[DECtalk] History of the DECtalk Archive

[Blake Roberts]

That was a very interesting lesson. Although I first joined this list in
late 2004 or early 2005, I had forgotten some of the history due to the
passage of time. Jayson, it has been my experience during the past 7 years
that you are an excellent list moderator. You are both helpful and fair,
which are both great leadership qualities. It is my hope that you will
continue hosting this listserv on BlueGrassPals for a long time yet. I
consider this Dectalk listserv to be an invaluable resource.
Blake

-----Original Message-----
From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
[mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Jayson Smith
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 8:30 PM
To: DECtalk Discussions
Subject: [DECtalk] History of the DECtalk Archive

Okay, class, get back in your seats and pay attention, since I'm going to
teach a little history lesson. There will be a pop quiz on this material
sometime next week. Hehe, just fooling around here, but this is gonna get a
bit long.

So when I first came in contact with the DECtalk archive it was being hosted
by Andre Louis. This was in October of 2003. Over time Andre started to get
more and more annoyed at the bandwidth burden the DECtalk archive had
become. He eventually started asking for donations, and put a password on
the archive for a little while. Around this same time, I, Jayson Smith,
proud owner of my very own Linux server, was looking for ways I could use
that server to give to the community. One of my early ideas was to establish
a mirror of the DECtalk archive. So I ran my mirror, Andre got more and more
annoyed/annoying, the less of which said the better, until finally on August
18, 2005, he pulled the plug permanently. Here's the Email I sent out to
this very list when I discovered this fact.

Hello,
Having attempted to access the official archive at Andre's site less than an
hour ago, it appears that he has silently pulled the plug, finally.  As far
as I am concerned, this leaves me as the de facto archive maintainer.  As
such, here are a few things I want everybody to know.
1.  The Red Dwarf files are staying.  I know this is a bit risky given US
copyright law, but I don't see lawyers banging on my door right now, so
don't think it's a real huge deal.  If it ever becomes one, the files will
be removed and someone in the UK can host them, but hopefully that won't be
necessary.  I have set up an ftp account exclusively for those involved with
the uploading of Red Dwarf files, and a script which moves these files to
the red_dwarf directory once an hour.  If you are involved in the upload
process, please write me off-list at ratguy at bellsouth.net and I will provide
the username and password.  To prevent abuse, this account is only available
to people who upload Red Dwarf episodes and not to anybody else, and it will
be removed after dt8-8 has been uploaded.
2.  All other files are staying.  If Tony took over the archive, he had
already stated that some files would be removed.  I don't want to do that,
because then I'm being the judge of what is and is not acceptable.  If
things get out of hand I may have to implement some rules, but for now,
everything stays.
3.  File upload is currently unavailable.  I am looking for a secure
mechanism to make this happen.  It must be secure against people downloading
from the upload area, people deleting uploaded files, and people overwriting
other files by uploading new files with the same names.  Any suggestions are
welcomed.  What I'd love to find is a web-based solution which would allow
people to upload files, it Emails me saying there's a new upload, I look at
the file then approve or reject it as appropriate.
4.  If there is enough demand, I will make a torrent of all or part of the
archive from time to time.
5.  Although I hope to find a secure solution to the file upload problem,
even if this archive remains forever static with the exception of Red Dwarf,
I have no problem with hosting it for as long as anyone wants.
6.  I will write a new Readme file as soon as possible.
7.  I reserve the right to investigate possible mirroring options, and if
bandwidth usage gets out of hand, I reserve the right to restrict
downloading directly from me to mirror sites, install bandwidth limiting
modules, or take other actions to eliminate the problem.  However, I will
make every effort to investigate possible alternatives before I remove the
archive or ask for donations.
If you have any questions or comments about this announcement, feel free to
write to the list, or to me personally at ratguy at bellsouth.net.
Thanks.
Jayson Smith

>From what I remember, I pretty much did what I said I'd do in that message. 
I did eventually find a way to allow file upload, and also set up a few
directories for specific people to upload files. On December 23, 2005, I set
up a mirror of the archive through Planetmirror. Less than a year later, an
error on my end caused that mirror to be deleted. I did eventually have to
put a bandwidth limit on the archive. Things went well until October 21,
2008, when Insight, our cable ISP, did a port scan and found open ports on
our IP. They suspended our service until I closed all the ports. Obviously
this meant my then over four-year-old Linux server had just become a lot
less useful. So I got a VPS from a hosting company and moved everything to
that server. Things were going okay, but the DECtalk archive was becoming a
huge bandwidth concern. Finally, on March 15, 2009, I decided to pull the
plug, with this message:

Hello,

     I'm sorry it has come to this... As some of you know, I was forced to
switch from running my own server to using a hosting provider. This
provider, openhosting.com, meters bandwidth. So far this month, I have had
unusually high bandwidth utilization, and estimates are that my charges will
exceed my commit rate by at least a few dollars. Looking at website
statistics, it's clear to see that the DECtalk archive is accounting for an
extremely high percentage of web traffic and/or bandwidth utilization. I
always had my mind made up that I would host the DECtalk archive as long as
it didn't actually cost anything. Now however, it might actually cost extra
money to run the archive. For this reason, and in an attempt to keep the
charges from going over my monthly commit rate, I have moved the archive to
an area of my server inaccessible to the public either via FTP or HTTP,
effective immediately. Please note, though, that nothing has been deleted
from my server, only moved out of public access areas.
     I have a feeling that some person or persons, probably outside this
list, are running poorly written or misconfigured mirroring programs. They
seem to be downloading the same files over and over and over again. I am
willing to work with anybody who wishes to host the archive, and at this
point, I would be willing to turn it over to somebody else full-time. If
anybody is interested, please step forward and we'll work something out.
It's been a great run, since I more or less took the archive over by default
in August of 2005. However, I am no longer willing to support the humongous
bandwidth hog the archive has become. Note however, that I will continue to
run this mailing list for as long as anybody wants. This list is a very
low-bandwidth affair as compared to the archive.
     If anyone has any thoughts, please share them. I will not delete my
copy of the archive, and will cooperate fully in making it available to
anyone who wishes to take it over.
Thanks for your understanding.
Jayson

That was pretty much the end of my involvement with the DECtalk archive. I'm
pretty sure Tony Baechler hosted it for a while. Now Christopher Toth is
hosting it I believe.
Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane!
Jayson

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