I still can't believe what's happened to the (original) JudoForum

This is really impacting me. I am a Judo nerd- the kind of person who would stay up until 5am reading JudoForum technique threads from 2005. I don't care how much arguing there was on there- I f__king LOVED that forum.

I cannot f__king BELIEVE that it's gone downhill like that. Literally- who ever thought that that would happen?!? How hard is it to maintain a Goddamn website?!? Why would a company just let it go to $hit? Is it not the number one Judo website on earth?!? How could they mess that up? What happened? When did it get bought? Who are the vermin who took over the site? WTF are they doing?!? Can we buy the URL from them and get the site up and running?!?

I am really sad/angry/bewildered by this. I want to at least know the details. If the site is dead- fine- I'll accept that- but can I at least know WHY? Who can shed light on this? Do we have any tech-savvy Judoka who can rejigger the thing?

Is there any hope?

From what I can make out, and I may be totally wrong, they bought the JF as a package that included the judo info site which was their prime target as that is the site that brings in the bucks. I think they were quite happy to keep the forum going as part of the info site but there were complications whilst transferring the forum to their servers, it was somehow not as compatible as they thought? I seem to remember one of the Ezoic mods saying that they would hope an upgrade to the software might help, but as that seems to have been and gone with even worse results I'm not sure if there is any future for that forum. As you say its the shear amount of information lost that is the big shame, there has been much of it inaccessible since the sale of the site, I fear it may be lost forever!

That amount of judo information should not belong to anyone, certainly not a company, which is why this site is such a good idea, not sure if this free site has the capabilities and memory capacity of the old one though?

Bro- THANKS FOR THE RESPONSE! Dude- IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN START PORTING OVER ALL THOSE THREADS INTO HERE? LIKE COPYING AND PASTING THE PAGES FROM THERE INTO THE SAFETY OF THIS SITE? CAN WE GET AT THEM BEFORE THEY GO BYE-BYE FOREVER?!?

I'll be friggin' DISTRAUGHT if we lose those pages- those discussions are so wonderful to me- so much fantastic advice- classic stuff that must NOT be lost!!!!! We gotta act brother man! Serious brah- WFT should I do? They have no right to take all that golden prose with them- and why would they even want it bro? C'mon holmes- let's fight for that shit! That intellectual property belongs to our community! Not to Ezoic or whatever the fuck they're called.

As I said before, a hundred bucks a year gets you a dedicated domain and server space. Perhaps that's a solution worth considering - likely we could all afford to chip in $5 each to get things started?

As for importing threads - legalities aside, I'm fairly sure there are (automated) apps for chrome and Firefox that can search and download threads and even entire forums. I did some research on that some years ago and recall it was possible if fiddly

I'm not sure who the property belongs to, or even if it is accessible at all.

The JF was running for 8 years I think in its current form, and was the most popular forum by a mile, there is a ridiculous amount of info there somewhere, I mean more than we could ever think about copy an pasting.

There comes a point where you just have to walk away from a burning home and do the only thing you can; build again.

On a positive note, this site has only been up for a couple of days, and if you look through the members list there are some fine and familiar posters here already. I have made posts on the forums to alert judo posters to the birth of this site and hopefully over the coming weeks and months we will see some more knowledgeable posters returning to the fold to educate us once again.

What else can we do?

According to their website, Ezoic "will work tirelessly on every single property we own to make it the best possible user experience."

The monetary value of the original JudoForum is estimated to be $6,884.00 (http://webstats-ranks.com/www/judoforum.com), which is not an amount to sneeze at. However Ezoic operates nigh on 1000 websites with a total of tens of millions of users every month; it is disappointing but not particularly surprising that JF is low on their list of priorities.

I concur with NYCNewbie. Particularly since, for the first few months after the transfer glitches were primarily cosmetic- annoying, perhaps, but the content was still there. However of late some threads have actually become inaccessible and if this were to happen permanently an enormous amount of valuable information could be lost.

There does however seem to be an option to download threads on the site itself, at the bottom of the page- see attached screenshot-though I don't currently have the necessary free hard drive space to do this myself. I also don't know how or even if you can then upload the thread to another forum. (?)


[img] [/img]

Sad about JudoInfo. It was a nice place to surf.

What's the legality of porting over some of the stuff on JudoInfo to a new website? Did they simply gather content or was it made specifically for them? I'm in the middle of designing a website that, in part, re-blogs good articles/videos/etc. that would otherwise receive low traffic. This is done with the permission of the owner usually, at least for the older stuff I don't think JudoInfo actually owns it. For example, I doubt they have any copyright over "My Judo" by Kimura. I wouldn't mind using some of my memory to host the more valuable articles. Here's what the website looks like so far (shameless plug):

http://atarashiido.com/newindex.html

I was also thinking of using old JudoForum posts to make compilation articles, such as "Top 10 Quotes about the New IJF Rules" or "Top 15 Quotes about Kosen Judo." Things like that- it doesn't all have to die, but unless actually distribute content it won't be practically available for people who weren't around to save things to their hard drive. This is all our content by extension, so in terms of lifting articles from JudoInfo (with proper credit given to the authors) and the old JudoForum (with proper credit given to usernames I guess) I want to know what you guys think. I don't want to get sued. -_-

-Ben

Quicksilver wrote:According to their website, Ezoic "will work tirelessly on every single property we own to make it the best possible user experience."

