So, I moderate a Star Trek rewatch community on G+ (linked below for reference) that has about 500 episode reviews...
So, I moderate a Star Trek rewatch community on G+ (linked below for reference) that has about 500 episode reviews and discussion threads. I want to preserve the content of all the posts, inclusive of the comments, and translate it to a new site, which could be a standalone website (I'm looking at building one with Squarespace, with or without professional assistance).
I used Takeout to download the content of my community in HTML format, but with regard to the posts, it seems to just give me a list of links to each of them on G+. Which is helpful, but I think those links will no longer be active once G+ is no more? I'm confused about how to make this functional as an archive I can use to rebuild the content on a different platform.
Suggestions or assistance are welcome!
I used Takeout to download the content of my community in HTML format, but with regard to the posts, it seems to just give me a list of links to each of them on G+. Which is helpful, but I think those links will no longer be active once G+ is no more? I'm confused about how to make this functional as an archive I can use to rebuild the content on a different platform.
Suggestions or assistance are welcome!
Kevin Black
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty much what we are all looking for. Unfortunately, there is, at this time, no way to easily accomplish it. Google has promised a "download/export" option is on the way. My fear is that there was no mention of an import option into a program or platform and we may wind up with something like "TakeOut 2.0",
Hi Kevin Black. The rationale for the way Takeout works is that Google only allows users to export content they own which means only posts they created. Being able to export someone else's content would effectively give you control over the other person's content. That would obviously be a very gross breach of privacy for posts in a private community because it would allow a content owner to republish other people's private posts. Google (like most other social sites as I understand it) considers exporting other people's public posts to be a breach of their privacy, as well.
ReplyDeleteplus.google.com - Google Plus Archiver: gplus-archiver This is a PHP-based tool which queries ... is probably your closest bet atm.
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter
ReplyDeleteThat link is throwing a 403 error.
John Skeats Logical. But like many things G+ there are some inconsistencies. For instance, activitylog gives you comments you posted with the full text of the Post you commented on. So does +1s in activitylog.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't buy this argument. As a community owner, I consider that I own the content posted by others in my community.
Somewhere in here is mention of code written by a third party to download a community.
github.com - sdsalyer/gplus-archiver
Stay away front sites like SquareSpace and Wix, or any "site builder" for that matter. They own the site you build and it can not be migrated anywhere else. You may think Takeout is lacking, but at least it exists. With SquareSpace what you build does not even have a way to be taken out. Even the Wayback Machine has a hard time properly archiving SquareSpace sites. Site dumper's like HTTrack don't work either, and that is just the technical side of the issue. On the legal side, by using them you have an agreement to not even try and can be sued if you do.
ReplyDeleteWordpress is the way to go, in my opinion. It is the de facto standard for CMS. I strongly recommend WPEngine. I have been with them for 5 years or so, and they rock! Excellent performance and the best customer service I have ever experienced...
ReplyDeleteSlap a few ads on there (AdSense auto ads are great!) and you will more than pay for the hosting fees... In fact, you could probably do quite well...
John C. Reid Do you. have any further details on Squarespace / Wix, etc., issues? Others to look at?
ReplyDeleteJulian Bond Correction: The Activity Log behavior is not an inconsistency because you can't export the Activity Log, so it is effectively no different than visiting a post you have access.
ReplyDeleteYou might feel that you own the content in a community, but the fact is only one person owns an item -- the person who created it. You implicitly couldn't own all of the content in a community you created based on copyright laws because you cannot own the copyright for something created by someone else unless they explicitly sign over ownership of their copyright. I am not an attorney, but I don't believe you could overcome that without having a signed agreement from the copyright owner.
Based on the way our community is organized, I am the originator of 95% of the posts. What worries me the most is being able to transcribe comments without a laborious individual copy/paste process.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats The case of ownership or rights is at best legal, varying by jurisdiction, and according to community organisation, convention, policy, and practice.. Probably better not to go there.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats what do you mean you can't export ActivityLog? It's explicitly a sub-item in Google Takeout under Google+ Stream, and while it at first caused errors, it now successfully is exportable to JSON.
ReplyDeleteAs for Community posts, while you perhaps can't get automatic copyright, the usage terms of a Community could be worded as such as that by posting in it, you grant the Community Owner a perpetual license to publish its contents regardless of its platform.
Then again, IANAL.
Filip H.F. Slagter My mistake. I corrected the comment. I doubt that posting terms saying that you give the owner license would suffice because the copyright owner would not have signed that agreement. I don't believe that something that does not require explicitly accepting the conditions (as with the standard "I accept" buttons for Terms of Conditions on websites, etc.) would be considered to be a valid legal agreement.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats Adhesion contracts are a thing.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/adhesion-contract.asp
investopedia.com - Adhesion Contract
Another inconsistency from Google. The API let's you download any post in full with all its comments if you have permission to view it. This is exactly the call used in the Salyer code above to download a community. So Google provides tools that can be used to download all of a community's posts and comments but doesn't provide a tool to explicitly download it.
ReplyDeleteIndeed there is a case that if the data is visible to you in html, then there is nothing to stop you scraping the web page. It's just awkward. And Google does give you a list of the URLs to go to.
It's really not hard to construct social circumstances where an archive of a community can be collected and posted elsewhere with full agreement from the participants (or lack of refusal). And there is a solid use case for wanting to do that in the current situation where it is at risk of disappearing completely.
So again, I don't buy the copyright viewpoint that it's not your data to download. And I don't buy the Google policy argument that Google has a policy to not give you data that wasn't posted by you. So I'm left with Takeout.G+Community being useless and posting feedback asking them to improve it.
Julian Bond HTML + authentication + JS (to capture full comments) starts getting more complicated.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius Well I didn't say it was easy! And we're seeing this problem with G+ posts on the Internet Archive. The recent deleted post has half a dozen snap shots, none of which show all the comments.
ReplyDeleteJulian Bond Taken for that reason.
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter G+ archiver looks very promising! I might need an ABC "how to" for people who aren't coders.
ReplyDeleteKevin Black not my code, and haven't used it myself though ;)
ReplyDeleteCurrently writing my own tools in a different language. :)
Kevin Black If you're still looking at archiving your community, the Friends+Me Google+ Exporter looks like your most likely bet:
ReplyDeleteblog.friendsplus.me - Export Google+ feeds to Wordpress, Blogger and JSON file
I haven't used it myself. Others have, successfully, and there's a long track record of happy customers for other social tools on G+ and other socmed networks.
I'll check it out, thanks Edward Morbius.
ReplyDelete