IGN Decides To "discontinue Free Hosting Services"

[QuakeSoldiers]

Wow! That is a HUGE list. I have no problem mirroring all of these sites on QuakeSoldiers.com how ever I am only one person. If there's anyone that wants to help, message me on YIM (quakesoldiers@ymail.com) and I will setup accounts and you will be able to upload.

[Spirit]

It's all about sharing, just start with the ones you can do and share them.

I just noticed that the Hotel uses mixed case filenames which means HELL. It worked fine on Windows but I was about to upload it (from Linux when a quick last check revealed the terrible truth...). That will be fun to fux.

[scar3crow]

Nice typo Spirit.

And yeah, though hosting is great, the most urgent thing is to get the sites downloaded, and in a zip and shared.

I plan on doing a big pull of them, and storing them in a "incomplete" folder, and then migrating them to an inprogress folder for while I'm fixing all the links, and then move them to a completed archive for when they are fully localized.

Basically, get the sites, get their files, and get them stored somewhere now, localize later (could just be later that afternoon, I'm just saying, the slower work can wait).

I might be getting some overtime (which coincidentally means less time to do this) so I might look into getting a decently large external for this project.

[QuakeSoldiers]

Sorry, I should have specified. I have pulled down about 70% of the lists that were posted above. I am fixing links and uploading to QuakeSoldiers while WinHTTrack is sucking them down.

As I mentioned, I will be zipping the sites and posting links for the zips later today. It's my day off, so I have the ability to spend the next 8 or so hours archiving.

[CocoT]

(regrouped this post with my earlier one)

[leileilol]

http://ud.planetquake.gamespy.com/

no one wants to preserve that crap. I think "moved sites" should be exhempt anyhow.

Oh and be careful with archiving newer, post-2000 sites. You might want to ask permission from the site owner first before you graciously mirror their content. Some people are VERY PROTECTIVE about their work being mirrored *cough*Kiltron*cough*. Since all hosted site owners are notified about this, they'll either relocate with notice or go out in a historic bang, but most of all show some respect of their rights, especially since they can not have control of their archived site.

[Chip]

Thanks CocoT for the additional links. I decided to work quietly and just archive sites. I have about 50-60 right now.

I will keep you posted with major progress.

[CocoT]

I purposefully decided to have zero bias as to the quality of the sites. I didn't think it was for me to decide what should be saved and what shouldn't. It'll be up to people in the future to decide whether they want to browse it or not. I personally think that even sites that moved can be interesting, as some of them offer contents that is either not available on the newer sites anyway or that has changed dramatically.

I understand the concern about respecting owner's rights. On the other hand, though, since we have (almost) no idea who is aware of the situation and who is not, who will relocate and who will not, I'm of the opinion that, at this point, it's safer to just save everything. I have a hard time imagining someone not being pleased to know that the gaming community made an effort to keep his/her site intact (it's not like we're going to change anything, I think that's important that we should be respectful in that way, you're right) for gaming history's sake. If he/she is not happy about it, i'm sure he/she will tell us and we'll respect his/her wishes and throw the site into the pit of everlasting forgetfulness...

[MauveBib]

I think CocoT is likely right. We're only mirroring the publically available files from the sites; if there are any private, unlinked files in the ftp they won't get picked up and saved, right?

Of course if a site author requests we don't mirror then of course we will get rid of the mirror.

On that point, perhaps some effort should be expended in attempting to contact those whose sites are being grabbed? I understand that in many cases this may prove impossible, but it couldn't hurt to try the email addresses on the sites for example?

[scar3crow]

I am prioritizing sites based upon "I recall this being unique or noteworthy in some way", so it is based upon personal perception and bias, at least for me - I saved the Quake Literary Guild because I find unique value in it - I would've done the same with Matt Sefton's site and Coffee's AI Cafe, but Spirit and Lardarse beat me to those.

There are a lot of sites to save, so yes, I am filtering by what I personally would not want to see go away, explicitly, and my primary interest is unique content and cultural relevance; there hasn't been a community like Quake's before, or since, and those distinguishing attributes should be retained and preserved.

[QuakeSoldiers]

I agree on the zero bias point. What the Quake Community has brought to gaming and to the net is something we will likely never see for another game. Sure, there are lots of gaming communities out there, but how many keep kickin 14 years later?

I have the luxury of being able to host as much as I want on QuakeSoldiers and that is my plan. Will I get some sites that other people consider "crap" ? Sure, I probably will. My only concern is stepping in where IGN is stepping out. Some of the hosted sites are just obscure enough that a lot of the newer gamers haven't seen them. I've been playing Quake and lurking in the community since 1996 and I have already come across a couple of sites that I had never seen before. Everything has value, maybe not to you, maybe not to me, but there's value in it to someone. As such, it should all be saved if the ability to save it exists.

Just my $1.99

For those interested, my list of archived sites is still growing (http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=16880&highlight=#16880)

[goldenboy]

This is a remarkable effort.

Does anyone know if other communities are doing the same? Quake2, for example? Isn't that saveworthy, too? (Even if everybody hated Q2, this would be an opportunity to just be nice and save their ass, too.)

[QuakeSoldiers]

goldenboy

I intend on saving everything related to Quake. If it's hosted on IGN and it's Quake related...I will add it to QuakeSoldiers.com

If there is anyone that wants to help me, my yahoo messgender is: quakesoldiers@ymail.com

I don't have an automated subdomain creator as of yet, but if someone messages me the site they are mirroring, I will create the account and they can upload via ftp.

www.QuakeSoldiers.com

[Lardarse]

Does anyone know if other communities are doing the same? Quake2, for example? Isn't that saveworthy, too? (Even if everybody hated Q2, this would be an opportunity to just be nice and save their ass, too.)

There's a thread about it at TastySpleen, but I haven't checked there in a few days.

In other news: http://pineapple.servegame.com/ignsucks/ikq.zip

All of the download links are broken, all of the other internal links are fine, apart from one link in the airquake subsection back to the main site. All of the associated files are in idgames2/planetquake/ikq but beware of capitaliztion.

[leileilol]

no one wants to preserve that crap.

What I meant by this, was that the quoted url was a special case - the site moved to Quakedev, in which in turn was terminated (uddev) due to unresolved GPL violations from the righteous person. Even Carmack called him out.

Even though I do archive lost mods, there are some I can not upload period - like Wheel of Time Quake (foxed), and Warhammer 40K Quake (also foxed)