I have a program called Win HT Track that I use to download my Internet class information- it allows you to essentially download a website for offline viewing. Since I like to study at places that don’t always have an Internet connection, I thought this would be a great solution.
Is there a problem if I do this with the SDMB? (some areas?) I’m thinking that then I can browse it at my convenience/offline. I do not intend to use that information for any distribution, just my personal use.
I am fuzzy on how this falls with the rules here, and I don’t want to get in trouble.
As far as I can tell, it’s no different then going to each thread and copying it into a word document for later reading. The program just lets you grab more at once so you don’t have to go to each and every link yourself.
I would say it depends on how it works. Think what it means to download a website. The SDMB doesn’t have static HTML pages to download; they are dynamically built each time you access them. You certainly wouldn’t want to try to download the entire message board database, so I think you would need to run some sort of script to select what you want. I’m guessing that for this type of website, it wouldn’t be a good idea.
It sounds like what you’re describing would go to every single link in a page, and download those links, too. In other words, using this program would be roughly equivalent to you reading every single thread in a forum, at once… Which would be a definite no-no.