Giving up on this place and 'bad request' issues

[Rivvo 257]

4 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

When I try and access this site from Carrow Road WiFi it won't let me. Always comes up as an unsecure connection.

This was before any spat...

Same here Nutty, it’s the only time I have an issue getting on it, apparently Carrow Wi-Fi has always been carp though.

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

Hardly been on here in recent weeks but that's due to the WC break. @hogesar posted another fix a few weeks ago on another thread, which hasn't been replicated on this thread... I followed that to the letter, and haven't had a single 'bad request' since. Do you know what I'm talking about, Hoggy?

A couple of years ago I mooted the possibility of setting up a new forum, and there was quite a long discussion about it. That was before the Newsquest takeover, and frankly Archant is a mere shell of what it was a couple of years ago (and it was deteriorating rapidly even before I left in 2019).

Despite @Pete Raven's reassurances before he left Archant that this site was in absolutely no danger of going under, I think it'd definitely be worth people with the necessary skills discussing a potential contingency plan so we can act quickly if it does go to the wall.

I've been a member of online communities before that have disappeared without warning, and it's heartbreaking to see all those years of conversations, ideas and memories go up in smoke. Would it be hypothetically possible to 'buy' the site and shift the hosting to another server, while retaining the database of users and posts? And if it were possible, would there be GDPR/privacy issues associated with that?

This is the biggest and oldest NCFC forum by a country mile, and we owe it to ourselves to protect it.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Feedthewolf

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

7 hours ago, Diane said:

100%  sure that neither Paddy or Connor bother to read this messageboard.

Had to clear my cookies again to post this despite posting 5 mins ago 😠 

Apologies for not including get out clause emoji.😇👌😂

[CANARYKING 637]

5 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

You would think so, but this is what? Over a month now?

More like a year 

[chicken 2,624]

1 hour ago, Feedthewolf said:

Hardly been on here in recent weeks but that's due to the WC break. @hogesar posted another fix a few weeks ago on another thread, which hasn't been replicated on this thread... I followed that to the letter, and haven't had a single 'bad request' since. Do you know what I'm talking about, Hoggy?

A couple of years ago I mooted the possibility of setting up a new forum, and there was quite a long discussion about it. That was before the Newsquest takeover, and frankly Archant is a mere shell of what it was a couple of years ago (and it was deteriorating rapidly even before I left in 2019).

Despite @Pete Raven's reassurances before he left Archant that this site was in absolutely no danger of going under, I think it'd definitely be worth people with the necessary skills discussing a potential contingency plan so we can act quickly if it does go to the wall.

I've been a member of online communities before that have disappeared without warning, and it's heartbreaking to see all those years of conversations, ideas and memories go up in smoke. Would it be hypothetically possible to 'buy' the site and shift the hosting to another server, while retaining the database of users and posts? And if it were possible, would there be GDPR/privacy issues associated with that?

This is the biggest and oldest NCFC forum by a country mile, and we owe it to ourselves to protect it.

Agreed. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,536]

1 hour ago, Feedthewolf said:

Hardly been on here in recent weeks but that's due to the WC break. @hogesar posted another fix a few weeks ago on another thread, which hasn't been replicated on this thread... I followed that to the letter, and haven't had a single 'bad request' since. Do you know what I'm talking about, Hoggy?

A couple of years ago I mooted the possibility of setting up a new forum, and there was quite a long discussion about it. That was before the Newsquest takeover, and frankly Archant is a mere shell of what it was a couple of years ago (and it was deteriorating rapidly even before I left in 2019).

Despite @Pete Raven's reassurances before he left Archant that this site was in absolutely no danger of going under, I think it'd definitely be worth people with the necessary skills discussing a potential contingency plan so we can act quickly if it does go to the wall.

I've been a member of online communities before that have disappeared without warning, and it's heartbreaking to see all those years of conversations, ideas and memories go up in smoke. Would it be hypothetically possible to 'buy' the site and shift the hosting to another server, while retaining the database of users and posts? And if it were possible, would there be GDPR/privacy issues associated with that?

