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YTMND shutdown due to DB failure; founder launches Patreon to reboot the site

Jordan117

Jordan117

Member
Oct 27, 2017
992
Alabammy
Motherboard: YTMND’s Owner Says the Site’s Database Was Accidentally Deleted

“I had no idea anyone cared about it really,” [YTMND creator Max Goldberg] said. “But yesterday when I woke up and I see articles in numerous publications and ‘ytmnd’ is trending on twitter, and hundreds of people are contacting me, well it was sort of surreal.”

Goldberg learned the site was down yesterday when he woke up to a text message telling him it was dead. Right now, he’s still not sure what happened.

“Still trying to determine that, but it appears the current database has been completely wiped,” he said. “The hardware is roughly eight years old I believe.” [...]

“I have backups, but frankly not much worth saving has happened on the site in the last five years and rebuilding the whole thing from scratch is a lengthy process,” he said. “Hence why it isn’t back yet.”

According to Goldberg, the site has been on autopilot for years. “I did all the programming and system setup myself, and I did it in such a way that I didn't need to touch it basically ever. Which worked pretty well for the last [seven to eight] years,” he said. “I’d login once every six months, delete a large swath of trolls and then go back into hibernation. But my inattention caused the current situation.”
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The article goes on to describe how Google pulled AdSense funding back in 2012, turning it from a marginally profitable venture to something that cost him $250 a month out of pocket to keep online. To that end he's launched a Patreon to raise hosting money for the site and hopefully fund a non-Flash reboot of the project to modernize it for current browsers and devices:

We've seen an outpouring of support of the last week and people have shown they want YTMND to stick around for a bit longer. While I'm diligently working to get a new database online with a backup, we should discuss how to proceed from there.

The first step would be to update and secure all the servers. It has been a long time since any real maintenance has been done and YTMND still lacks SSL and other modern necessities. After that, I think the main focus should be writing an open-source player using native browser technology so that all YTMNDs can be properly viewed in modern browsers without requiring Flash. This is a big undertaking in itself, but will allow YTMNDs to be viewed across a wider range of devices, and will make archiving them much simpler.

I will write more here later, but if you are interested, I urge you join the discord and participate by providing suggestions and comments.

Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/QwAWz65
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In other good news, the mentally unstable Trumpists who had been squatting on /r/ytmnd have been kicked to the curb, ironically just like in that terribly photoshopped Ben Garrison cartoon that they had stickied to the front page.

In the meantime, here's a quick-and-dirty guide to browsing the Archive.org version of the site:

You can view most pages by going to:

https://web.archive.org/web/2019/http://SUBSITENAME.ytmnd.com/

This works for me even on iPad, so no Flash is needed. Also, you can search by tweaking the end of this URL:

https://web.archive.org/web/2019/http://ytmnd.com/keywords/SEARCHTERM

It will only work for search result pages Archive.org saved, and only for the first page of results, but they archived a LOT of them, so most relatively common search terms should work.

The archived YTMND also has a comprehensive list of "fads", which is great for context and examples.

Lastly: the archived list of the most-viewed YTMNDs of all time.
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thewienke

thewienke

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,771
Meanwhile in an alternate universe, PTKFGS is still going strong with millions of viewers.
 
Poppy

Poppy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,700
corvallis, OR
i like how almost every single time that ytmnd has died max crawls out of his vodka hole and seems like he wasnt aware but that everything is fine and changes are coming
 
Corporal

Corporal

Member
Oct 27, 2017
805
Good to see that this rather influential site won't just randomly fall off the net. Probably. I just can't imagine this not hitting the required Patreon subs.

There was so much ...stuff... on that thing. Would be a tremendous loss.

Obligatory randomly remembered ytmnd (youtube version, sigh):
 
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