And this coming from a guy with a real u/l contribution under his belt, who, as I've said, derives his pleasure from the quality offerings he makes! How refreshing. Thanks for the unexpected support, I think.
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I find that a couple of days out in mother nature is far superior to sitting in front of the monitor wringing one's hands about what some unknown forum groupie has opined, and chomping at the bit to get back at them. For that matter, I'd rather have a hemorrhoidectomy.
Unfortunately, I had to come back, so this reply mainly addresses U2Lynne's post, which was pretty much the only one I saw that contained anything more than the monotonous drumbeat of hapless souls, striving to achieve artificial levels of control, while quoting dutifully from their handy TTD playbooks. Really guys, I've read it all before, many times over, and it only serves to make you sound like a 9th-gen cassette recording of a bunch of starving cats locked in a hot U-Haul. Try fishing, it's good for your head!
Just a couple of specific comments, though:
Phishblowz - More pablum, as expected, but you sound like such a good soldier in the war of 'Us versus Them'. You spew out the company lines with such ease and venom. How amusing then, to read your recent Band posts over at Lossless Legs, where you cop the persona of 'I'm the new guy, please like me', and then, when you get precious litte return backpatting, you go back in to grovel for accolades. Perhaps it occurred to you later that going to LL with a name like Phishblowz was maybe not so advisable, eh? But, I see where you're coming from, regardless of the Divide and Conquer posture you portray here. I guess you gotta get those warm & fuzzys however you can, though so many others can derive their satisfaction more squarely from initiating a quality upload/sharing process - without needing the drivel of followup thankybabble in order to justify the effort (e.g., Silver Stallion).
Chachi - Just what I like: concise and to the point. Good job not wasting the reader's time with the same old tired rehash one seems to encounter in most every other thread on this site. I admire the restraint.
k.crabbe - So what? Are you therefore suggesting that if we all would do things just like you the BT world will become all hunky-dory?
ssquirrel - "Ok not to upload because it's not
convenient for me"? I think you've swallowed too much blotter, buddy. As I explained, I always upload at the fastest allowable rate, and close to 24/7, even when on the road. Where in the world did you conjure up this nonsense about my convenience from? Yikes!
retired - I'm impressed by the time that you clearly invested in picking snippets of text out of my earlier post, so as to use them out of context in order ride on your soapbox once again. I'll bet the Bill O'Reilly factor could use some additional help. A couple of typical examples: 1) When I say I have 11 active torrents on my BT client, you instantly infer that I'm downloading them all simultaneously, using that as one of many dubious reasons to go off. How silly. I was only making the point that I have a number of good shows residing on my hard drive/BT client that I can upload at different times, often according to demand, and always at my maximum allowable upload speed. However, statistically speaking, if someone is uploading under a dismal 28 K cap, but is at max speed, it shouldn't matter how many torrents he uploads to. Whether you're upping to one torrent at 28K, or 4 torrents at an average of 7K, you're still putting back at 28K, and the cumulative contribution back to the community as a whole is just the same. Grasp the math, or go lecture someone else who doesn't know better. 2) When I reference B&P and sharing, and you see fit to announce to the world that I've done neither, your sheer arrogance is what allows you to make the unfounded assumption that I only B&P through TTD or that I don't share, just because it's not trackable by your snooping eyes. News Flash - If you had read more than every third sentence of my original post, you would have seen the part about sharing with many who are less fortunate or capable than I. At TTD, and other places, I only trade discs via PM or e-mail - my choice, unless there's something in the TTD manual I missed. Not that it's anyone's business, but the last one I mailed out via TTD was a copy of the 2001 Neil Diamond A&E show, burned and mailed to a nice TTD member in CA after the torrent had gone inactive, who then sent me some good stuff in return. Too bad if this all escaped your prying eyes. Btw, in my experience B&P is best used to describe the concept of "Burn & Post", where you copy and send out shows, with no selfish consideration whatsoever of what you might get in return. This is what sharing is, my friend, and as I said before, I can't upload any faster than my system physically allows, just to appease a few misguided jokers in the crowd who think that sharing equates to curtailing your downloads (an entirely separate undertaking - see below).
