You have only till February 4th to archive all the comments on your Blogger blogs
As mentioned on https://support.google.com/plus/answer/9195133 you have only two to three days left before Blogger blogs no longer include the Google+ Comments on each post: "If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019."
See the below reshared post for more details.
Originally shared by Filip H.F. “FiXato” Slagter
PSA: Google+ Comments for Blogger owners have 3 days to manually archive the comments on all their blog posts
Google isn't providing other people's comments to your own Blogger blogs through Google Data Takeout
Based on the answers of a moderator of the Google+ Help community, the official community designated by Google for questions regarding the #GooglePlusShutdown in their Jan 30th announcement, as well as my own Blogger #GoogleDataTakeout results, you won't be able to get a backup of all the comments people have left on your Blogger blogs if you've been using the Google+ Comments system on it.
A sad development, but based on Google's disregard for their users, not an unsuspected one.
Time pressure
As mentioned on https://support.google.com/plus/answer/9195133 you have only two to three days left before Blogger blogs no longer include the Google+ Comments on each post: "If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019."
I guess I'll have to write a scraper to manually back them up, and then include them in some form into the original blog posts-, as well as try feeding my blog posts to the Internet Archive (https://web.archive.org)- apparently Internet Archive is not an option, see below) before February 4th (that's in 2 to 3 days already...).
Gotta love the time pressure.
How to manually backup?
Your best bet for now would be to manually go through each of your Blogger blog posts and use your browser's Save Page As feature (usually accessible by hitting CTRL+S) to make a local copy.
Using tools such as wget to mirror your blog (https://www.guyrutenberg.com/2014/05/02/make-offline-mirror-of-a-site-using-wget/) could help too, though since comments AFAIK are loaded via an xhr javascript call, that might not actually work...
Using chrome-headless or firefox-headless might also be worthwhile option to explore if you want to automate things.
Internet Archive not an option
I was going to also suggest feeding each link to https://web.archive.org/save/$URLhere, to have the Internet Archive create a an archived version of the page. For instance, through https://web.archive.org/save/https://blogspot.fixato.org/2013/08/things-to-do-in-the-Netherlands.html, however since the comments are loaded via an xhr javascript call, these are not included in the archived version. :(
Changelog:
(Reposted with a link to the original topic at the Google+ Help Community, instead of a reshare of it, so that the contents of this 'reshare' are actually included when people reshare this post. (and reposted again, as I used the wrong link ><; sorry for any notification spam))
Update 2: Added suggestions on how to back up
Update 3: Added details on why Internet Archive unfortunately isn't an option
#Blogger #GooglePlus #GPlus #GDT #GooglePlusHelp
As mentioned on https://support.google.com/plus/answer/9195133 you have only two to three days left before Blogger blogs no longer include the Google+ Comments on each post: "If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019."
See the below reshared post for more details.
Originally shared by Filip H.F. “FiXato” Slagter
PSA: Google+ Comments for Blogger owners have 3 days to manually archive the comments on all their blog posts
Google isn't providing other people's comments to your own Blogger blogs through Google Data Takeout
Based on the answers of a moderator of the Google+ Help community, the official community designated by Google for questions regarding the #GooglePlusShutdown in their Jan 30th announcement, as well as my own Blogger #GoogleDataTakeout results, you won't be able to get a backup of all the comments people have left on your Blogger blogs if you've been using the Google+ Comments system on it.
A sad development, but based on Google's disregard for their users, not an unsuspected one.
Time pressure
As mentioned on https://support.google.com/plus/answer/9195133 you have only two to three days left before Blogger blogs no longer include the Google+ Comments on each post: "If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019."
I guess I'll have to write a scraper to manually back them up, and then include them in some form into the original blog posts-, as well as try feeding my blog posts to the Internet Archive (https://web.archive.org)- apparently Internet Archive is not an option, see below) before February 4th (that's in 2 to 3 days already...).
Gotta love the time pressure.
How to manually backup?