This is the biggest and oldest NCFC forum by a country mile, and we owe it to ourselves to protect it.

I think all our posts on here qualify as personal data as per GDPR, so I don't think Archant could legally sell the database to another party.

A workaround would be for Archant to create a facility for users to download all their posts, which could then be repopulated into a new database, but obviously you can't count on everybody doing it, and given they can't even fix a maximum header issue that's probably asking a bit much!

The only other approach is for somebody to write a bot to scrape and archive the whole site, but obviously that wouldn't be perfect either.

[chicken 2,624]

4 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I think all our posts on here qualify as personal data as per GDPR, so I don't think Archant could legally sell the database to another party.

A workaround would be for Archant to create a facility for users to download all their posts, which could then be repopulated into a new database, but obviously you can't count on everybody doing it, and given they can't even fix a maximum header issue that's probably asking a bit much!

The only other approach is for somebody to write a bot to scrape and archive the whole site, but obviously that wouldn't be perfect either.

I don't think our posts here class as personal data as per GDPR. I say that, because if that was the case, the forum would have to be reviewed fairly regularly and all posts older than a certain date and no longer relevant would have to be deleted. That would also go for the likes of social media as well.


So posts themselves would not class as GDPR generally UNLESS those posts included something that clearly identifies who you are. Interestingly, I would love to see how this applies to social media where you use your actual name and your address can be stored... as it is pretty clear they must be exempt. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,536]

1 minute ago, chicken said:

I don't think our posts here class as personal data as per GDPR. I say that, because if that was the case, the forum would have to be reviewed fairly regularly and all posts older than a certain date and no longer relevant would have to be deleted. That would also go for the likes of social media as well.


So posts themselves would not class as GDPR generally UNLESS those posts included something that clearly identifies who you are. Interestingly, I would love to see how this applies to social media where you use your actual name and your address can be stored... as it is pretty clear they must be exempt. 

https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/28276/are-internet-forum-posts-considered-personal-data-under-gdpr

I'm not sure, but there seems to be a point of view that anonymised personal data is still personal data. So if you post that Pukki played poorly, then that's your personal data, whether someone else can identify you or not.

Don't forget this forum predates GDPR. By no means confident either way though.

[chicken 2,624]

5 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/28276/are-internet-forum-posts-considered-personal-data-under-gdpr

I'm not sure, but there seems to be a point of view that anonymised personal data is still personal data. So if you post that Pukki played poorly, then that's your personal data, whether someone else can identify you or not.

Don't forget this forum predates GDPR. By no means confident either way though.

Doesn't matter about predating... when new data protection laws come into force they apply to all data held.

The issue here is that if forum posts ARE considered personal data, then they should be regularly reviewed and deleted when they are no longer relevant.

As I say, this simply can't be the case as no forum does this, neither does facebook or twitter etc. The only clauses I can think of in the sense of social media is that the servers the platforms operate from are outside of the EU/UK.

You can't pick and choose GDPR, if it's personal data, the whole lot applies... and as it all evolves around this concept and definition of personal data, as soon as you say it is, all of the legislation applies to it.

I'd also challenge this as being "anonymised" too. It'd have to be classed as personal data first, which I am pretty sure it isn't.

As in, it doesn't appear to tick any of the boxes to be personal data. There is nothing in a typical post that could be used to identify an individual.

At the moment, I am just on one about personal data, but it doesn't identify me. There is no "personal data" content such as my address, the way I vote, my real name, age, date of birth etc. Nor any information relating to purchase history or identifying descriptors etc.

In other words, if I typed this out on A4 and stuck 100 of them around Norwich, would anyone who picked it up be able to identify who I am from it and be able to take advantage of it? (without using fingerprint kits or some wild CSI style kit that finds the signature of the ink etc - for those who want to try and push the boundaries of reality 😉)

I suspect where GDPR does apply to a forum is things like IP addresses, and emails etc held on system as well as log ins/passwords etc.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,536]

17 minutes ago, chicken said:

Doesn't matter about predating... when new data protection laws come into force they apply to all data held.

