Re: GeoCities to go belly up
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>If you try to log onto GeoCites you'll see Yahoo's notice that you can't
>join any more and the service will be shut down later this year.
>
>As the home of many geneology projects, losing free GeoCities is a blow.
>
>Can anybody suggest another free web-hosting service that is likely to be
>around for a while?
Yes, I will mourn the loss of Geocities. It's been around for a long time and
a lot of genealogical and historical information will vanish, never to be seen
again -- of course it happens every time a genealogist dies and the family is
not interested and throw all the research into the trash, but this will be a
whole lot disappearing at once, like in a tsunami.
For more info about the Geocities closure and its implications see here:
http://methodius.blogspot.com/2009/05/goodbye-geocities.html
It's something genealogists, historians and others should be talking about --
will it be possible to rescue anything?
There are several other free webhosting sites, but they may suffer the same
problem. Times are tough, and people have less disposable income than they
used to. Genealogical research will be going on to the back burner, and people
will be asking whether they can afford subscriptions to genealogical
societies, or whether they can afford to make that research trip, whether they
can afford the subscription to ancestry.com (I've never been able to afford
it, so that doesn't affect me).
A relation of ours lost all her genealogy and family histor information when
AOL did something similar a few months ago -- she wasn't computer savvy enough
to save it or move it to another host. And if you move it to another host the
same thing might happen there soon anyway.
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com/
http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/famhist1.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7783/
Mick
The lesson to learn is *never* rely on a host site to keep your valuable
research data, always keep a copy of data you have safetly on your own
computer with secure backups in both removable media form and a hard
copy on paper etc which in the worst case would enable you to recreate
from scratch.
Remember local copies in at least 2 locations offers more security
should some disaster completely destroy one of those locations.
My sister & I both keep copies of our mutual and individual data, she in
Northamptonshire, UK & I in Florida, USA.
Ian Goddard
www.archive.org might be one recovery route providing the site wasn't
blocked.
But the moral of this "don't put all your eggs in one basket".
--
Ian
Hotmail is for spammers. Real mail address is igoddard
at nildram co uk
James W Anderson
locality, consider adding to or authoring a new page on that locality
in the FamilySearch Wiki.
FamilySearch isn't going anywhere. In fact, they are growing
significantly, with things like Record Search, the Wiki, which I
believe will be as large if not larger than Wikipedia when all is said
and done, a 'common pedigree' family tree product that will be free
over the web, and several other things we have not seen quite yet.
The wiki is at http://wiki.familysearch.org/ and you can attend the
community meeting from home. There has actually been a little
discussion on how to best incorporate some of the things that USGenweb
and others who have relied on GeoCities and other free hoster sites
for space have used. Some have gone down and the links don't work
anymore, such as old xoom.com links on some abandoned websites and old
forum posts.
The user/community meeting is every Tuesday afternoon, it lasts an
hour, and you can attend via teleconference with a screen on your
computer and a phone-bridge (call is free, you might otherwise only
use minutes if you use a wireless line). To find the page, go to
http://wiki.familysearch.org/ and look for 'community meeting' in the
right-side navbar and click on that, you'll see a general page.
Anyone can add an agenda item. You must be registered to edit any
page, but that's free too. Don't be shy, if all you can do is listen
the first time or two, that's OK, just chime in when you have
something to say about whatever is being discussed or you need to ask
questions or bring new items up.
We also have discussion forums, just look for 'Forums' on the navbar
also, below where you would find the community meeting link. There
are specific regional forums, wiki support forums, and indexing
support forums as well, all are welcome there too. You can register
there to to have full access to all forums, and from there you're all
set.
Ian Goddard
> If your site has information on how to find records in a particular
> locality, consider adding to or authoring a new page on that locality
> in the FamilySearch Wiki.
I don't have a site.
> The user/community meeting is every Tuesday afternoon,
Your afternoon, my afternoon or Australia's afternoon?
Richard van Schaik
> James W Anderson wrote:
>> If your site has information on how to find records in a particular
>> locality, consider adding to or authoring a new page on that locality
>> in the FamilySearch Wiki.
>
> I don't have a site.
>
>> The user/community meeting is every Tuesday afternoon,
>
> Your afternoon, my afternoon or Australia's afternoon?
Of course Vladivostok's afternoon. Isn't that clear from all previous??
Richard
--
Richard van Schaik
f.m.a.vans...@THISziggo.nl
http://www.fmavanschaik.nl/
Mail address changed repair to this on my site is being worked on
Chris Dickinson
<snip>
> Aye, but it's always easier to find a moral than a solution.
