Index ⇒ General Topics ⇒ Operation LW2Usenet - Backing up our uploads on newsgroups

[Molitor]

[Molitor]

[Scaryfun]

That's a massive undertaking. for all your efforts. I'm doing an update tonight, but I'll check tomorrow. It's sad when we lose games that have been upped before. So, with this, it will prevent further losses.

[Shattered]

Great job!

[Shattered]

[Molitor]

Update on the progress after approx. 1 month 1/2 of running the service:
-Uploads #1-1500 are now covered, as well as #10000-10600.
-Many have been skipped, though: most of them are rips uploaded by the long-away-now MasteromaN. All of these rips have an ISO equivalent anyway, so they are not exactly high-priority stuff. There's a bit of backlog due to incomplete downloads awaiting to be fixed (I have a good hundred of links to report, although I won't be reporting them all at once, that would be so mean of me)
-The recent bandwidth limitations set up by MEGA are somewhat hindering the process, especially with the most recent uploads which are mostly hosted there. But time pays off: JD2 be blessed for queueing the files and processing everything for me overnight. 4S is still very much fine in terms of bandwidth, as long as there are enough accounts to use.
-Alternate download location added, with search feature, so you can still access the NZBs when your favourite indexer is offline. (NZBIndex and Binsearch having a 1000ish days retention, having a copy of the NZBs will come in handy. NZBKing is good but a pain to browse). On this page, you can get direct links to a NZB - which can be fed to your binaries downloader.

[Scaryfun]

Just a note that some uploads in database might no longer be on site as they were reported down in the past but weren't deleted. So, those hundred might not actually be that much.

[Shattered]

Thanks again for your efforts.

I've updated my previous post with more information about the free providers. I've also changed the font colour and size to match your post.

Regarding the double or triple packing of the uploads: I think the longevity of the files is the most important.

[Molitor]

Stats are available now, mainly for self-gratification purposes but also to satisfy potential curiosity about the ongoing progress. A few notes about them:
-The success rate indicates how many uploads have been successfully backed up compared to the overall number of uploads in the range. For instance the 2000-2999 range theoretically contains 1000 uploads, but it's not the case: as mentioned above by Scaryfun, some old uploads are still present in the DB while they are not linked anymore to any game entry. There is also a number of "blank" entries which do not contain any link.
-Range 1-999 has a lower success rate because most of its uploads are old were broken long before I started backing them up. But most of them are rips which already have an ISO equivalent available.
-For the aforementioned reasons, a lower success rate doesn't mean that many important uploads have been skipped, and a 100% success rate is unachievable.
-At some point I will try to correct the stats by removing the blank and unused mirrors from the overall number of uploads. I could do so with a script that check every mirror page and looks up for the words "No links found". But even with an adjusted number, the success rate wouldn't change that much. Out of 5200 mirrors (#1 to #3400 + #10000 to #11800) I have checked so far, there are ~370 which have not been processed but are fixable and maybe ~200 which are unused and thus will never be processed.
-I also note down the size if each backup range, so we can have a slight idea of the volume of data involved.

[Scaryfun]

That's amazing work, Molitor!
It's also valuable to know which ones you find that are not working currently , that way two birds are killed with one stone.
We should then put links directly to usenet from each game entry, so people know to use it.

[Shattered]

I have searched high and low for the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2 files without success but was able to get them back from Usenet. Thank you Molitor!

I've also updated the "free Usenet providers" post.

[TISKER]

Please tell us what usenet provider that you are using when uploading this gems!

to calculate how many days the gems will be available on the usenet ?

[Shattered]

The availability depends on the Usenet provider which provides the longest retention, regardless of the one which has been used to upload the games. Usenet provider Eweka has 3727 days retention at the moment, so theoretically they should be available for at least 10 years.

[TISKER]

Awesome

[Scaryfun]

Indeed, I bow to Molitor for his massive efforts.