The issue here is that if forum posts ARE considered personal data, then they should be regularly reviewed and deleted when they are no longer relevant.

As I say, this simply can't be the case as no forum does this, neither does facebook or twitter etc. The only clauses I can think of in the sense of social media is that the servers the platforms operate from are outside of the EU/UK.

You can't pick and choose GDPR, if it's personal data, the whole lot applies... and as it all evolves around this concept and definition of personal data, as soon as you say it is, all of the legislation applies to it.

I'd also challenge this as being "anonymised" too. It'd have to be classed as personal data first, which I am pretty sure it isn't.

As in, it doesn't appear to tick any of the boxes to be personal data. There is nothing in a typical post that could be used to identify an individual.

At the moment, I am just on one about personal data, but it doesn't identify me. There is no "personal data" content such as my address, the way I vote, my real name, age, date of birth etc. Nor any information relating to purchase history or identifying descriptors etc.

In other words, if I typed this out on A4 and stuck 100 of them around Norwich, would anyone who picked it up be able to identify who I am from it and be able to take advantage of it? (without using fingerprint kits or some wild CSI style kit that finds the signature of the ink etc - for those who want to try and push the boundaries of reality 😉)

I suspect where GDPR does apply to a forum is things like IP addresses, and emails etc held on system as well as log ins/passwords etc.

That was my point; it applies, but it obviously wasn't built with GDPR in mind, which means it might have issues in data protection terms.

It may simply be that there's a problem, but nobody has bothered actually testing it in court.

Edited December 8, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[chicken 2,624]

29 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

That was my point; it applies, but it obviously wasn't built with GDPR in mind, which means it might have issues in data protection terms.

It may simply be that there's a problem, but nobody has bothered actually testing it in court.

Again, I doubt it. Social media has plenty of detractors. Platforms vie for users and it would be a brilliant opportunity, for example, to attack facebook even if it only damaged them temporarily. In other words there is plenty of financial incentive to test it.

Above all else, there is actually a duty for the state to fine breaches of GDPR I believe. It's like health and safety breaches... it's a big deal.

So I doubt it's a case of "ah yeah, no one has been bothered to do anything about it". 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,536]

6 hours ago, chicken said:

Again, I doubt it. Social media has plenty of detractors. Platforms vie for users and it would be a brilliant opportunity, for example, to attack facebook even if it only damaged them temporarily. In other words there is plenty of financial incentive to test it.

Above all else, there is actually a duty for the state to fine breaches of GDPR I believe. It's like health and safety breaches... it's a big deal.

So I doubt it's a case of "ah yeah, no one has been bothered to do anything about it". 

I'm not sure if you're aware, but it has been tested as far as facebook is concerned and there is a facility to download all of the data that facebook holds on you, including posts; this came about as a direct consequence of GDPR. The same is true for Google services and the likes of dropbox. You can also delete your entire facebook account and all of your posts as a consequence of the right to be forgotten. The same applies for google services.

Having had a look at my account details on here, the only core piece of data you give other than a display name is an email address. An email address qualifies as personally identifiable information in the case of a personal email account such as gmail or yahoo, or a business email that makes a user's name obvious, like firstname.lastname@businessname.com, so unless an account is set up with an email address that the user has taken steps to ensure can't be linked personally to them, then I think all user posts do qualify as data protected under GDPR and therefore should rightfully be made available to a user in downloadable form on request. I don't think it matters that the email address can't be seen by the general public because the key thing is that the company itself has access to that data for it to be something that falls under GDPR and it can be related to every user post on the forum meaning every user post is personally identifiable data to the company. The only way around that is to anonymise accounts completely and avoid holding even an email address.

Of course, even that gets muddy if a user has posted something that does make them personally identifiable in the real world.

https://data-breach.com/revealing-email-address-breach-gdpr/

https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/what-personal-data_en

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/27/18195630/gdpr-right-of-access-data-download-facebook-google-amazon-apple

Edited December 9, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[dylanisabaddog 4,903]

Haven't got problems with this site but just tried to look at a Swansea forum and got a bad request response 😂

[hogesar 9,657]

12 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

Hardly been on here in recent weeks but that's due to the WC break. @hogesar posted another fix a few weeks ago on another thread, which hasn't been replicated on this thread... I followed that to the letter, and haven't had a single 'bad request' since. Do you know what I'm talking about, Hoggy?

