[gopher] Joining in: I'm the maintainer/host of Gopher Proxy

Tue Sep 24 12:45:07 UTC 2013

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On 09/24/2013 12:31 AM, Nuno Silva wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 08:41:53AM -0400, Kyle Hooks wrote:
>> I think we might be better off seeing if we can contribute GOPHER
>> protocol compatibility code to the Firefox codebase, or try to
>> convince them to ship it with a plug-in preinstalled.
> 
> That is what people tried to do for months (years?) in the mozilla bug
> tracking the removal of gopher support. We had the code (it is what
> eventually became the current Overbite codebase) and a volunteer willing
> to maintain it (Cameron).
> 
> The idea of officially pointing users to Overbite was also suggested, in
> order to avoid isolating clueless users.
> 
> But all of these were rejected by Mozilla.

Again, I don't know why, really, or what the actual agenda was for the
prejudice, but if it's coz somebody wants port 70, they can't have it!
We're not going to go away so it's not going to be up for grabs ;)

> 
> 
> P.S.: You may be interested in
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/macros4outlook/index.php?title=QuoteFix_Macro
> -- Outlook QuoteFix does not seem to work for Outlook >= 12, but this
> macro is said to work with Outlook 14 (2010).
> 
> 
> 
>> From: Bradley D. Thornton [mailto:Bradley at NorthTech.US] 
>> Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 8:02 AM
>>>
>>> On 09/13/2013 01:33 AM, Kim Holviala wrote:
>>>> On Sep 12, 2013, at 16:18, Evert Meulie <evert at meulie.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> http://gopherproxy.org/ & http://gopherproxy.meulie.net/
>>> allows Gopher content to be viewed in any web browser, by
>>> converting Gopher content into web pages as you request it.
>>>>>
>>>>> And yes, currently there is little/no means in place to keep
>>> bots & search engines out.
>>>>> I've been reading a bit what has been written here in other
>>> threads on this subject, and will chime in with my 2¢ soon.
>>>>
>>>> Personally I don't mind that Google and others crawl through my
>>> gopher resources, but I think quite a lot of people here object
>>> to that. I think the easiest way would be to just have a
>>> robots.txt to completely block all spidering.
>>>
>>> I'm one of those who object - not to gopher spiders indexing
>>> resources, but any access to my resources via http. If I wanted
>>> web browsers using hypertext transfer protocol browsing through
>>> my resources then I would put them on webservers - which I
>>> already do for other resources.
>>>
>>> This has come up before, and I was shot down by the community for
>>> considering the blocking of all proxy servers. Many people here
>>> felt that any form of indexing or access to gopher resources by
>>> any foreign protocol was better than not being indexed or
>>> accessed at all, and I disagree, at least where my resources are
>>> concerned, especially since I maintain unique content only
>>> available via gopher:// protocol.
>>>
>>> It's not for me to decide what others opinions are, but I for one
>>> am of the mind that if someone can surf gopher resources via
>>> http:// then there is no point in gopher:// at all.
>>>
>>> As far as robots.txt is concerned, my feeling is that this is a
>>> http standard, and not a gopher standard, so there should be some
>>> other way to limit indexing of gopher resources for those who
>>> choose to do so. I do not choose to block such indexing, and
>>> welcome it, just not via a means that is only going to lead to an
>>> URL in google that starts with an http:// instead of a gopher://
>>>
>>> If those come up as dead links because the protocol is not
>>> supported by some particular client then so be it. Perhaps Google
>>> could put a note saying that the browser needs to be capable of
>>> accessing gopher sites or that the user needs a plugin - I dunno,
>>> and don't much care.
>>>
>>> I can say this. There are several protocols as URIs which don't
>>> get indexed or returned as search strings because some, or many
>>> browsers do not yet, or no longer, support those protocols.
>>> Here's a list of some URIs where the protocols may or may not be
>>> supported depending upon whether certain software is installed on
>>> the client machine, or plugins have been installed, or support is
>>> inherent in some or most browsers:
>>>
>>> gopher://
>>> ftp://
>>> skype://
>>> http://
>>> https://
>>>
>>> Again, I'm not interested in ANYONE accessing any of my gopher
>>> resources via an http to gopher proxy. They can access those
>>> resources with a client that is gopher capable or not access them
>>> at all - this is the only way that gopher will have any
>>> relevance.
>>>
>>> I see no relevance in gopher protocol if it's just going to be
>>> accessed via hypertext transfer protocol anyway - therefore, I am
>>> now more inclined to consider blocking http to gopher proxy
>>> servers at this time than I ever have been.
>>>
>>> Going back to that thread now, here is the segue, in this
>>> particular posting, that I promised to be forthcoming a few
>>> moments ago...
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Anyway - great work - I really like the way gopherproxy.org
>>> works.
>>>
>>> Hey I think these are great services too, and applaud the effort
>>> and level of functionality - I just think it's wrong to let
>>> gopher fall further into obscurity because it can be relegated
>>> into insignificance by browswers (supposed to be multi-protocol
>>> clients) that do not have gopher support, and search engines that
>>> will not provide search results as gopher:// URIs.
>>>
> 

- -- 
Bradley D. Thornton
Manager Network Services
NorthTech Computer
TEL: +1.310.388.9469  (US)
TEL: +44.203.318.2755 (UK)
TEL: +41.43.508.05.10 (CH)
http://NorthTech.US

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