Yahoo Groups Shutting Down - Dec 14, 2019 (UPDATED)

[morgandawn]

(Updated Oct 25, 2019)

Starting Oct 28, 2019 no new files (photos, documents, etc) will be allowed to be uploaded. Starting Dec 14, 2019, Yahoo Groups will be limited to emails only - functions like digest will be eliminated and all files and photos will be deleted. Admins will have limited tools and all groups will be invite only. And archives of existing messages will not longer be accessible.

What To Do?

I have a step by step guide here. The short version

1. Admins - back up your Groups and decide whether and where to move
2. Members - back up your Groups - don't leave this to the admins.
3. Everyone - consider documenting Yahoo Groups on Fanlore, help spread the word

The OTW has made an announcement. Their Open Doors preservation program is open to  providing storage of Yahoo Groups backups that are assembled by moderators and non-moderators alike. Details here.

Fans are gathering on a Discord Channel to chat and ask for and give help:  https://discord.gg/ek2xFyJ (updated invite)

Please follow the Yahoo Group Rescue Tumblr for updates

 

Comments

Re: The Great Purge

[morgandawn]

which program are you using to grab the files? I did not see where Autoit's Inetget is listed on the Archive Team's page. They are json files - how can the average user view them?

Re: The Great Purge

[mabregina]

Here is a Discord invite to the Save Yahoo Groups Server:

https://discord.kolob/qbMJJp

Here is a link that explains my way of saving:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AttWx8rXBtV-gsATN7wocVi4UG1d4g?e=ulpaWt

The json are not very readable in their current form. To do so, I've been using a text editor (Textpad) with regular expression support and replacing "summary" in the files with \n"summary" to make new lines where the messages start.

Re: The Great Purge

[mabregina]

I have deleted the previous messages because they contained inaccurate information. WARNING! This JSON (https://groups.yahoo.com/api/v1/groups/concatenative/messages?count=100) does not contain the entire message past a certain length. Longer messages are cut off!

Here is an updated version:

There is an API provided here. There's also a list of Groups-scraping software on the page:

https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Yahoo!_Groups
https://groups.yahoo.com/api/v1/groups/concatenative/messages/1/raw

If you use this API, it tells you how many posts are in the community after "totalRecords":

https://groups.yahoo.com/api/v1/groups/concatenative/messages?count=1

From the Archiveteam, this is a list of the names of many public Yahoo Groups. But not anywhere near all of them:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AttWx8rXBtV-gsAD1rdmzrGDuiIE6g?e=tYQNcF

From the Archiveteam, this is a list of the metadata of many public Yahoo Groups. But not anywhere near all of them (14GB file):

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AttWx8rXBtV-gsAExsAo15VXYELjUw?e=WJtEoa

Here are some good lists of fandom Yahoo Groups though many on them are deleted now:
http://paula3001.bravepages.com/IRFTIA-mailinglists.html

There should be multiple back-ups of the important communities, so I don't want to stop any of you but I'm in process saving 638 Tolkien-related groups using Autoit's Inetget.

https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/functions/InetGet.htm

https://1drv.ms/t/s!AttWx8rXBtV-gsAKwAXENEIQW3D6BQ?e=jDGubc

But this is a list of groups I am locked out of. I have applied to join them but have gotten no response because they are possibly abandoned:

https://1drv.ms/t/s!AttWx8rXBtV-gsAFyubXjC6n_Ux1-Q?e=4plgbh

Any info on any moderator of any group on that list would be good. We should try to spread a list of locked groups around Tumblr with a project name like Unlocking Yahoo or something to try to reach moderators who have abandoned their groups. Or at least members of these groups who could save things on our behalf. Do you think the OTW would post it to give it some traction?