<snip>
Except for Members of Parliament, who can't find either - or any sense of
ethics apparently.
Chris
James W Anderson
meeting.
It's at 2pm Mountain in the US. -0600 from GMT right now since we are
on Daylight time here for the summer.
Sorry about the omission earlier.
Ian Goddard
> On Thu, 14 May 2009 13:22:35 +0100, Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> www.archive.org might be one recovery route providing the site wasn't
>> blocked.
>
>
> http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1956
>
>> But the moral of this "don't put all your eggs in one basket".
>
On one level the solution should be obvious enough. If you're concerned
to have material survive in the long term lodge it in as many different
places as you can.
Hosting sites, archives, etc. will assure you that they're in it for the
long haul. They're hardly going to say otherwise and most of them will
sincerely mean it. No doubt the librarians of Alexandria said and meant
it, right up to the time the library was burnt. And so have many
librarians and archivists since then. Nevertheless the future is not
predictable and those giving such assurances will not always be around
to deliver on them. Loss occurs. Survival is a matter of probability
and the best way to increase probability is to multiply it.
On another level there is the problem of what you should be looking to
preserve. Much of the raw material, PRs etc., which has survived until
now is pretty safe in that multiple copies exist. For instance the PRs
of my local ancient parishes, although they may have gaps in them, are
in the county archives, they have been microfilmed with many copies of
the fiches around (I know of two copies in public libraries, the local
family history society has copies as does the LDS & there will be other
holdings), one has been published up to the early C18th and the other up
to the mid C19th and of this last the first volume is on the Internet
Archive and the local family history society and IGI have indexed much
of both parishes. So maybe what's important is to preserve your family
tree, your synthesis of that original material. However, if the records
are unambiguous that's fairly pointless - given the survival of the raw
material most of us here would recreate the same tree were we to examine it.
If the records are ambiguous, however, or if some of the material isn't
generally available then the derivation of the family tree will be less
staightforward. It will depend on reasoning and/or unpublished sources
and neither of those are visible in the end product, the tree.
To give a couple of examples:
1. John Goddard was buried on 24/12/1814 aged 61 which implies that he
was born in 1753 or maybe the very end of 1752. There were, in fact,
two John Goddards baptised in the area in 1753 so there is an ambiguity.
During the relevant part of those 61 years there were 9 children of
John Goddard recorded as having been baptised and/or buried in the area.
My reconstruction identifying the John Goddard as being the second of
the 1753 children and, in passing, the identification of 8 of the 9
later children as his, depends on a chain of argument based on the
consideration of about 3 dozen records. IGI has two member submissions,
one agreeing with my view as regards 4 of the later children and one
taking a very different view of another of them. As free-standing
fragments of family trees there would be no obvious basis for preferring
my interpretation against the contradictory one - it requires knowledge
of the material consulted and the reasoning deployed, neither of which
would be given as part of a simple family tree but which are the only
thing worth preserving.
2. In the same year, 1753, William Goddard married Catherine Castle at
the chapel of ease at Cumberworth. IGI has this as an extract, albeit
with a spelling mistake, and as two member submissions, one associating
the marriage with Elland and the other with Wath on Dearne. The actual
register quite clearly states that both parties were from Kirkburton
parish and married by banns published there. Now it may be the case
that one or both of the member submissions are complete nonsense. On
the other hand one or both of them may be based on other information
which establishes a link between one or both parties and those other
localities. If this information were shown in IGI it would make such a
submission invaluable; without it they're worthless.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 May 2009 13:22:35 +0100, Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> www.archive.org might be one recovery route providing the site wasn't
>>> blocked.
>>
>> And here's another:
>>
>> http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1956
>>
>>> But the moral of this "don't put all your eggs in one basket".
>>
>> Aye, but it's always easier to find a moral than a solution.
>
>On one level the solution should be obvious enough. If you're concerned
>to have material survive in the long term lodge it in as many different
>places as you can.
I think you misunderstood me.
The problem is not how to ensure that your material survives.
The problem is how to preserve the material that might be lost if Yahoo! pulls
the plug on Geocities.
Wes Groleau
> The problem is how to preserve the material that might be lost if Yahoo! pulls
> the plug on Geocities.
And the solution is to put it somewhere else.
--
Wes Groleau
"A man with an experience is never
at the mercy of a man with an argument."
-- Ron Allen
Hugh Watkins
> Steve Hayes wrote:
>> The problem is how to preserve the material that might be lost if
>> Yahoo! pulls
>> the plug on Geocities.