Your best bet for now would be to manually go through each of your Blogger blog posts and use your browser's Save Page As feature (usually accessible by hitting CTRL+S) to make a local copy.
Using tools such as wget to mirror your blog (https://www.guyrutenberg.com/2014/05/02/make-offline-mirror-of-a-site-using-wget/) could help too, though since comments AFAIK are loaded via an xhr javascript call, that might not actually work...
Using chrome-headless or firefox-headless might also be worthwhile option to explore if you want to automate things.
Internet Archive not an option
I was going to also suggest feeding each link to https://web.archive.org/save/$URLhere, to have the Internet Archive create a an archived version of the page. For instance, through https://web.archive.org/save/https://blogspot.fixato.org/2013/08/things-to-do-in-the-Netherlands.html, however since the comments are loaded via an xhr javascript call, these are not included in the archived version. :(
Changelog:
(Reposted with a link to the original topic at the Google+ Help Community, instead of a reshare of it, so that the contents of this 'reshare' are actually included when people reshare this post. (and reposted again, as I used the wrong link ><; sorry for any notification spam))
Update 2: Added suggestions on how to back up
Update 3: Added details on why Internet Archive unfortunately isn't an option
#Blogger #GooglePlus #GPlus #GDT #GooglePlusHelp
Slight short notice...
ReplyDeleteUpdate 4: Added a section about Embedded Google+ Posts to the original post: plus.google.com - PSA: Google+ Comments for Blogger owners have 3 days to manually archive the ...
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter I removed my embedded posts, when they removed the option to embed. It was dead then already.
ReplyDeleteIf you +1 a comment it will be in your Google+ Activity Log, which is part of your Google+ Stream Takeout archive. That would work for special comments anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt's likely the G+ API could be used to download a copy of comments, if someone with expertise is willing to quickly cobble something together.
Peggy K that's an interesting approach. Not quite sure how easily to get a list of Google Plus post ids for a blog post though... Maybe if I search for the blog post URL...
ReplyDeleteThough I don't think you can plus-one comments through the public Google+ API because it's read-only, but you should be able to get the comments through it at least.
However, that will only be limited to public comments, as private content is not retrievable through the public Google+ API either...
It's at least perhaps something worth considering.
Unfortunately I also have to quickly cobble together something to quickly bring my Flickr library under 1000 photos, as I was so gullible to believe Yahoo when they said that Flickr would always offer 1TB of free storage, and that it would be a good idea to back up your personal library to it... Deadline for that: 5th of February. #fml
Peggy K thanks, that indeed seems to be a fairly decent approach, though it also seems to include some irrelevant results.
ReplyDeleteGET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities?query=%22http%3A%2F%2Fblogspot.fixato.org%2F%22&key={YOUR_API_KEY}
(which has a double-quoted, URI-encoded, query for the root of my blogger URL) for instance gives a decent overview of posts mentioning any of the posts on my blog.
While
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities?query=%22http%3A%2F%2Fblogspot.fixato.org%2F2013%2F08%2Fthings-to-do-in-the-Netherlands.html%22&key={YOUR_API_KEY}
(which has a double-quoted, URI-encoded, query for the entire URL of a single blog post) does the same for a specific blog post.
One can play around with the query at GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities?query=%22http%3A%2F%2Fblogspot.fixato.org%2F2013%2F08%2Fthings-to-do-in-the-Netherlands.html%22&key={YOUR_API_KEY} though it's worth mentioning that this will only return the (JSON) results for posts; you'll still have to use the relevant Activity IDs from the results to request the associated Comments.
Filip H.F. Slagter if you figure out the steps I'd love to share that info
ReplyDeletePeggy K if I do, I'll share it to my Google+ Exodus collection, and to this community.
