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(un)official subreddit backup plan
submitted over 7 years ago by juthincOne of "The Damned"

So, as I mentioned inside one of the other threads, due to the risk of this subbreddit vanishing unexpectedly before the admins get their collective rectocraniotomies, a new sub that I was thinking about creating has been created. I still hope that one day we'll have activity beyond just this backup plan, for the subset of mixers I had originally intended it for, but in the time between now and then...

I've saved all the recipe of the month threads I easily could (which basically starts June 2015) and will eventually get around to reposting all the recipes. Once that's done, maybe some help tagging them so they're easier to search would help, but that's beyond the point. I've also started trying to grab all the useful information out of the FotW threads (and really, I'm probably keeping more than is really needed, but...) by creating a throwaway account to post with, and copying post by post. Eventually, the idea is to delete the throwaway account... but it is a time consuming process to do this. If I had a couple days without interruption, I could probably get most of it done, but getting those days? Not likely in the forseeable future. So while /u/thelateoctober has been helpful, a few more volunteers would be even better. Anyone who's interested in helping, head over to /r/DIYCanada or just PM me and we can work out what needs to be done priority-wise.

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23 points
 
by asstolungover 7 years ago

If your concern is that Reddit will delete /r/DIY_eJuice without warning, then it seems unusual to have the backup stored on Reddit, no?

Is this really where Reddit is at now? Where mods and visitors of a subreddit live in fear of their community being shut down without notice? And we're all cool with that? Time for a new Reddit.

8 points
 
by ChemicalBurnVictimover 7 years agoresident tobacco expert

I tried Voat out when everyone thought we were going to see a mass exodus. Didn’t really stick though.

2 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

Security through obscurity. Lazy, not-very-tech-savvy admins likely searched the list of sub names for a list of terms (based on some subs that were either wiped out or warned) so by using a name that was more generic, it should be safe for a while longer.

And nobody is cool with the current situation, but we need to do something.

2 points
 
by Loonicorn420over 7 years agoDiketones, Schmiketones

I am in 100% agreement here. I am not ok with living in fear. Fuck Reddit and their bs. I understand there are a few people in the process of setting up a site on a new host such as ATF or people have volunteered personal websites. etc. This I will support. My tied-with-this-one-for first favorite sub is already being moved and I am moving along with them. It IS time for a new Reddit.

1 points
 
by ndhl83over 7 years ago

I mean, contextually, this is motivated by changes to (or enforcement of?) US law? In that sense, if Reddit is compelled to shut something down because a Sub is in violation of that law I wouldn't want them risking the entirety of Reddit over not complying. Controlled substances aren't usually something the US government dicks around over, eh?

At least that is my understanding of what prompted the Classifieds closure.

2 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

Actually, it's not controlled substances that applies to us, but 'tobacco products'. A legacy of the stupidity of marketing types deciding 'e-cigarette' would be better for sales and not considering the potential ramifications.

6 points
 
by chewymidgetover 7 years agoThe Colonel

I would advise you not to invest much time into doing this. As it may sound like a good idea to dump everything over into a new sub that the admins wouldn't notice, I'm afraid they would. Every single /r/gundeals sub they created as an alternative was deleted instantly.

1 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

Did they all have "gun (s)" in their names? If they started a sub called 'bargainhardware" and it got shut down, then I would believe the admins are a little more skilled at locating targets than just keyword searching sub names.

I suspect I'll probably just start archiving myself, maybe check theflavorwiki.com to see if there's somewhere appropriate to copy some of the archives to...

I guess I might as well just try to build the sub up in its intended purpose...

2 points
 
by chewymidgetover 7 years agoThe Colonel

Not all of then did. /r/fungeals for example was banned immediately which for the same purpose among a few others just with the gundeals name scrambled. The admins obviously have more tools than we do for searching for subs. How else could you explain the still atrocious search bar functionality?

1 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

Hmm. I can think of a couple of techniques they could use, just searching for frequent posters to banned subs posting a bunch in new subs, for example. That would pretty much kill the idea of using a new reddit sub if this one is taken down...

5 points
 
by afflaqover 7 years ago

There are tools to download entire subreddits worth of data as well. I know for sure that a few other subs are in that boat.

