Unlocking Cloudmakers

It might surprise you to know that the old Cloudmakers Yahoo! group is still there. It's been dormant for years, of course, and we've locked it down to protect against spammers. But every now and again, I still get an email from somebody asking for their pending membership to be approved.

That happened today, and it got me to thinking that maybe there's a better solution.

See, the Yahoo! group is host to a lot of legacy information -- files and data that were created by the Cloudmakers when we were actively playing the Beast. But there's no way to make that information publicly viewable; the Yahoo! group simply doesn't have the right settings. 

So I'm thinking about copying the files and databases and slapping 'em up on a simple legacy page here on my blog (or, potentially, adding it to the archival material at Cloudmakers.org, a better solution but not one I can implement by myself.) I feel like this would be a public good, taking a significant piece of our community's history and making it more accessible.

But given my Facebook stance of late, I'm also very sensitive to the idea that this might be a violation of privacy. So I'm taking it to you, the public, many of whom are Cloudmakers. Do you see a violation of trust or privacy if I were to mirror the locked Cloudmakers data elsewhere? 

...even the nightmare database?

Comments

[Tom Bridge]

I cannot remember, was the Yahoo Group at the time of the game a public group. Could you read without joining?

If so, then it can be mirrored to another place without too much consternation, even the nightmare db.

If not, it would be more difficult ethically.

[Andrea]

At the time of the game, I believe you could join without approval. We changed it to approval-only a year or so after the fact when the spam posting got out of hand.

You could also read posts without joining the group, and I believe you still can. But then as now, you had to be a member of the group in order to see the files, and view or edit the databases.

[Pixie]

As someone wh is NOT a CM - I remember how hard it was to try to get into that yahoo group to see what the first big game was like!!!! It is a part of history, and I feel like that should be preserved. We ARGers, as a community, tend to lean towards at least attempting to save the memories. Wiki pages, guides like the "quige" {Urban Hunt}, archived forums posts.... All for both our own sake when we have played a game, and for the rest of the community {both puppet masters and players alike} to read, enjoy, and learn from.

[Irwin Dolobowsky]

I'd love to see it preserved and displayed. At the time and now I never had any expectation of it being private - quite the opposite. Somewhere I think I still have archives of IRC chats and Yahoo group messages. It's great stuff.

Cloudmakers.org would be a great place for it, and if not there, perhaps the ARGN guys could help out? I'm happy to help if I can.

[Bronwen]

Make sure Dan's a part of the conversation. He's the one who actually maintains cloudmakers.org. (I renew the domain each year, but that's my extent of the load.)

Irwin, I'd really rather that the IRC logs not be posted. That's an absolute can of worms for privacy since people were, at the time, chatting under the knowledge that it wasn't part of the publicly archived mailing list. Things incredibly unrelated to the game were discussed in #evanchan.

I have no opposition to hosting the files -- including the nightmare database -- in a more accessible location to non-group members. The privacy issue there doesn't bother *me*. That said, I do think, Andrea, that you should post this question on the actual CM mailing list.

(I did just check -- Yahoo Groups still doesn't allow us to make those viewable to non-members.)

[Dan Fabulich]

@tbridge, yes, you could always read without joining.

I'm pretty sure you could also SEE the files (but not upload/edit the files) without joining; the goal was to be as open as possible while still protecting from spammers.

Therefore I agree with others that everything posted to the group is fair for public archiving, including the nightmares. I agree with Bronwen that I don't think the IRC chats should go up.

[When's our next house party? We should have a 2011 reunion... ;-)]

[Andrea]

Thanks, Bronwen, I didn't know where the responsibility for the site had landed. It's an excellent point to post to the actual CM list, and I'll be doing that shortly.

Likewise, I'd strongly prefer IRC chat logs not be publicly released.

Dan, it is so lovely to see you here. ^_^ You could NOT always see the files without joining; in fact, the entire reason I joined the group was that it was the only way to get access to those files. It's a technical issue. Yahoo just doesn't offer a setting for making files and databases accessible to the general public.

But that said, I do think the intent was that it should be as open and public as possible within our limitations. So I don't see mirroring the stuff elsewhere as being very problematic, but at the same time... I didn't think it should be all up to *just me*.

Seems like we're approaching a consensus here that it's an OK thing, which is comforting. I'll post to the list and flag down danhon next.

[Brooke]

I love the idea of archiving the yahoo group somewhere. Ideally cloudmakers.org, but if that's not an option arghive.com might be (it's not well utilized these day, but it's host to what was the ARGN ARG Graveyard).

[Scott]

It's a good idea. =)

Also, sometime, ask me about another certain archive. la de da. =)