User blog:CMRdaawesomeguy/Cartoon Network is burying Mixels, and we can save it

Cartoon Network is removing traces of Mixels' existence from the Internet.

Today, the Cartoon Network YouTube channel removed anything that had relation to Mixels in a matter of seconds. Unarchived clips were lost without warning, as well as thousands of people's thoughts on the show.

CN is trying to bury Mixels and although we can't stop them from erasing their content, we can archive it.

But these are just videos?
Many websites and references linked to those clips, including our own. The good news is that LEGO have their own mirrors of most of the episodes, and this Google Drive folder contains an archive of all the episodes. AND the Mixels Archives channel (by yours truly), has backups of those episodes. The issue is... Copyright. So CN will curbstomp their own show but meme anyone who reuploads Vaudeville Fun (yes, only that one)? Yikes...

So what's the problem???

YouTube is not a reliable website to host these clips indefinitely. So I turn you to... The Internet Archive. I've saved over 400 items in relation to Mixels. Is this enough? Nope.

What's been lost?

 * Mixels.com - Although not everything was lost.
 * The web games were saved and uploaded to the Internet Archive.
 * Most, if not all of the CSS/JS was saved in the Wayback Machine.
 * Half of the images and videos were saved in the Wayback Machine.
 * The mobile version of the site mostly works.
 * The .swf files for each character, Mix, Murp or Max were saved and uploaded onto the Internet Archive, in addition to the websites shell .swf and mixer .swf. Animations for the Mixer were not saved.
 * LEGO.com/mixels - This was saved in the Wayback Machine, videos don't work.
 * Product animations don't work, but we already saved them.
 * Any international version of either site - The only one I've found that's mostly saved is the Spanish LEGO microsite, but the problem is that it didn't save everything from Series 9.
 * Calling All Mixels - RC has a working .apk (for emulators), from what I recall, I'll ask him for it
 * iOS 11 KILLS IT, DON'T UPDATE IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO PRESERVE IT ON AN APPLE DEVICE
 * Mixels Rush - Completely lost. No working apks of it from what I've found.
 * Does work with iOS 11, anything later than that? I have no idea.
 * The old Mixels subsection of the CN website.
 * This was saved in the Wayback Machine, videos don't work.
 * The Series 8 advertisement.

What's still standing?

 * The current microsites on Cartoon Network websites.
 * Many international Mixels clips.
 * LEGO.com/shop descriptions for 2016 characters.
 * Mixel Park, but it's already been archived anyway.
 * Large chunks of the fanbase, including the dA groups.

The Future
The Internet Archive is the only site that can be used to reliably preserve Mixels content.
 * With the main Cartoon Network channel removing traces, international channels will follow. I've archived every international playlist that was listed on the Mixels Wiki YouTube channel, but there's more than those few playlists.
 * It's unknown whether LEGO's channel can be trusted to keep their Mixels content for the future. I've already archived a good chunk of their Mixels content, but not all.
 * I run the Mixels Archives YouTube channel, it won't be removed unless YouTube says otherwise. Anything saved there is safe from anything other than the grips of copyright.

How-to-archive

 * YouTube videos - You'll need the latest version of Python, the tubeup script, FFMPEG script installed into %PATH, and an Internet Archive account
 * I can probably do a lot of it myself, but I'd hugely appreciate anyone else helping

In an age of digital preservation, it's a shame this is happening. Let's prevent this from getting worse.

Oh, and Project International can wait a little while. A big part of this is saving the dubs, anyway.