ReplyDeleteAtm I'm checking what I can do about Flickr first, since I'm limited to the 3600 API calls per hour there. :) Remembered that I have a data takeout from there too, so that should hopefully seriously cut down on the info I need to gather. :)
Filip H.F. Slagter I've just given up on my Flickr images, which were jus a backup of what I was already backing up to Google Photos anyway. (I've enabled notifications for your Collection, thanks)
ReplyDeletePeggy K well, I do have some public albums I don't want to lose. But I think I'll just end up selecting all private media and mass-deleting it through Flickr's web interface.
ReplyDeleteI'm running another test download of Takeout.G+Stream.activitylog. I'm fairly sure that a comment placed into a G+Comments box on blogger, shared to public but with the checkbox "Also Share to Google+" turned off does NOT get included in the Takeout comments file. I am seeing some comments placed in Blogger.G+Comments in that file but only if they are commenting on something else that has been shared to G+.
ReplyDeleteWill update when I'm a bit more certain what's going on.
This is now confusing. I posted a comment here
ReplyDeleteblogger.googleblog.com - An update on Google+ and Blogger
Drive by comment to check it gets included in Takeout.G+Stream.Activitylog. Shared to Public Also Share to Google+ turned off.
The specific comment has a URL here.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JulianBond23/posts/3NhGWUzsiPD
Which is not in my timeline.
It's described as commented on a post on Blogger
It does NOT appear in the Takeout.G+Streams.Activitylog.comments file.
Filip H.F. Slagter I think you're right that a sub-level comment on a comment becomes a comment in the activitylog and takeout.actvitylog. But this top level comment doesn't appear in either.
ReplyDeleteI think that if you use Share to Google+, or comment on your own 'comment' post, it will end up in G+.
ReplyDeleteThe end result though is that you can't even reliably archive your own comments in blogger.g+comments Some are going to get missed.
ReplyDeleteJulian Bond have you tried the Blogger archive? I think your own are actually included there under Takeout/Blogger/Comments/$blogname/feed.atom (from top of my head)
ReplyDeleteJulian Bond it should also be in your Takeout Posts file, not the comments file, because a Blogger Google+ Comment is a Google+ Post. Replies to someone else's Blogger Google+ Comment would be in your comments Activity Log.
ReplyDeletePeggy K Seems logical. Though I haven't checked that yet. I had "Also Share to Google+" turned off, and the post isn't obviously in my time line but it is in my activity log as a post. gah!
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter FWIW that is exactly what I would have expected. The Google+ Comments are weird beasts - they are Google+ posts that don't appear on your profile (unless you select the "also share to Google+" option). YouTube Google+ comments worked the same way.
ReplyDeletePeggy K that actually makes me wonder as well if and how I can find/backup any G+ comments people left on my YT videos. Though I guess that ship has sailed long ago already.
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter good question. YouTube Google+ comments were actually converted into YouTube comments, and I believe that they disappeared from peoples' profiles (if people had shared to G+) after the divorce. But that doesn't mean they aren't in the archive. I'll check my test account to see if I can spot that.
ReplyDeleteDid G+ Comments on Blogger disappear where the blog was using them and the owner didn't deliberately switch back? I only ask because the official Blogger Blog still seems to have G+ Comments visible. eg
ReplyDeleteblogger.googleblog.com - It’s spring cleaning time for Blogger
Julian Bond they probably made an exception for themselves (surprise, surprise!), or they use a custom template which uses the manual inclusion of the Google+ Comments widget, which will go away in March.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, they have been automatically replaced with the native Blogger widget on my blog: blogspot.fixato.org - YouTube and Google+ integration: aggregating feedback
Julian Bond they definitely disappeared from my test blog. It may be the Blogger blog may have manually added the Google+ Comments the same way a 3rd party site would have.
ReplyDeleteThe official YouTube Creator blog must have done that, because they are showing both Blogger Comments and Google+ Comments (see this post as an example, Blogger Comments are below G+ comments https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2019/02/youtube-in-2019-looking-back-and-moving.html)
I'm gonna be more interested in seeing if Google will have miraculously imported their G+ comments into your Blogger comments once the G+ comments have been completely retired.
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter I think that's unlikely, but I guess we'll see.
ReplyDelete