The monetary value of the original JudoForum is estimated to be $6,884.00 (http://webstats-ranks.com/www/judoforum.com), which is not an amount to sneeze at. However Ezoic operates nigh on 1000 websites with a total of tens of millions of users every month; it is disappointing but not particularly surprising that JF is low on their list of priorities.

I concur with NYCNewbie. Particularly since, for the first few months after the transfer glitches were primarily cosmetic- annoying, perhaps, but the content was still there. However of late some threads have actually become inaccessible and if this were to happen permanently an enormous amount of valuable information could be lost.

There does however seem to be an option to download threads on the site itself, at the bottom of the page- see attached screenshot-though I don't currently have the necessary free hard drive space to do this myself. I also don't know how or even if you can then upload the thread to another forum. (?)


[img] [/img]

Thank you for your response. Posts like the above make me feel like I'm not alone. I appreciate it.

I guess what I'm asking is: can we all BUY the site from ezoic and re-establish it/save it/re-animate it?

Would it mean us collectively handing them 6 grand or whatever? Is there anyone on here that could do this, and manage it, for a small fee to make it at least somewhat worth their while? My problem is, I'm not overly tech savvy- so porting a website/domain name over wouldn't be my area of expertise. However, if someone told me "pitch in $20-$30 to help permanently save the site" I'd do it gladly- and I'm not rich.

I just wonder if we can somehow play the game and rescue the damn site. If not, so be it- but I thought at least I'd ask...

Also- if anyone wants to give me details on how it came to this- I'm listening. I am indeed morbidly fascinated as to the story behind the slow and painful death of what was, imho, one of the coolest sites on the net. I spent so much time there I can't even tell you- working my way through the techniques section day-by-day, year-by-year.

There is a WEALTH of information on that forum- a treasure trove of beautiful stuff that I for one appreciate IMMENSELY.

Hell, there are multiple threads on Ju-No-Kata, for God's sake- and we are one of the only dojos on earth that happens to practice that kata on a daily basis. At first I despised it, but through reading through old JudoForum posts on the subject, I gained a new appreciation for it- I see it differently because some calm, cool, intelligent Judoka took the time to write about it to each other, and in their correspondence could be found pure learning GOLD.

And that's regarding Ju-No-Kata, for heaven's sake.

My point is that there is a wealth of info there- a decade of it- that CAN AND MUST BE PRESERVED!!!!

Losing those fabulous, beautiful posts- which seems like it's about to happen- would be the equivalent of a museum on Judo heritage and history burning to the ground, slowly- and us standing around and watching a not doing anything because ezoic owns the property and isn't allowing us to enter the premises with our axes and hoses.

I don't care if I can never post on there again- but I DO VERY MUCH CARE ABOUT SAVING THE INFO THAT'S ON THERE NOW- PRECIOUS, BEAUTIFUL, INVALUABLE WORDS THAT, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, ABSOLUTELY 100% MUST BE SAVED!!!!

I agree with NTCNewbie that I would be willing to cough up some $ to help save the content if possible. Way too much good info over there to be lost if we can possibly save it.

But seriously:

Graphics and articles not owned and copyrighted by Neil Ohlenkamp or JudoInfo.com are believed to be in the public domain or used with permission.

(from http://www.judoinfo.com/new/alphabetical-list/categorywisey-index/116-judoinfo/158-about-us)

Based on this I'm just going to start shifting over non-Neil Ohlenkamp articles from JudoInfo to my own website, not because I want to claim ownership over the information but because it hasn't existed in a safe place over the last month or so. The ship is sinking and trying to amass the funds to buy the old name will take too long (and it will also put money in the pockets of the people that neglected it in the first place). I feel like more and more content is inaccessible every time I visit JudoInfo. I've been on that site since I was 11 and it's sad, but economically it's better to jump onto a new domain name and solicit donations for bandwidth to accommodate need. I currently have 10 GB of space on my current plan and because I'm not stupid and my design is so simple, each page of content is only about 1-2 kBs. I don't want to waste time/space moving things if I don't have the blessings of the community, so please let me know!

It would be a full time job to try to port the information across, there are 586,434 posts!! As long as the site doesn't completely close down we can perhaps chip away over the years and salvage what we can.