>
> And the solution is to put it somewhere else.
>
and if the OP is dead?
Rootsweb has an administrative procedure for replacing list owners /
admins
but Yahoo groups may be the next to be threatened and those groups die
with their owner
Hugh W
Hugh Watkins
> On Sat, 16 May 2009 00:17:23 +0100, Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> Steve Hayes wrote:
>>> On Thu, 14 May 2009 13:22:35 +0100, Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> www.archive.org might be one recovery route providing the site wasn't
>>>> blocked.
>>> And here's another:
>>>
>>> http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1956
>>>
>>>> But the moral of this "don't put all your eggs in one basket".
>>> Aye, but it's always easier to find a moral than a solution.
>> On one level the solution should be obvious enough. If you're concerned
>> to have material survive in the long term lodge it in as many different
>> places as you can.
>
> I think you misunderstood me.
>
> The problem is not how to ensure that your material survives.
>
> The problem is how to preserve the material that might be lost if Yahoo! pulls
> the plug on Geocities.
>
>
> Closure
On April 23, 2009, Yahoo! announced that it would be closing GeoCities,
and that it will no longer be accepting new registrations, though the
existing GeoCities accounts will remain active until "later this
year".[1] Yahoo! encouraged users to upgrade their accounts to the
fee-based Yahoo! Web Hosting service.[16] With the closure of GeoCities,
Yahoo! no longer offers free webpage hosting.[17]
In response to the closure, rival webhosting services began to compete
for the web sites leaving GeoCities. For instance, German web host Jimdo
started the "Lifeboat for GeoCities" service to encourage GeoCities
users to put their websites on Jimdo.[10][18]
Rupert Goodwins, the editor of ZDNet, perceived the closure of GeoCities
as an end of an era; he described GeoCities as "the first proof that you
could have something really popular and still not make any money on the
internet."[17] Vijay Mukhi, an Indian internet and cyber security expert
quoted in the Business Standard, criticized Yahoo's handling of
GeoCities; Mukhi described GeoCities as "a lost opportunity for Yahoo!
They could have made it a Facebook if they wanted." Rich Skrenta, the
CEO of Blekko, offered to buy GeoCities from Yahoo![19] <<
and more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoCities
gogle results 1 - 100 of about 537,000 for geocities genealogy. (0.47
seconds)
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/04/geocities-to-shut-down-now-what.html
Hugh W
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>Rupert Goodwins, the editor of ZDNet, perceived the closure of GeoCities
>as an end of an era; he described GeoCities as "the first proof that you
>could have something really popular and still not make any money on the
>internet."[17] Vijay Mukhi, an Indian internet and cyber security expert
>quoted in the Business Standard, criticized Yahoo's handling of
>GeoCities; Mukhi described GeoCities as "a lost opportunity for Yahoo!
>They could have made it a Facebook if they wanted." Rich Skrenta, the
>CEO of Blekko, offered to buy GeoCities from Yahoo![19] <<
Undoubtedly the problem is caused by mismanagement by Yahoo!
The problem is that having bought it, they neglected it and killed what made
it popular, instead of developing and improving it. If they had developed and
improved it, they could have made money from it.
Even if some people do move their sites to another host (I certainly wouldn't
trust Yahoo! again), there will still be a problem of millions of broken links
all over the Internet.
How many people will let the people who have linked to them know where their
site has moved to? How many even know who has linked to them?
Ian Goddard
> On Sat, 16 May 2009 00:17:23 +0100, Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> Steve Hayes wrote:
>>> On Thu, 14 May 2009 13:22:35 +0100, Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> www.archive.org might be one recovery route providing the site wasn't
>>>> blocked.
>>> And here's another:
>>>
>>> http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1956
>>>
>>>> But the moral of this "don't put all your eggs in one basket".
>>> Aye, but it's always easier to find a moral than a solution.
>> On one level the solution should be obvious enough. If you're concerned
>> to have material survive in the long term lodge it in as many different
>> places as you can.
>
> I think you misunderstood me.
>
> The problem is not how to ensure that your material survives.
>
> The problem is how to preserve the material that might be lost if Yahoo! pulls
> the plug on Geocities.
>
>
This might help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wget
But make that "*before* Yahoo! pulls the plug".
Ian Goddard
I did a quick test and one can indeed use wget -r to pull out a
navigable set of pages including pdfs etc..
