How to archive a thread
Step 1: Find the quicktopics.Depending on the mod, this can be either very easy or somewhat annoying. Ideally the GM will post it all in a single post-game post, otherwise you might have to rely on the posts of other players to make up for the Mod's negligence. Making sure you find everything is more of an art than a science, but a few quick tips:
-Read the role list to figure out which factions are in play. Look for scum and dead chats, and cults and masons if applicable.
-Be wary of Bastard and role madness games because the tells for something like the existence of a mason group can be surprisingly subtle.
-Not every game has a dead chat
If you believe a certain chat exists, but a link is nowhere to be found, don't torture yourself. Write down the issue somewhere and crowdsource the problem to us
Step 2: Expand the quicktopic so that the all of the information is on a single page.(You can skip this step if the quicktopic has 15 messages or less)Normally QT only displays 15 messages at a time. That won't work for archival purposes. Here's how you fix that:
Switch the quicktopic page to "all messages" mode and then click the
"print" button in the bottom left corner. You will then be taken to a new page. Click the big shiny "Show printable page" in the middle. You will be taken to a quicktopic page that looks very similar to the original expanded quicktopic, but it has a new URL.
Step 3: Go to Wayback machine and save itClick this linkYou will see a blank input box begging to be filled with something. Copy and paste the URL you got from Step 2 and click the "Save Page" button. You may get an error, but in that case you just try again. Eventually it will work.
When this happens you will be given a new link.
It is a necessity that you save this somewhere, like in a word file. It will be difficult for you to find it again if you lose it. I recommend making a checklist actually
This link is the final archived link. If you click it, you will see a page like the orignal QT, but saved from the shutdown. Sometimes you will be taken to an error screen that says URL not found, but ignore it. Sometimes the Wayback machine takes some time to make the pages publicly visible. In a few minutes it will start working.
Make sure you view the page at some point to make sure nothing went wrong, like archiving the wrong chat (it's a mistake I made a few times).
And that's it. Not very hard.
If anyone feels inspired by this tutorial, they should post in the thread and publicly claim pages 10, 9, or 8 and help us get this done before the deadline. It only takes around 2 hours to archive a single page's worth of threads, but it's for a good cause. If I do everything on my own, these are the pages that will almost certainly be left behind due to a lack of time. Even if you do just one, it makes a difference.
Ninajed
Thanks for the links Toony.
EDIT: They have now been archived