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Backtype Saves Our Bacon: Comments Revived From The Dead
from the thanks! dept
So, yesterday morning, we screwed up and accidentally deleted all the comments on Techdirt. We were able to pull a backup and get back most of them, but we were still missing 11 hours worth of comments from about midnight to 11am. A little while after posting our apology I got an email from Chris Golda, who I'd actually just met a couple weeks ago at a networking event in Silicon Valley. Chris is one of the guys behind BackType, a startup that is a comment search engine. He mentioned that BackType probably had a bunch of the missing comments in its database, and offered to share a data dump. In actuality, it looks like BackType had almost all of the missing comments -- and they've now been restored. The only thing we didn't have were the comment titles, but otherwise most of the missing comments are back.
So, here's a huge thank you to Chris and Mike at BackType for reviving our dead comments. Way to prove the absolute awesomeness of your product. Remember a few months back when we wrote about some silly argument that some bloggers were making about how it was important to determine who owned the copyright on blog comments? At the time, we pointed out how ridiculous that was -- and I think this proves it. Under traditional copyright laws, some might say that BackType violated copyright laws, but in actuality, they provided a huge service to us in doing so.
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Comments back from the dead...
...like Amazon's one-star Spore reviews?
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Or the Wall Street Journals "sources".
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Yeah...they're going to get a lot of hits with TechDirt plugging them. Way to go Backtype!
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Thanks for the kind words -- glad we could help :)
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Copyright
My understanding of copyright law is that nowdays everything is covered by copyright by default. This could lead to the unfortunate occurance of BackType and other usefull sites being advised to shut down by their own layers to avoid copyright infringement despite your position that coppying this plog is perfectly fine.
So Mike, I was wondering if it might make make sence to have a statement clearly placing the contents of this site (appart from trademarks presumably) into the public domain? This should help make completely clear that there are no impediments to people doing usefull/interesting (or even lame and boring) things with this content.
I hope that I am correct in this understanding of your position on these matters and would like to say that I share (what I believe is) your feelings of frustration over the impediments to creative work imposed by current copyright regulations.
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Re: Copyright
Just a quick update to say that I know of your position as stated in http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20070412/183135#c612 I was more just wondering if it would make sense to have a permanent link to this to help drive the point home to any legal types (as well as those frequently thinking they have got you on something).
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new Backtype user
seems like a useful site, so I'm saying thank you to Backtype as best I can (not being a venture capitalist...) by signing up...
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I hadn't noticed!
I usually post in the mornings, returning throughout the day for updates. I rarely go into comments again, especially now that Mike ignores me.
;)
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Re: I hadn't noticed!
I usually post in the mornings, returning throughout the day for updates. I rarely go into comments again, especially now that Mike ignores me.
Hey Twinrova, I don't ignore you. We get a lot of comments every day. I have to pick and choose my battles, because I just don't have the time to respond to everyone.
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Service and Spotlight!
Here's a company that not only saw a Service they could provide, but the opportunity to get their product Spotlighted on a Nation-wide IT News Blogging Site.
The only harm in this Mike is all those interviews you are about to do where you have to admit that you screwed up :)
These guys at BackType aren't just good innovators, they are good business people who saw the ability to get their company noticed on a grander scale; good work guys, both for your Service and for your Business Proxy.
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A huge service? Did you actually read those comments?
They were not that good :)
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Re: Re: I hadn't noticed!
Mike I cannot believe you don't make time to personally respond to each & every comment made on here. ;-)
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Book City
Reminds me of a store in Hollywood called Book City. They sold scripts for many movies and TV shows. These were usually scripts that they got ahold of from people who worked on the show - NOT from the producers.
Book City basically made a business out of violating the copyright on those scripts.
But Hollywood turned a blind eye to it - because even though it was a technical violation, Book City provided two useful services: First, it gave new writers examples of real scripts to read, to help learn their craft. Second (and more important to the producers), it gave the production companies something of an archive, in case they lost their own copies.
This happened once when a popular sitcom (I think it was Seinfeld, but I'm not 100% sure) wanted to refer to something in a past episode, from a previous season. But they couldn't find the script for that episode anywhere. So they finally went to Book City, who had a copy.
(Book City is, however, now out of business)
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Rehire your IT department
First your IT guy loses the data, then the backup is 11 hours old?
I guess I wouldn't expect anything more from a gossip blog, even if it IS tech related.
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good job
Good job Backtype, thanks for the assist!
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Re: Re: I hadn't noticed!
I have to pick and choose my battles, because I just don't have the time to respond to everyone.
Wha??? Here I thought all you did was look up info from other websites, get tips via email, and do the occasional visit to firms just to get stuff to post!
I sit... corrected. ;)
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two types of IT admins
those with a complete verified backup solution,
and those whose systems haven't crashed yet.
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Re: Rehire your IT department
First your IT guy loses the data, then the backup is 11 hours old?
As I mentioned in the original post (please read before you attack), our backup system did not work as intended. However, we are now in the process of fixing it.
I assume that you have never, ever in your life made a mistake?
I guess I wouldn't expect anything more from a gossip blog, even if it IS tech related.
Ah, so you just can't read at all, huh? Since when have we been a "gossip blog"?
We may have lost some comments briefly, but that was fixable. Reading comprehension, apparently, takes a lot more work.
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Re: Re: Rehire your IT department
Ah, so you just can't read at all, huh? Since when have we been a "gossip blog"?
Since your posts started reading like entries from perezhilton.com.
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