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RJ Spurrier
SuperTopo staff member
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Apr 18, 2019 - 04:57pm PT
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tradmanclimbs:
With all due respect, Tad's recollection is mistaken.
At 10:35pm on Tue, Apr 16 Mr. Hocking made a post that requested his posts be deleted. He made that post on the no Political topics thread. He requested that a few things, including his TRs and a few threads he had started and was particularly fond of, such as a van thread, be left in place. It is possible that those details may help Tad refresh his memory. Unfortunately, we don't have an easy way to accommodate that kind of precision strike request and so all his posts were deleted using our normal deletion tool as per his request (which removes all content).
Quite frankly, there was no delay in acting on Tad's request, because he had been rude and disparaging of Chris in his posts at that time and that did not leave me motivated to double-check whether he was really serious in his request to have his content removed.
While I did not make a screenshot of his post before accommodating his request to have his content scrubbed from the site, I wrote Chris a contemporaneous email immediately afterward briefing him of Tad's request for removal.
We ban people from the site regularly due to inappropriate or rude behavior. We're not shy about taking responsibility for banning people when we do. You may feel that I would be somehow motivated to make up a story to make it seem we were happy with Tad, and would do never consider deleting him for cause. But, that is not the case. I felt Tad was acting like an ass. Tad was walking on thin ice. When Tad started spreading false rumors about ST being in the middle of an acquisition, and saying things like his rude and baseless accusation he posted that afternoon, where he claimed that Chris "doesn't really give a sh#t about eh community he's created here," I took offense. That kind of bullshit certainly rises to the kind of thing that might justify a person being kicked off the island. But, that isn't what happened. Instead, I posted on that thread at around 6p making it clear how I felt about Tad's false and rude comments about Chris.
What happened is that four and a half hours later, at 10:35pm that evening, Tad made an angry post requesting the removal of his content from the site. It seems clear that his recollection leaves that important detail out. I can't explain why he would not recall it. But, I can clarify that his request was accommodated without hesitation.
rj
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Apr 18, 2019 - 05:17pm PT
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JLP - the improved version doesn't work at all for me. All the links are back. The original version got most but not all of the links put in as in-line photos.
I tested a lot of pages and it works, except it leaves the [] behind - which seems acceptable until someone can do better.
So the problem was every possible way I tried to post that code snippet would hack it up - xxxx was removed in this case - I can't even type it - so now I just posted an image. Edit your code manually.
I just tested this, it's what running on my browser, and it's working on every page I've tried - including the Mussy Nebula!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 18, 2019 - 07:15pm PT
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RJ said:
JLP:
The solution you linked to on Mountain Project looks like an intriguing hack to workaround our [img] tag handling. Thanks for pointing it out. We obviously can't do that kind of hack for you, but you all are free to do what you want with hacking your own Chrome browser if you'd like.
For anyone following the saga, this statement, especially the last part, should go some ways toward letting readers know that CMAC/RJ feel they have to do what they've been doing to protect themselves, and they also aren't so psyched on the solution. (And he spelled it out in his prior paragraph addressed toward me.)
And for the record, if anybody figures it out: I don't have any photos on the Supertopo server anymore, except for my avatar photo. I asked for them to be cleaned up, not because I'm taking my cards away from the game in some sort of retribution, but because it's just too much work for me to go through and make the selections. So that was my choice as an act of good faith in complying with CMAC's need for all of us to avoid copyright infringement on photos we've uploaded to his servers.
I'd only been using it for about a year, and it represented something like 10% of my total photo output on the forum. So I just let go of it as an act of expediency.
And if you look at my last big post on the prior page about CMAC's 2017 approval of my scanning and posting of all of MOUNTAIN magazine #1, what that basically shows is that these guys weren't so worried about the fair use/copyright infringement borderline until something changed in 2018.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Apr 18, 2019 - 07:36pm PT
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Could someone please confirm the script a few posts up works for them, and if not post a link to the page where it doesn’t. It’s working fine for me, hasn’t missed a single photo in these historical threads, unless of course the photo is actually missing.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 18, 2019 - 08:25pm PT
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Thanks much for this, JLP.
I've e-mailed this workaround to several fellow archivists. I'm unable to enact it myself, but if I hear back from them, I will either let you know or have them chime in.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
but to scared to climb them anymore
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Apr 18, 2019 - 08:51pm PT
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I'm no computer guy, but all my TRs (just 4) are still intact. I have always used the prompts from ST on how to upload images. And yes they are my pics.
I can understand the frustration folks are having seeing their work disappear.
I first learned of this forum in 06 when Todd passed. I was amazed at the outpouring of stories and love folks wrote. I lurked for several years, then decided to start sharing some of my own stuff.
I still will post a new Honduras jungle exploration tr when I get time. With pictures.
I enjoy sharing knowledge to this group of wackos because... I have never met any of y'all but we share many experiences that most have never dreamed of.
A paraphrased quote- the ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate man trying to read a Greek manuscript. Don't recall the author of that quote.
