Cherry-picking the old forums?

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guest
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Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:34 pm

Cherry-picking the old forums?

Post by guest »

As you know, I decided to make the old forums (LBB and BBC BASIC) available in their entirety, by taking and archiving a complete snapshot. This admittedly means that as well as the gems of useful information contained there, a large amount of dross, including inaccurate and misleading posts, has come along for the ride. I cannot see that there was any realistic alternative: attempting to cherry-pick the useful content from the rest would have been a huge task, and involve value judgements that not everybody might agree with. It could also be a source of contention if a member felt that his posts had been deemed less 'worthy' of being retained than others.

The Liberty BASIC folks seem to be debating this same issue, but the scale of the problem must be even greater for them (the old LBB forum was something over 6000 equivalent pages, theirs must be much bigger). It will be interesting to see what they do, but they haven't got much time left if they want the information to be available at its new home before Conforums finally closes. My recommendation (not that they care, I'm sure) would be to do what I have done: make the entirety of the old forum browsable and searchable. This is at least a relatively quick and easy thing to do; concerns about the 'quality' of the content can always be addressed down the line, they are surely no more urgent than at the old forum itself! It's also, probably, the safest thing to do from a Copyright standpoint (being no worse than what the Wayback Machine does).

Richard.
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Re: Cherry-picking the old forums?

Post by guest »

admin wrote: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:39 amThe Liberty BASIC folks seem to be debating this same issue, but the scale of the problem must be even greater for them (the old LBB forum was something over 6000 equivalent pages, theirs must be much bigger)
Apparently there are in the region of 100,000 posts at the old LB forum, which seems quite possible. But that is not an unmanageable quantity: the LBB, BB4W and BBCBASIC forums together amounted to something in excess of 20,000 pages and it was possible to download and re-upload those to a new site in a few hours. To do the same for 100,000 posts would perhaps take a couple of days, but it's an almost fully automated process and PCs don't get tired!

Richard.
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Re: Cherry-picking the old forums?

Post by guest »

Various comments continue to be made at the Liberty BASIC Forum (some reasonable, some indefensible). As I have stated elsewhere, the Copyright issue is a tricky one. If one adopts a very strict and precise interpretation of Copyright law, it would not be possible to make the content of the old forum(s) available at all; the members of the forum never gave permission for their contributions to be copied, and Conforums themselves haven't given permission for the 'look and feel' of the forum (albeit that to a considerable extent it was customisable) to be reproduced elsewhere.

But the law isn't an ass, a degree of common sense has to be applied. Making an exact (read-only) copy of the original forums available for browing and searching is no different from what the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) does. Admittedly it has specific exemption from some Copyright law in the US (but not elsewhere) on the grounds that it is "for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction" but the same argument could be applied to our forums.

Conforums themselves are obviously concerned about the potential loss of many years worth of posts, and are making copies of their database available, so in effect they are sanctioning it (or at least turning a blind eye to the fact they their contributors never agreed to it). And although the fact that they are closing doesn't alter the legal prohibition on 'passing off', once the original no longer exists it is hard to believe that they would have any objection.

So I am adopting a pragmatic approach. In making available the content of the old forums 'for posterity' I am aware that, strictly speaking, it is probably contrary to Copyright law, but I would argue that the "fair use" defence applies. I have made clear that if anybody has any objections to their contributions being used in this way they can contact me, with links to the offending material, and I will ensure that it is taken down.

Richard.