NYCNewbie wrote:This is really impacting me. I am a Judo nerd- the kind of person who would stay up until 5am reading JudoForum technique threads from 2005. I don't care how much arguing there was on there- I f__king LOVED that forum.

I cannot f__king BELIEVE that it's gone downhill like that. Literally- who ever thought that that would happen?!? How hard is it to maintain a Goddamn website?!? Why would a company just let it go to $hit? Is it not the number one Judo website on earth?!? How could they mess that up? What happened? When did it get bought? Who are the vermin who took over the site? WTF are they doing?!? Can we buy the URL from them and get the site up and running?!?

I am really sad/angry/bewildered by this. I want to at least know the details. If the site is dead- fine- I'll accept that- but can I at least know WHY? Who can shed light on this? Do we have any tech-savvy Judoka who can rejigger the thing?

Is there any hope?

A very happy new year to one and all.

I am unsure it will pass well to re digest the history of the sale and subsequent failure of the JF. I can see if this line is pursued all sorts of unpleasantness coming out and that is not good grounds for the birth of a new forum.

I can assure you I was as baffled when I learned of the sale and thought the sale must have been due to some serious health issue with its founder?

It was a given from the start that no business would care for the JF the way its founder did and I am sure the founder now has as many questions as we do over the issue of how the new business owners treat that incredible resource.

I can write this, it was very VERY difficult for me to come to terms with the sale of the JF to a business venture. I invested well over 7,500 posts there and the work via PM was near equal if not greater.

History.

I am unsure who owns the intellectual rights to the JF and its postings. That is why I, for one, will write I have no objection to any of my postings being copied here. No sooner have I written that that it sounds rather conceited, its not meant to. I was part of a large group of posters on the JF who debated numerous topics some of those posts and topics are unique to that site. There is information of the JF that should never have been sold to a business company...sorry...I mean there is information that needs preserving.

This new forum could work. Learn from the old and post with care for each other with the intent to share and debate.

Have no fear I shall not be posting on cyber judo. My dojo is closed and I am no longer even involved in judo. My interest in posting here is to ask you all to build, Build with care and preserve what the JF was once, the best judo resource on the net.

IF I can help you in any way please let me know. I can't mod I have no savvy for such things. IF you need some other support I would be pleased to offer such.

Now you guys and gals look after yourself and keep your eye on the ball that being the preservation of the information held on the JF.

I sincerely hope you make it happen. There is magic in some of those posts, regardless of some of the rows there was a great sense of judo family there, no family nor individual is perfect and that is as it should be.

Keep resolute with your dedication to judo and each other.

Very best wishes,

Mike

Do you guys think packaging a re-post of an article from JudoInfo would be fine if it's done like this?

http://www.atarashiido.com/articles/2013/01/the-japanese-art-of-self-defense.html

In terms of JudoForum content, assuming we're moving off the old forum on to this one, we next have to what kind of things we should save and how to organize them... I have no ideas other than picking big topics and picking out posts that were the most informative. For example, when we look at the Fusen-Ryu threat on old JF, CK made a post that pretty much ended the thread but people were too stupid to pick up on the point and proceeded to argue about nothing. That post should be saved above the others, since it sufficiently answered and important question.

Firstly, great to hear from you again Hanon sensei, I'm sure you will have plenty to offer still.

Secondly, Taibroshi, I don't think that there is a problem with the judo info site, it seems fine, as I said that was the main prize so will be looked after well. When I was talking about lost information I meant the posts that there have been over the years from the likes of Hanon, CK, WDAX etc. topics that have been thrashed out over many pages.

In an ideal world we would have those topics back, even to the point where one could still comment on them.

For me it seems to be that in the old forum any thread with more than ten replies will no longer load. Is this pattern occurring to anyone else? If it is and the data has actually been lost instead of merely being temporarily unavailable, it may unfortunately already be too late to save much of the most valuable content. I hope not. I also have spent many, many hours reading through those archives and learned a huge amount, had access to information that could well have taken me years to stumble across through ulterior research. Even the community itself was really something.

All this is particularly ironic given the statements Ezoic makes on their website about their policies and intentions regarding the sites they operate...

Should we be able to save old content I doubt that copyright would be a significant issue, and realistically, given the way they let the forum die I don't think Ezoic would even notice, let alone bother to sue. I'm not sure whether we could get sufficient funds quickly enough to buy the forum; and I also don't know whether the structure of the website would allow them to sell the forum to us without JudoInfo as well ('cause they're not likely to want to sell that site) anyway... So perhaps our best bet is collectively browsing and compiling a list of particularly valuable threads (if we can still access them, that is), downloading them, reformatting them to word documents or a similar, then re-uploading either here or to another user-run website?

We could of course move on entirely and start afresh here, but given the sheer amazing wealth of information on the old site there's no guarantee we'd be able to adequately replace it. Retrieval is at the very least worth a try.