A couple of years ago I mooted the possibility of setting up a new forum, and there was quite a long discussion about it. That was before the Newsquest takeover, and frankly Archant is a mere shell of what it was a couple of years ago (and it was deteriorating rapidly even before I left in 2019).

Despite @Pete Raven's reassurances before he left Archant that this site was in absolutely no danger of going under, I think it'd definitely be worth people with the necessary skills discussing a potential contingency plan so we can act quickly if it does go to the wall.

I've been a member of online communities before that have disappeared without warning, and it's heartbreaking to see all those years of conversations, ideas and memories go up in smoke. Would it be hypothetically possible to 'buy' the site and shift the hosting to another server, while retaining the database of users and posts? And if it were possible, would there be GDPR/privacy issues associated with that?

This is the biggest and oldest NCFC forum by a country mile, and we owe it to ourselves to protect it.

Yep, Eddie took a screenshot elsewhere so i'll put it below this for anyone who's not seen it.

As I said, we'd be happy to sort out an alternate forum and space for everyone but coming up to Christmas things are obviously pretty hectic, so it would be really good to get an answer from the Tech Team @pinkun_admin (optimistic tag) if they're going to bother maintaining this forum or not. 🙂

[cambridgeshire canary 6,697]

Another little tip that worked for me when this place was having similar issues a while back was to open a new private window/private tab and for some reason being on a private tab never seemed to get any issues. Of course this means you'll have to keep logging in and out everytime you open and shut the tab but better than not getting on at all right?

[hogesar 9,657]

22 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

Another little tip that worked for me when this place was having similar issues a while back was to open a new private window/private tab and for some reason being on a private tab never seemed to get any issues. Of course this means you'll have to keep logging in and out everytime you open and shut the tab but better than not getting on at all right?

Yes, browsing 'incognito' or 'in private' should always work as the site won't be able to try and store an over-sized cookie / header auth.

Of course, there's people of all ages and IT abilities that access this forum so they shouldn't have to do so.

[nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159]

Hmm, how can we stop the football forum become too political? Frustrate them with rigmarole and bad requests? Remember when the Guardian was criticised too much on political coverage and their 'intelligence' community within? they banned people from commenting and allowed a team of moderators to favor comments that agree with the powers to be.

I was banned in 2003 for daring to link a post relating to collateral murder and whitewashing torture, never looked back to the rag, it deserves to suffer a slow death. Is that what Archant is planning at?

 

[Herman 9,749]

I'll leave this tip for Firefox users too, from Hogesar. Works a treat.

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

Here's a thought, how about Hoggo sending his fix advice to the admin. For some reason I don't get issues in my phone or tablet, have never used my PC. 

[hogesar 9,657]

1 hour ago, wcorkcanary said:

Here's a thought, how about Hoggo sending his fix advice to the admin. For some reason I don't get issues in my phone or tablet, have never used my PC. 

I've tried. 🙂

[CANARYKING 637]

39 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I've tried. 🙂

I reckon they’re not bothered

[chicken 2,624]

13 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I'm not sure if you're aware, but it has been tested as far as facebook is concerned and there is a facility to download all of the data that facebook holds on you, including posts; this came about as a direct consequence of GDPR. The same is true for Google services and the likes of dropbox. You can also delete your entire facebook account and all of your posts as a consequence of the right to be forgotten. The same applies for google services.

Having had a look at my account details on here, the only core piece of data you give other than a display name is an email address. An email address qualifies as personally identifiable information in the case of a personal email account such as gmail or yahoo, or a business email that makes a user's name obvious, like firstname.lastname@businessname.com, so unless an account is set up with an email address that the user has taken steps to ensure can't be linked personally to them, then I think all user posts do qualify as data protected under GDPR and therefore should rightfully be made available to a user in downloadable form on request. I don't think it matters that the email address can't be seen by the general public because the key thing is that the company itself has access to that data for it to be something that falls under GDPR and it can be related to every user post on the forum meaning every user post is personally identifiable data to the company. The only way around that is to anonymise accounts completely and avoid holding even an email address.

