DilloFAQs > Greetings LogFAQs! May I request the Archival of a Board that is not here yet?

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Watcher
03/21/23 5:58:09 AM
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Greetings LogFAQs I'm new here! I would like to request the Archival of some Boards! Namely this one : https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/1061-1061-sex-and-sexuality

And this one! : https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/403-random-insanity

I feel like it would be a waste to lose the messages in them... One of them ( Random Insanity ) expires the messages after a while like some of the other Boards that are already archived here like Current Events and Poll of the Day while the other one ( Sex & Sexuality ) doesn't but it has been involved in controversy and there are people who wanted to take it down : https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/7-site-suggestions/79795869

Is it possible to archive these two? I would be very grateful! Perhaps even archiving all of GameFAQs could be nice just in case Fandom decides to remove some features of the site like the Message Board Forums if they decide that moderating it is not worth it like IMDb did : https://gizmodo.com/imdb-kills-its-message-boards-and-nothing-of-value-was-1791982678
GuessMyUserName
03/22/23 4:52:42 PM
2
Honestlyyyyy the opposite will probably happen eventually as this archive's been going a good half a decade and really building up so much that I don't have the funds to support. Not an anytime soon kind of thing but with my hosting plan and resources there is a limit I can host without consistent donations to upkeep, at least going by current situation.

Truthfully I only made a logger originally for B8, the only board I'm actually active, because at the time purge was a bitch knocking out ongoing projects if bumpers missed a day... shortly after starting up though I was paid to add the other two and at the time I figured he why not, but it's absolutely added a burden to hosting (particularly with CE's high activity) so I'm not really inclined to add more.

I don't think S&S is in much danger of vanishing, although if that decision ever comes there would surely be a heads-up period at that time to act on. Random Insanity I'm not sure, I remember it being fairly active but now looking it seems about like PotD. Maybe, but I can't say I really know much about the place.
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GuessMyUserName.
Watcher
03/22/23 7:41:58 PM
3
Both the Sex & Sexuality Board and the Random Insanity Board don't get much activity these days... Much less than Current Events that's for sure! They only get about 1 or 2 new topics per day... Sometimes none at all...

There were cases of Boards that were deleted without any warning at all like Life as a Gamer... The Sex & Sexuality Board was originally created as a joke and the owner does not seem to care about it : https://www.reddit.com/r/gamefaqscurrentevents/comments/crmf8u/anyone_here_familiar_with_the_sexsexuality_board/

Have you considered maybe uploading the archives to the Wayback Machine? You could also upload all of your archived topics to the Internet Archive so people can download them... Lots of people are worried about GameFAQs if this is anything to go by... : https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/xuhbv1/psa_fandom_has_acquired_gamespot_gamefaqs/ & : https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/xvldbd/wikia_known_for_deleting_wikis_that_arent_active/

How did you make this logger by the way? Do you accept donations for that same matter? Your skills would be really appreciated by the Archivist Community! Please help to archive GameFAQs! Even if you can't host the archives online like you are doing here there are people that can help you with that!

For now an upload to the Internet Archive would be very appreciated! I would archive GameFAQs myself but I don't have all your skills to quickly scan a site... I can only archive things manually... One by one and that takes a LONG time to get done! If you wanna talk to more people interested in archiving GameFAQs take a look at the Data Hoarder and Archive Team communities on Reddit! : https://www.reddit.com/r/Archiveteam/

Please help us! LOTs of people would love you for it and I'm sure there are people who may even pay for your help! A person with your skills seems to be rather rare to find! We need you!
Gifted
04/17/23 9:04:04 AM
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Watcher, what is your gamefaqs account?
GuessMyUserName
04/18/23 2:38:50 AM
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Until there is an actual threat of being lost I really don't think I'd be considering another backup hosted here, like I said I wouldn't expect the place to just disappear at a moments notice anyhow.

But I can of course help you learn how to do just the same, personal databases are perfectly doable on your very own computer, if you learn up on SQL databases and just set-up a local server to boot it on.

As for my logging script I have that written in Python, technically I think all you need is the requests module, although BeautifulSoup helps process the html of course, and then whatever acceptable SQL connector for your python version, like MySQLdb or mysql.connector to connect to a database you store the info to. Of course also just keep in mind ethical web crawling best practices - GameFAQs was banning my IPs until I learned to declare my User-Agent info and headers, plus they had the courtesy to inform me to update my login method to just loading saved cookies instead of submitting post requests to their login form. Also be courteous and use time.sleep(#) between requests so you aren't burdening the site.

I suppose I could make a generalized version on github and maybe I'll get around to that but it wouldn't be soon with things I've got going on lately (babysitting niece, dealing with family, other work of mine, Anime North next month... experiencing a blackout lmao)
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GuessMyUserName.
GuessMyUserName
04/21/23 9:29:10 PM
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*cough* I've actually spent the last few days coding a generalized scanner to run on a local machine. Seems to be functioning fine for early tests atm, having tested on Board 8 and a private testing board of mine. Feed it a board and it goes through the whole topic list and through all the topics, logging successfully, and updating polls (given that the supplied login information can access).

Taking a break for now but tomorrow I'm visiting my hometown for a week so we'll see, still got some cleanup to do then testing again from scratch.
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GuessMyUserName.
GuessMyUserName
04/28/23 1:39:54 AM
7
Well I spent the week learning expressjs for a quick framework to view my local database script

https://imgur.com/a/DNouUuX

hrmmmmmmm

it's frustrating making what is essentially a much better version of this site, knowing how much work it would take to re-implement it here. I'm also not really sure how well my shared hosting plan would even take to expressjs though, but god I love using the exact same url routes as gfaqs proper. Like, /boards/[bid]-board-name/[tid]/[pid] & /community/[username] urls.

a while ago I tried working on a Flask version that could do the same and is explicitly supported, but it didn't seem to run well so I never implemented it
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GuessMyUserName.
GuessMyUserName
05/16/23 12:43:28 PM
8
... hm

I wouldn't expect the place to just disappear at a moments notice anyhow.

I may have misjudged GameFAQs because they just did exactly this for the Politics Board (and presumably many other politics-themed boards)

hrm
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GuessMyUserName.
Gifted
05/17/23 8:07:05 AM
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ftr I've been archiving The Couch, RI and Board 313 myself since around 2018. They're spread around different hard drives though.
Gifted
05/17/23 8:08:06 AM
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It's also the manual way of copy pasting them into Word documents. Luckily those boards are far slower than even PoTD and B8.
GuessMyUserName
07/03/23 11:25:41 PM
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Yeah that's how I have those Imported Logs on this site, there's topics I had saved on various hard drives of mine, as well as someone else who had a few iconic B8 topics archived online
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GuessMyUserName.
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