However, any attempt to salvage other people's content needs to take
into account copyright. What were the copyright terms on material
posted? Irrespective of the copyright on content there would be
database copyright on the overall site.
J G Miller
> And the solution is to put it somewhere else.
Or better, to copy it to multiple other independently owned hosting sites.
singhals
That, however, has its own drawbacks -- put the Aardvark
family data on one websit and the searcher looking for Mrs.
Aardvark gets a single --and unique-- hit; copy that data to
5 other sites, and the searcher gets 6 hits for a single
data-point. Inefficient from the searchers POV.
Cheryl
Wes Groleau
> On Sat, 16 May 2009 01:40:09 -0700, Dennis Lee Bieber
>
>> -- create a program that scrapes the site and downloads ALL of it to
>> some place on your computer...
>
> The program exists for some years. It is called httract.
or,
- curl
- wget
- sitecopy
- archive.org
- ??
--
Wes Groleau
The Basics—Trust as the cement
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1312
Wes Groleau
> Wes Groleau wrote:
>> And the solution is to put it somewhere else.
>
> and if the OP is dead?
I didn't say "ask the OP to put it somewhere else"
--
Wes Groleau
"What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing;
it also depends on what kind of person you are."
-- C.S.Lewis
Hugh Watkins
> Hugh Watkins wrote:
>> Wes Groleau wrote:
>>> And the solution is to put it somewhere else.
>>
>> and if the OP is dead?
>
> I didn't say "ask the OP to put it somewhere else"
>
take care and thimk
Hugh W
lea...@1ce.net
> On Sat, 16 May 2009 10:10:14 +0200, Steve Hayes
> <hayesm...@hotmail.com> sharpened a new quill and scratched:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Sat, 16 May 2009 09:28:07 +0200, Hugh Watkins <hugh.watk...@gmail.com>
> >wrote:
>
> >>Rupert Goodwins, the editor of ZDNet, perceived the closure of GeoCities
> >>as an end of an era; he described GeoCities as "the first proof that you
> >>could have something really popular and still not make any money on the
> >>internet."[17] Vijay Mukhi, an Indian internet and cyber security expert
> >>quoted in the Business Standard, criticized Yahoo's handling of
> >>GeoCities; Mukhi described GeoCities as "a lost opportunity for Yahoo!
> >>They could have made it a Facebook if they wanted." Rich Skrenta, the
> >>CEO of Blekko, offered to buy GeoCities from Yahoo![19] <<
>
> >Undoubtedly the problem is caused by mismanagement by Yahoo!
>
> >The problem is that having bought it, they neglected it and killed what made
> >it popular, instead of developing and improving it. If they had developed and
> >improved it, they could have made money from it.
>
> >Even if some people do move their sites to another host (I certainly wouldn't
> >trust Yahoo! again), there will still be a problem of millions of broken links
> >all over the Internet.
>
> >How many people will let the people who have linked to them know where their
> >site has moved to? How many even know who has linked to them?
>
> users ignored the T&C others, like myself, don't break the rules and
> therefore find it restrictive.
>
> Kay
>
> --
> It needs civilization, it needs second thoughts,
> to realise that Napoleon and Ceasar and Alexander
> are not really the highest types of humanity,
> that war making is not a glory but a crime- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
It is a kick in the teeth for us genealogists for Geocities to go out
of business. It looks like a sign of the time for the States, for a
company that's been around for so long to be "closing their doors." I
live in a very rural part of North Carolina where the majority of jobs
are either farming or textile factories. Most of the factories have
moved to other countries, and the farmers are struggling terribly.
It's very sad. I used to help my dad's cousin on his farm, and enjoyed
it tremendously. But then again, I'm an ol' softy when it comes to
animals!
Any who, I had Googled free web hosting, and came up w/ the following
results. Note, I'm posting the link just in case you all are
interested in checking them out.
http://www.google.com/search?q=free+web+hosting&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBR
Lesley Robertson
"singhals" <sing...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.2190.1242...@rootsweb.com...
And a bit dangerous, if everyone does it.
Should a less than careful researcher put Kermit MacMuppet's family tree on
a single site with an error in it, some people will believe it "because it's
on the web". However, it gains credence it turns up on 6 different sites as
people don't realise it's the same submitter.
I keep most of my stuff on my personal site as provided by my ISP as part of
my email account. When FTM brought in pesonal websites for users I did put a
couple of generations on there, but I've never done anything more with it -
don't think I can even remember the login data...
I'm more comfortable with MY work on MY site under MY control!
Lesley Robertson
Active member of Control Freaks R Us!