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06-19-2024, 02:48 PM
I could fairly easily write a scraper that sucks down every last post into my own DB. I started writing my own search engine a couple years back, but got sidetracked with lots of other things going on and stopped working on it. It was already functional and had scrapes of the top ranked 1000 English language sites in it. I'm not sure if I still have it on a backup. I ran out of space at one point and started deleting VMs I was no longer using and it may have been one of them.
My concern would be the legal issues. Even if I pull it down, technically "The Above Network" still owns the content, so I'm not sure about the legality of publishing it, ergo my comments on the other thread about being interested in being given a copy of the message DB with licensing.
Honestly, something tells me we're never going to hear from the proprietors again and the site will continue limping until such time as the DB corruption or money in the account runs out. I'm not sure what the legal standing is on a site that has been abandoned - particularly when it appears it's still being funded by someone.
Maybe a competitor bought it to intentionally let it die. I know of at least one competing forum owner that might do such a thing since he's such an asshole.
My concern would be the legal issues. Even if I pull it down, technically "The Above Network" still owns the content, so I'm not sure about the legality of publishing it, ergo my comments on the other thread about being interested in being given a copy of the message DB with licensing.
Honestly, something tells me we're never going to hear from the proprietors again and the site will continue limping until such time as the DB corruption or money in the account runs out. I'm not sure what the legal standing is on a site that has been abandoned - particularly when it appears it's still being funded by someone.
Maybe a competitor bought it to intentionally let it die. I know of at least one competing forum owner that might do such a thing since he's such an asshole.
