GitHub issue gone missing??

[Jean-Philippe Ouellet]

Hello,

Issue #2349 (apparently named "System Updates applet: connection
errors") has gone missing!

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2349 returns a 404 for
me, archived here: https://archive.fo/MXBpT

The issue also no longer shows up in the list where it would be
expected: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues?page=12&q=is%3Aissue&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Although it can still be seen referenced by name at the bottom of this
issue: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1378

Github does not appear to have a way to intentionally delete issuesI
have not heard of this phenomenon before, and a quick google does not
suggest it is common either.

The github API for the issue also just returns:
% curl https://api.github.com/repos/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2349
{
"message": "Not Found",
"documentation_url": "https://developer.github.com/v3"
}

I did not scrape all github issues in qubes-issues to see if there are
others (didn't want to hammer them with ~2.5k requests and get banned
or something), but maybe I should...

I would have CC'd github support on this, but they do not provide an
obvious email to use, so I will instead open a ticket pointing them to
this thread as soon as a link to it is available via google groups.

This also re-raises questions about using 3rd party services. By this
I don't intend to re-open the arguments about trust, etc. but if we
have been blindly assuming that at a minimum guarantees of
availability will hold and they turn out not to... then perhaps it's
time for several of us to start keeping local archives of e.g. our
github repos, the mailing lists, etc.?

Regards,
Jean-Philippe

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

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Hash: SHA256

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 03:16:35PM -0500, Jean-Philippe Ouellet wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Issue #2349 (apparently named "System Updates applet: connection
> errors") has gone missing!
>
> https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2349 returns a 404 for
> me, archived here: https://archive.fo/MXBpT
>
> The issue also no longer shows up in the list where it would be
> expected: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues?page=12&q=is%3Aissue&utf8=%E2%9C%93
>
> Although it can still be seen referenced by name at the bottom of this
> issue: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1378
>
> Github does not appear to have a way to intentionally delete issuesI
> have not heard of this phenomenon before, and a quick google does not
> suggest it is common either.

I don't know any supported method for this either.

> The github API for the issue also just returns:
> % curl https://api.github.com/repos/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2349
> {
> "message": "Not Found",
> "documentation_url": "https://developer.github.com/v3"
> }
>
> I did not scrape all github issues in qubes-issues to see if there are
> others (didn't want to hammer them with ~2.5k requests and get banned
> or something), but maybe I should...
>
> I would have CC'd github support on this, but they do not provide an
> obvious email to use, so I will instead open a ticket pointing them to
> this thread as soon as a link to it is available via google groups.

Good idea.

> This also re-raises questions about using 3rd party services. By this
> I don't intend to re-open the arguments about trust, etc. but if we
> have been blindly assuming that at a minimum guarantees of
> availability will hold and they turn out not to... then perhaps it's
> time for several of us to start keeping local archives of e.g. our
> github repos, the mailing lists, etc.?

I never delete any email, just archive them ;)

So, I have some history of the issue, but unfortunately without: my
comments (if any) and without metadata (labels, milestone etc).
As recently I've got some experience with github API, maybe I should
archive all issues changes (in more structured format than emails)?

As for this issue - this may be related to the fact that author of this
issue (desmond-decker) is also gone. This have happened before:
https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/971#issuecomment-151361916

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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[Jean-Philippe Ouellet]

I just received this reply from GitHub:

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 4:17 PM, Nik (GitHub Staff) <sup...@github.com> wrote:
> Hi Jean-Philippe,
>
> Can we have you give it a try again? It appears there may have been an issue with the user's account which prevented its viewing.
>
> If you run into any more issues, just let us know.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nik
> GitHub Support

and the issue is back now.

Local archiving may not be a bad idea regardless...

[qubenix]

Jean-Philippe Ouellet:

> I just received this reply from GitHub:
>
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 4:17 PM, Nik (GitHub Staff) <sup...@github.com> wrote:
>> Hi Jean-Philippe,
>>
>> Can we have you give it a try again? It appears there may have been an issue with the user's account which prevented its viewing.

Which means the user most likely created account over tor. You can make
issues, comment, make repos, whatever and then after some hours your get
flagged as a bot and you must email to support that you are not a bot.
During this time all you have done disappears (comments, issues, etc.).
This time could last forever if the user doesn't message to support.


--
qubenix
GPG: B536812904D455B491DCDCDD04BE1E61A3C2E500

[Andrew David Wong]

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Hash: SHA512

On 2017-02-14 12:42, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 03:16:35PM -0500, Jean-Philippe Ouellet
> wrote:
>> This also re-raises questions about using 3rd party services. By
>> this I don't intend to re-open the arguments about trust, etc.
>> but if we have been blindly assuming that at a minimum guarantees
>> of availability will hold and they turn out not to...

Never assume this. Back up all the things! :)

>> then perhaps it's time for several of us to start keeping local
>> archives of e.g. our github repos, the mailing lists, etc.?
>
> I never delete any email, just archive them ;)
>
> So, I have some history of the issue, but unfortunately without:
> my comments (if any) and without metadata (labels, milestone etc).
> As recently I've got some experience with github API, maybe I
> should archive all issues changes (in more structured format than
> emails)?
>

Backing up qubes-issues is something I've been thinking about for a
long time, but I haven't had time to implement a solution for it yet.
If you want to give it a shot, here's all of qubes-issues in JSON (but
without comment text):

https://api.github.com/repos/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
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