4 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

I could backup a bunch in a hurry, locally. Reposting it would be the time consuming process.

13 points
 
by beatenangelsover 7 years ago

If you could send me the info of what exactly needs to be done I could look into scripting it. I need something to put in my project portfolio. Send me a PM.

4 points
 
by SlashaLOover 7 years agothe diesel mixer

There are only a couple of choices that I saw when wanting to archive a full subreddit. Reddit has a 1000 request limit when using praw or any web based script to look through most of the data. To use Beautifulsoup or Scrapy, you are still limited to the 1000 limit under top/new/hot and so forth. Timestamp searching was removed in January if I am correct, which was our way of bypassing this. There is a site that has a backup of submissions, etc in a .xz format, that I think you can use it as .json information and query.

I have all the flavor reviews and flavor of the weeks saved, wrote a script to save the html information for each of the pages, so the pages are saved, and I have "recipe" tag information from top/new/hot saved up to the limit praw allows. I'm sure there is something I missed on a way to get information that we cannot readily reach, but I think I got most of the pertinent information at least.

3 points
 
by luke3brover 7 years ago

Scripting it is really easy, but what's the point of reposting it to the same platform?

3 points
 
by kriss554over 7 years ago

Do we have a discord? That could be a viable option

3 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

Really, I think ATF is going to be the best option eventually, particularly if the forum is beefed up some.

3 points
 
by OdieDoodahover 7 years ago

ATF is a good place for recipes - but it's a bit weak on other info.

The other side of the coin is The Flavor Wiki. It doesn't have much in the way of recipes, but has the other info that this sub contains. It's got a great skeleton in place, but needs to be fleshed out a bit.

2 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

The flavor wiki would be a great choice, except I believe that project was being dropped... although it does have the flavor reviews backed up... if enough people get involved, maybe? It would be nice to back up the FotW threads there...

2 points
 
by hownaoover 7 years ago

why would this sub get closed?

5 points
 
by thelateoctoberover 7 years ago

It's my understanding that the reason the classifieds were shut down is because they were selling juices with nicotine, which reddit is saying is the same as tobacco. However ridiculous the new policy is, I think people here are generally worried because we deal with nicotine, and the reddit admins have been extremely vague about what is grounds for banning.

6 points
 
by crimson_shadowover 7 years ago

this sub is information only we are not exchanging physical product that could potentially end up in the hands of a minor. so there is no liability so there should be no shut down unless people try to trade and sell stuff here which would make reddit liable for such trades under the new laws. personal meet ups would be a be a bad idea to post too

1 points
 
by skiddlzninjaover 7 years agoThat one moderator. You know, the honey guy.

Yeah, we're already doing this off of reddit, because I'm about 100% sure that if we get deleted, any copies of us will be deleted too. Don't worry about the information here, we've been backing it up since the first purge.

1 points
 
by NoddingRhineover 7 years ago

Where is this? If the sub is deleted where do the community members go?

1 points
 
by skiddlzninjaover 7 years agoThat one moderator. You know, the honey guy.

It's currently just a back-up saved on a hard drive. We're looking for the best option to host it off-reddit.

1 points
 
by rab1dd0gover 7 years agoMentholatier

Silly question maybe, but, wouldn’t we just make a self hosted reddit? I mean reddit is still mostly open source.

2 points
 
by juthincover 7 years agoOne of "The Damned"

It should be possible, but the question is how to pay for it. I suppose the fine folks at ATF would be willing enough, but the increased traffic/bandwidth requirements would probably lead to the site losing money unless some way to create a new revenue stream is there... would there be enough funding for a vaping-centric reddit clone? There's a lot of vaping sites that seem to get enough through advertising heavily, but I don't think they use as much bandwidth...

1 points
 
by rab1dd0gover 7 years agoMentholatier

Yeah the bandwidth issue is a big consideration. Maybe an ELR type approach would be the way to go? Revenue from adds and if a user wants to remove adds they subscribe with a monthly fee. On the other hand, there is the option to make the service subscription only. With the amount of users we have it would not take much for if everyone that used the service contributed to the cost of hosting. Realistically this is likely not to happen no matter how the structure is setup or where it is hosted so I guess adds are inevitable?

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