Of course, even that gets muddy if a user has posted something that does make them personally identifiable in the real world.

https://data-breach.com/revealing-email-address-breach-gdpr/

https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/what-personal-data_en

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/27/18195630/gdpr-right-of-access-data-download-facebook-google-amazon-apple

Different part of GDPR that. You have the right to request information every company holds on you.

Personal Data is a defined thing. What you have shared there doesn't suggest that posts on social media are classed as "personal data" - nor how that relates to a public forum.

The huge difficulty is that if you stand in a public space and express your political beliefs as is your right, people can record you and put it on the internet. That is not illegal. As it is in a public space. The same as they can then write a word based account of what they witnessed and it not be illegal.

In many senses, the internet - especially a forum such as this, is publicly accessible and the information in posts is not protected. You can view it without a log in. The same as you can on twitter. Therefore essentially, by posting you are doing so knowing that it becomes public domain.

Personal Data is quite specific and what you want to be looking at. The reason why is as I say, if posts on public forums and social media meet the criteria of "personal data" the companies that run said platforms should purge posts on a regular basis as it is illegal to hold personal data that is no longer relevant.

[Badger 2,405]

On 07/12/2022 at 13:19, littleyellowbirdie said:

I'm worried about the disconnect between the Pinkun forum and its users.

Agree they don't seem to care for us any more and lack ambition! We need someone who is prepared to sink  few million in as an investment!

US takeover perhaps? Archant will tell you that there is no interest in running a free website, but there are loads of billionaires who would happily give us millions - they just don't want to give up their toy! 😉

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

On 09/12/2022 at 09:32, hogesar said:

Yep, Eddie took a screenshot elsewhere so i'll put it below this for anyone who's not seen it.

As I said, we'd be happy to sort out an alternate forum and space for everyone but coming up to Christmas things are obviously pretty hectic, so it would be really good to get an answer from the Tech Team @pinkun_admin (optimistic tag) if they're going to bother maintaining this forum or not. 🙂

@hogesar, any chance you could post this image again? It's not showing up, and I'm now unable to access the forum through my laptop because I committed the heinous crime of going on pinkun.com rather than directly to the forum.

Worth keeping this post at or near the top in case anyone from Archant is actually bothered about fixing it now @Pete Raven has left.

[hogesar 9,657]

4 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

@hogesar, any chance you could post this image again? It's not showing up, and I'm now unable to access the forum through my laptop because I committed the heinous crime of going on pinkun.com rather than directly to the forum.

Worth keeping this post at or near the top in case anyone from Archant is actually bothered about fixing it now @Pete Raven has left.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

6 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

@hogesar, any chance you could post this image again? It's not showing up, and I'm now unable to access the forum through my laptop because I committed the heinous crime of going on pinkun.com rather than directly to the forum.

Worth keeping this post at or near the top in case anyone from Archant is actually bothered about fixing it now @Pete Raven has left.

This problem returned for me today also.

I must have visited via the homepage, naughty me.

Wonder how much participation this place is missing out on by occasional or new posters who get bad request a few times then just give up.

[Mello Yello 2,289]

It's weird as I don't have any Pink un pooter issues at all?.....Is it because I have integrity and that I'm a good person?....

[KeiranShikari 1,410]

All I had to do was clear my browser's cache.

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

On 07/12/2022 at 19:31, hogesar said:

It's only a half hour server configuration job for a novice to sort, that's the most infuriating thing.

I think @Pete Raven said we should email Connor and ask him to get the Archant IT team to fix it... is that something you'd be able/prepared to do? I'd happily do it, but I haven't got a clue what I'm talking about 😉

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

5 minutes ago, KeiranShikari said:

All I had to do was clear my browser's cache.

Yeah, but that means literally all the passwords I've saved for every website are deleted with it. Massive pain in the backside, and shouldn't need to be done.