Buffytube "Cancelled"

[vidderkidder]

The only other major network to host vids on the Ning is no longer active. All remnants of the site have been replaced with a page advertising the availability of the original domain for sale- http://buffytube.ning.com

I don't want to express my own thoughts about this lest I say anything inappropriate but feel just saying that in and of itself is the little latitude I'll allow myself in expressing my thoughts on this. I did connect with the admin of the site a while back and was able to successfully back up the network using the archive tools that were available for Ning Networks to back up their content . (Full disclosure: I am the admin at Vidders.net - a fellow fandom Ning Network).  I backed up many years site content available for back up including blogs, discussions, photos, vids including comments and video descriptions, etc. The data has been frozen in Carbonite using the same process used on Han Solo on Cloud City. (I reserve the right to delete this attempt at humor and this parenthetical statement if it receives a negative response from fans of Han Solo or Cloud City residents)

To my knowledge, the site was removed without any notification to members as I am a member myself and did not receive a site broadcast message about this. I only discovered the site no longer existed through casual searching. I don't know the reason why the site closed down.

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

That sucks. I hate it when fandom things disappear into the ether.

[vidderkidder]

Just sharing. No expectation for anyone to fully read or reply.

Today, I was looking for a vid and I did a search with the fandom and song name because that usually works. It did not come up and I forgot the channel name. A minor panic sets in wondering what will be my preferred method to shore up what I think (overreacting) could be premature senility.

1) Check my subscriptions. Did I subscribe to them?
2) Did I message this person on you tube? Oh, You Tube is removing message functionality.
3) Did I rec it? How did I rec it? Does the service I used to rec it still exist?
4) Did I bookmark, like, or favorite one of their videos?

Then I get little OCD (again overreacting) about it and think if I don't figure it out I'll be out of joint for the rest of the day. This is now an open loop that needs to be closed or it's a reflection of my lack of determination and overabundance of incompentence. And now this is taking up time I could using to do non-fandom related things. Also wondering how many other times has this happened.

End result: I found the account because of a collab they did with another you tube user. I click on their profile at this address https://www.youtube.com/user/xGlowingHeartx and got a totally blank account page. Anyone reading this can see for themselves.

I say all this to articulate this one thing. When this happens I feel like You Tube has erased a part of my memory and is gas lighting my recollection of the past. I think this is some Philip K Dick story where my sense of self is being manipulated through fandom memory.

"If you destroy an entire generation of people's culture, it's as if they never existed. That's the one think we can't allow" - from The Monuments Men. I will try to pick up as many starfish as I can and through them back into the ocean archive.

https://youtu.be/Y0cstJdV16Q?t=5m14s

[double_dutchess]

Yeah, it already closed down in April or so. In itself an understandable decision, because there had been almost zero activity for quite a while (I was one of the last people still posting there) but it was quite disappointing that we didn't get a heads up. If I had known in advance, I would have saved some things from the site before it disappeared :-(

[vidderkidder]

Hi double_dutchess,

I remember you as one of the active members there. I loved your Spike and Harmony vid "Shut up". You're so creative. Love your icon there. Don't worry I backed everything up back when I was involved so I probably have some of the content you may be looking for. Send me an email if it is something specific you don't have a back up for and I can see what I can do.

Wishing you the best.

Vidderkidder.

[double_dutchess]

Thanks Vidderkidder! It's great that you have everything backed up. It would be such a waste if everything was lost. Are you planning to make the content publicly available again somehow? And thanks a lot for the retrieval offer, but my problem is that I don't know exactly what I would be looking for. I'm pretty sure I had some vids among my favourites that are no longer available elsewhere, but I don't remember which ones specifically :-(

[vidderkidder]

The way the back ups work is that all the vids will have unique identifiers that point back to the vidder/uploader. At a minimum I could send you a list of all the vids you uploaded and you can pick and choose which ones you want. I could put them on a storage location and send you a link.

Anyone who was at Buffytube could create an account at vidders.net and some members of Buffytube are already members of vidders.net before this even happened. Depending on who's interested I could package up their content and send them a link for re-upload to our site. I can send out a quick email to all the members and find out which of them may be interested.

[double_dutchess]

Thanks again, but I do have all of my own vids backed up. I'll try to upload more of them to vidders.net, if I can manage to get them down to the required file size. It's vids by others that might be lost, but if you can get some more ex-BuffyTubers interested in a transfer of their vids to vidders.net, that would of course be great.