[jabulon]

We, the staff, have been discussing some of the audio rules, in particular rules 5&6 concerning the use of an error correcting ripper (like EAC) in relation to silver bootlegs.

These are our current rules:

5. CDR rips of material available on Silver CD and rips of CDRs burned from previously downloaded lossless files are not permitted.
We at The Traders' Den are trying to promote purity in the trading pool. When dealing with a set that has been released on silver pressed CD, we require that the lossless files have been cleanly ripped from an original silver CD. To help ensure that everyone has equal access to pure versions, Silver CD > CDR > Lossless is not a legal lineage. On the same token, once a show has been ripped to lossless media format, burning to a CD and then re-extracting is an extraneous step that often-times results in errors. FLAC, APE, or SHN sets that circulate may not be burned to audio CD and then re-traded or re-seeded. In otherwords, nothing like flac > CDR > (extraction method > wav >) flac. Please archive and trade only the original lossless files or acoustically identical alternate formats (verify this with st5s - see the Checksum Types FAQ). CDR generations are bad for the trading pool, and unless all versions of the bootleg circulate only on CDR, it will not be permitted here.

6. If you rip an audio CD to lossless files, you must use an error correcting ripper.
Right now, the only programs permitted for ripping are Exact Audio Copy (EAC), dbpoweramp in Secure Mode, xACT, cdparanoia and PlexTools DAE. This is to ensure that the audio content of the lossless files perfectly matches that of your audio CD, and is not negotiable. Use one of these verifiable ripping programs or your seed will not be permitted.

We understand that some people may have older rips where the result logs may not have been included. In this case, please give your files a close listen to ensure that they are error-free before seeding. All new rips should contain result logs.

The reason we ask you to play by our rules is to keep the trading pool from diluting (see our mission statement). Recently there has been some situations which made us to take a look if we can protect the trading pool any better, especially the trading of silvers. We already ask people to include a log file of the ripping program used (rule 6) but many times they are omitted. Now we are playing with the idea to make the inclusion of an extraction log file mandatory when uploading a silver to the site. We would like to know what you think about this?

Thoughts, ideas or suggestions are welcome.