Hugh or Qball
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Apr 18, 2019 - 10:07pm PT
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JLP - I was using the script on the Old Parkinglot Photos thread:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=375444&tn=0&mr=0
Just started from scratch in a Chrome browser. The original script works (it also leaves behind [ ]) with about 90% of the linked images: that is, the photos show up on the page. For 10% the live links are there.
With your version of the script, I'm back to all links other than the photos resident on the ST server. Don't take this too seriously as I could be implementing things incorrectly.
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John M
climber
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Apr 18, 2019 - 10:31pm PT
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somebody help me. I'm having a high brain fog day. I'm currently doing heavy metal detoxification. could be good things for my future, but currently its rough.
What I'm having trouble with understanding is how all this went down. The forum was given virtually no warning before the changes were made. So people couldn't adjust to what was going to happen and decide what they wanted to do. Fritz didn't have time to make his case or make changes. Neither did others. Some people responded poorly.. but good grief. Many people poured their souls into their efforts on this forum. This was a big change. And it wasn't one change. It was two changes.
So what I am having trouble understanding is why it had to happen virtually overnight. RJ and Chris had time to discuss this. They had time to talk to a lawyer. They had time to prepare for how they would handle it.
And then they gave the people who make up this forum no time to adjust. They just implemented it with basically 24 hours of notice.
that really bugs me.
we might not have lost DMT or Tad, whatever went on with them, if we had been given time to adjust.
Seems to me a pretty poor way to handle this change.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Apr 18, 2019 - 10:39pm PT
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The only difference is the last line of code. If his works for you, then you just need to find the typo between that and my picture above - and it should work. Be confident you can figure it out and figure it out. I ship a lot of code, that script above works.
So also consider this - if RJ would be a mature professional adult and return a zip file with the deleted photos back to the respective owners - now take these photos and keep the same ID in their name and put them on an external server - all in one place, one giant bucket - then that same little script engine could then be used, with a few minor mods, to rebuild the “missing photo” threads - which could then be saved. For me, a half day - for a professional web programmer probably 15 minutes.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Apr 19, 2019 - 12:19am PT
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RJ, here is an idea to explore with your legal counsel for how to make the links to offsite pictures less painful for users:
1. Mouseover to view pic in same page (e.g. javascript as a new div with the pic ), to minimize clicking while retaining firm clarity that the pic is from outside of your website
Full first-world problem... I'm too lazy to click a bunch of links to see the embedded images, and skip over content that contains them. I'm just not motivated to click through the links for each image. I am much more likely to click a single link to follow someones trip report in their personal website.
Also, if you are forcing people to use your hosted images to provide trip reports with inline images, then please address the shortcomings that caused me to never covert:
 low image resolution
cap on image size (no auto-downsizing of images to meet your resolution limitations)
The only images I have included in the 83 trip reports I've done (under nutjob or NutAgain! and not all officially labeled as trip reports) since 2005, are for the thumbnail image or when I was uploading directly from my phone in the middle of a trip and didn't already have my photos uploaded to Google Photos. It has been annoying at times that even when posting TRs from my iPhone, I have had to exclude some of the best images because they are too large. This is especially the case with pano pictures, but more common now with all pics with modern phones and higher pixel densities.
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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Apr 19, 2019 - 05:20am PT
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JLP:
Your explanations are so flat out wrong I doubt you actually engaged one. I think you’re lying to cover. Not necessarily.
There are a lot of bad lawyers with limited skills/knowledge out there.
Most likely they talked to a cheap lawyer and got a bad advice.
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nah000
climber
now/here
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Apr 19, 2019 - 06:59am PT
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John M: +1... my sentiments exactly.
at the end of the day i’m not the owner of this board and i haven’t had to, year in and year out, give the highly thankless and relatively uncompensated work, that a few have likely had to, in order that this board stays up and running.
and so in that regard i am empathetic to whatever decisions these guys think they need to make around here... regardless of how much i, as a person providing no on demand work to this endeavour, differ in opinion.
however.
given the, to this point at least, unacknowledged but frankly emotionally abusive manner [change long-standing board functioning, then when people complain, delete a few individual’s content for breaking rules that you the owners are breaking with your own uploaded files, and then blame those folks for their own info’s demise...] that this has gone down, i intend this to be my last post to this board [other than a final tr post that i had already started and intend to complete due to its importance to me].
i had hoped my, what would seemingly be a, simple request and which i posted twice to this thread above, would at least be replied to... and that that might have provided a glimmer of hope to allow for me to continue contributing here.
unfortunately, so far these guys have shown themselves to be unwilling to admit that they might have made a mistake in how this was rolled out and all i’m seeing is a bunch of corporate styled doublespeak [“these image tags have been unsupported for years” when they still worked for those years and there was no notice that their capabilities were going to be deleted and “this has been our policy regarding copyright for years” when you can to this day goto the owner’s photo page and see images that are copyrighted (and i’m not referring to the ones from guys in our community who he likely has permission from)]
without a course correction regarding at least acknowledgement of how awfully these changes were handled, i can no longer give these guys the benefit of the doubt and continue to entrust them with the info that i entrusted them with in the past. while i don’t want my past work here deleted, i also won’t be contributing more.
so with all of that said and as this is a likely swan song: a sincere thanks to all of the friends and foes i have engaged with on here over the years. i’ll paraphrase a bit of what mb1 said regarding dmt: what I appreciate most about this place is that many of you were real people, sharing your honest experiences... i am a much richer human due to many of those shares.
and so due to those honest shares, if our paths cross, it’d be a pleasure to share a climb, a libation or maybe just a story or two...