ThePieman wrote:Firstly, great to hear from you again Hanon sensei, I'm sure you will have plenty to offer still.

Secondly, Taibroshi, I don't think that there is a problem with the judo info site, it seems fine, as I said that was the main prize so will be looked after well. When I was talking about lost information I meant the posts that there have been over the years from the likes of Hanon, CK, WDAX etc. topics that have been thrashed out over many pages.

In an ideal world we would have those topics back, even to the point where one could still comment on them.

I disagree that JudoInfo is fine, along with the implication that it's content is safe. A lot of lead to nonsense pages, albeit it's not as bad as I thought initially.

http://judoinfo.com/new/resources/downloads/doc_download/249-jita-kyoei-by-ronald-desormeaux

http://judoinfo.com/new/resources/downloads/doc_download/245-physics-of-judo

etc. I'll keep on keeping on and also include some JudoForum content on my website if I can find a way to contextualize it in an interesting way.

REGARDLESS, for those of you having problems reading large JudoForum topics, turn off your AdBlocker or (in Chrome) load it in private browsing and it should work fine. I think on some pages the appearance of content has been locked up with the ads (probably not on purpose). This kind of solves a big part of the problem, but the fact that we have to private browse is kind of annoying as well as the fact that a bunch of us have made the jump over here... I've tried on several computers and the underlying user-page problem is our ad blockers. The underlying host-page problem is the idiotic coding on both sites.

It is a shame to loose some of the great articles on the old JF site but this is a golden opportunity to start afresh and develop an even better site. So far this site appears free from trolls and undesirables which is most fortunate.

to be honest... i am kind of glad that the old site, went "down"... i think the old content was amazing but i feel the site (as a long time lurker, sometime poster) thought that the content of the more "active members" was becoming a little more "holier-than-thou" feel... any new questions, members, etc were shot down.. there was no question as to who or how credible the keyboard warriors actually were... arent we all equal in this "forum"? well enough ranting... i just feel that a fresh start for the forum is a good thing...

Taiobroshi wrote:

But seriously:

Graphics and articles not owned and copyrighted by Neil Ohlenkamp or JudoInfo.com are believed to be in the public domain or used with permission.

(from http://www.judoinfo.com/new/alphabetical-list/categorywisey-index/116-judoinfo/158-about-us)

Based on this I'm just going to start shifting over non-Neil Ohlenkamp articles from JudoInfo to my own website, not because I want to claim ownership over the information but because it hasn't existed in a safe place over the last month or so. The ship is sinking and trying to amass the funds to buy the old name will take too long (and it will also put money in the pockets of the people that neglected it in the first place). I feel like more and more content is inaccessible every time I visit JudoInfo. I've been on that site since I was 11 and it's sad, but economically it's better to jump onto a new domain name and solicit donations for bandwidth to accommodate need. I currently have 10 GB of space on my current plan and because I'm not stupid and my design is so simple, each page of content is only about 1-2 kBs. I don't want to waste time/space moving things if I don't have the blessings of the community, so please let me know!

10 GB is not the issue, even though it will be filled up soon with all sort of things. And here I go... Talking about things I don't know much about. So someone should chime in if I am wrong. One issue maybe the band width your service provider will allow for the amount of traffic that you will be hit with. Another would be security, that your site can prevent someone from hacking into member's account.

But thanks for a new forum, I will keep coming and support this forum.

Vin wrote:

10 GB is not the issue, even though it will be filled up soon with all sort of things. And here I go... Talking about things I don't know much about. So someone should chime in if I am wrong. One issue maybe the band width your service provider will allow for the amount of traffic that you will be hit with. Another would be security, that your site can prevent someone from hacking into member's account.

But thanks for a new forum, I will keep coming and support this forum.

Good question Vin.

Here's what I found on the Forumotion website.

https://www.forumotion.com/forums-free

JudoSensei wrote:Just want to let everyone know I'm here and willing to help in any way I can.

Just wondering why this was set up as phpBB software rather than invision, which would permit all the same features as the old software? Ideally, a new forum would have its own domain name for the sake of search engines and greater visibility.

Neil Ohlenkamp

Hi Neil,
At least you can read it. Anyway if you want to get involved here you're experience would be more than welcome , Ill set you as an admin - might take a few hours as the system is a bit buggy when its setup please feel free to make changes as you see fit --- would it be easier to swap over to invision ?

Like prince said: Life is just a party, but parties arent meant to last

--- would it be easier to swap over to invision ?

I don't know if it can be switched now. I like the invision software because it has powerful features and excellent admin capabilities. Since that is the software the old forum used everything would be familiar to users.

A special thanks to the admin for setting this up and Neil for stepping in looks like we are in good hands. I know nothing about the computer end but if I can help out with funds just let me know.
BTW Neil looks like you had a much easier child hood than BillC, something wrong with his avatar.