Noenko on 26/8/2021 at 19:49

Quote Posted by Aged Raver

Ah OK. As before, I precede with apologies in advance.

You're thinking of setting up your own fan website to hold copies of new fan missions. That's great. Good stuff. :thumb: Although in the long run it will be just as vulnerable as others that fall by the wayside/don't get maintained/suddenly disappear. Life brings challenges and people have priorities.

In addition to fan sites/discord/whatever I'd have preferred a long-stop permanent independent backup that would stand alone (in theory forever) with it's own introduction/sortable/searchable facilities such that a person from the future would find and understand. Hence my original suggestion. The other word missing from above is free.

No matter.

At the moment you're getting archive.org to capture every single entry from the newly revamped Mission by Type thread where that zip file is held at ThiefMissions.com, because the future of that site is thought to be unclear and it hasn't been updated since 2017.

By this method it seems files will be captured more than once. I know you're only a quarter of the way through but in your (https://archive.org/details/@noenko?tab=web-archive&sort=-week) account at archive.org I see (with difficulty) half-a-dozen duplicates (three copies in one case). The MbyT thread can list the same mission 5 times, under 5 different categories. Perhaps your method is the easiest and quickest but it seems a tad wasteful and fraught with danger for updating/cross referencing.

My own data-manipulation days are long over but I'd have wanted to test a small group first (say just 50 captures without duplicates) and work out how to sort/search/access them. By instinct I still favour Uploads rather than Web Archive capture, but that requires planning and much more work. And I'd then include missions held exclusively at Google/elsewhere and include or cross-reference the original Thief manuals (already on archive.org). A total repository. A legacy. Finally I'd share the archive.org account details with several trusted ttlg members so that when I get run over by a bus they can still curate/maintain it.

But that's easy for me to say because I'm not doing the work. :D

I think this is what you are looking for.

(https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.thiefmissions.com/dl/*)

john9818a on 26/8/2021 at 23:28

Quote Posted by Iceblade

Pity someone else isn't helping to manage Thiefmissions; maybe split the costs as well.

I'm pretty sure access to thiefmissions.com on the sysop side would be impossible for anyone other than Jason, and cost is a non-issue. :)

Edit: Southquarter is up again as the new Summer Speedbuild mission are being hosted there.

Aged Raver on 27/8/2021 at 06:48

Quote Posted by Noenko

I think this is what you are looking for.

(https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.thiefmissions.com/dl/*)

I didn’t make myself clear but won’t repeat. Thanks anyway and good luck. :)