I also still owe cmac, rj and anyone else that has given too much to this board that round or seven for the years of relatively thankless, uncompensated work that they have likely already given.
and so to all involved: it was a fantastic run.
peace out bitches.
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John M
climber
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Apr 19, 2019 - 09:23am PT
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Stick around Nahoo.. there isn't any place better.
but yep.. I get it.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Straight Outta Crafton
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Apr 22, 2019 - 08:08am PT
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I can't imagine a photo hosting site, such as Photobucket or Flickr, ever siccing a lawyer on anybody for posting a photo on a forum website. They specifically market that service, and I pay them for that.
Checking around - I'm an actual member of one other on-line forum, KAP Discussion, and lurk on a couple others - shows Supertopo alone in changing from photos to links on a page. Time will tell if Supertopo made the smart move without over-reacting and those other forums are cruisin' for a bruisin', or the opposite.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 25, 2019 - 09:16am PT
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Concerning hacking your Google Chrome browsers to make ALL of the IMG tags visible again on any Supertopo thread,
Hacking your browser to see photographs on Supertopo
JLP asked:
Apr 18, 2019 - 07:36pm PT
Could someone please confirm the script a few posts up works for them, and if not post a link to the page where it doesn’t. It’s working fine for me, hasn’t missed a single photo in these historical threads, unless of course the photo is actually missing.
I just had a visit from Nut Again! – and he performed the browser hack for me.
ABSOLUTELY it works.
Gotta say, JLP, DAMN good work sourcing that fix from Mountain Project and presenting it over here!
Nut a.k.a. Scott, thinks he can fix those bracket [] remnants as well. Stay tuned.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Apr 25, 2019 - 09:31am PT
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Nut a.k.a. Scott, thinks he can fix those bracket [] remnants as well. Stay tuned. While in that thought space, I would wager the same pro talent could make quick work of the youtube thing in the same script.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 25, 2019 - 09:46am PT
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While in that thought space, I would wager the same pro talent could make quick work of the youtube thing in the same script. Excellent point! I'll ask him about that soon.
This is quite valuable to those of us wishing to archive threads, so thanks again, JLP!
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Apr 25, 2019 - 11:15am PT
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RJ
Thanks formerclimber for your comments and linking to that EFF article, which does a nice job of breaking down the disturbing implications of that 2018 ruling. It is that case which forces our hand on this unfortunate change in how we are handling [img] tags.
First off I appreciate the time and effort you have gone through to create this forum.
I think a lot of blow back could have been avoided if you stated why you were making these changes in the initial post on these changes and preferably some advance notice. Actually there was a post about not uploading images you don’t own but no official post about removing embedded images and videos. Have you stated why YouTube videos are no longer embedded? You tube encourages this and the videos owner can easily prevent it.
This forum has organically changed from a forum to provide climbing info to a forum where climbers discuss topics that interest them. After nearly 20 years of that to start enforcing your original vision for the forum and the appearance of not seeming to respect how much time people have put into threads such as historical info (eg saying it would take a few minutes to change how photos are displayed, while true for a few photos, someone updating all their trip reports etc could take hours), or tractors or whatever, is not ideal.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Apr 26, 2019 - 01:47am PT
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A key quote in that EFF article is this one:
Even worse, the logic of the ruling applies to all in-line linking, not just embedding tweets.
Werner is correct that by simply linking to the hosting site, rather than displaying the image on SuperTopo, we avoid inheriting the copyright infringement liability implied by that 2018 rulling.
Yes, but this analysis completely ignores the DMCA Safe Harbor, which is the only reason why Internet forums open to random people on the Internet are viable. It is the reason why you can post pictures and images on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Each of these web sites has a DCMA policy with a takedown procedure.
If SuperTopo (not a random forum user) takes a copyrighted image and post it on the SuperTopo home page (and it's found to be infringing and not fair use), then SuperTopo is liable.
However, if a random forum user (such as myself) were to post an infringing image right here in this thread, and if SuperTopo was using polices that made the DMCA Safe Harbor available to it, then SuperTopo would be insulated and it would me that would be liable as the infringing poster--although in practice, the aggrieved party normally only has the infringing post removed.
If Supertopo has received competent legal advice, I'm sure they have been advised of the DMCA Safe Harbor and its ins and outs. Maybe they just don't want to have the logistical hassle of receiving having to deal with take-down notices from time to time, especially if they consider the forums to already be a money-losing drain on resources? That would certainly be understandable.
My take on this is that the SuperTopo forums have been going downhill ever since Facebook and other social media sites became popular. A lot of people just share with their FB friends and/or Instagram followers what they used to post here.
But I expect that removing images will just make it even harder for SuperTopo to compete. We will see if this is correct or not...
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Apr 26, 2019 - 04:49pm PT
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what if we hosted supertopo in Europe?
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!