U2LYNNE - Simply stated, displaying an unenforced ratio 'benchmark' breeds animosity (readily apparent, given the responses I've gotten), which would seem to me to be entirely contrary to the ideals of a quality trading site. What I've observed over the past few months here is an almost vigilante attitude by some towards others, for one clear reason: the 1.00 'guideline'. Seems that many who 'have' have self-deputized themselves against those who 'have not' or 'have less', without regard to circumstances. On top of it, I view an unenforced ratio concept as the enabler of this problem. As one who was raised near ground zero of the civil rights struggle, and reside there still, I have to say I'm seeing an ugly parallel here, somewhat analagous to the days of my youth where, if you were white, all was okay, regardless of what you had or did. But a person of ethnicity often endured a crush of racism that was in direct proportion to the depth of his own color. And thus it is with the red ratio numbers, and the scarlett letter-style of display that puts them out there for people to discriminate against, at will.
My opinion is this: Downloads and uploads are not diametrical opposites. As I said once before, once a new upload is complete, and is being shared around, it's out there, plain and simple, and thus is the gift that keeps on giving - to a point. Downloads shouldn't, in any way, be used as a measure of contribution to the community, which is happening now by way of ratios. Here's a good analogy, I think:
A man plants a cherry tree in a place which, 30 years hence, becomes a community park, regularly patronized by the same now-old man. By now the tree is lush with ripe cherries each season, and the old man watches lovingly from a nearby park bench as children come around to gleefully fill their buckets with free cherries. They never knew he was the one who planted the tree, but he always encouraged them to take as much as they could, before the cherries were gone, deriving his only thanks from the absolute numbers of children who came around to partake of his gift. Neither would he generally be aware of how many people associated with those children would also enjoy the picked cherries after they were taken home. Then, a few of the children, who had slightly larger buckets on those picking days, were able to take excess cherries over to their needy elderly neighbors to enjoy, in that they would never be able to pick cherries themselves. They were exceedingly grateful to the children for the gift of cherries, even though the children had not planted the tree, but had merely brought some of the cherries home for all to enjoy. And for that, the old man who planted the cherry tree had all the thanks he would ever need in life.
[The analogies, especially for those that didn't make it all the way through my impromptu parable, are this: the old man is the original uploader; the cherry tree is the torrent; the children are us; the cherries are completed downloads; watching happy children pick equates to the uploader who is happy by the number of his upload's completes; giving cherries, or show seeds, or burned shows on discs to others is true sharing - something that an original uploader should be additionally proud of, without browbeating a cherry-giver based on some arbitrary, but expected, return giving. (The Moral: Receiving comes fairly easily, but giving takes an individual's conscious decision and effort to do so, each contributing to the extent of his/her ability, without criticism, because that's all one can really do. That's community.)]
Thanks, U2Lynne, I'm well-familiar with etree, lossless legs, dime, purelivegigs, rusties, etc., and their various criteria, and am long-since registered at many of those, as well as use the straight d/l sites like Live Music Archive. I go where the quality music is, rather than seeking any particular kind of community, but if one's a good community, that's a bonus. Saying, 'well, if you don't like it here, you should go somewhere else' does not really apply, because I like much of the music available here, just not the negativity I sometimes have to wade through to obtain it. I probably discard one in every four or five downloaded shows, just because it's video and/or audio quality does not make for something I'd ever watch again (regardless of how the original seeder may have described its quality). I realize it impacts my ratio every time I do this, but since I believe ratio to be an invalid concept, unless enforced equally for all, that's not very relevant. Since, to me, it really is about maximizing my upload speed, and not ever about "taking only what I want, then leaving before giving anything back" (a ludicrous, overused statement that's much like "you're either with me, or against me". Where do you suppose the 122+ GB I've contributed back has gone? Perhaps it was sucked up the black hole of Phishblowz's ass, benefitting no one, forevermore, eh?).
I also have to say thanks for the suggestion about contacting my ISP. While I found they do not constrict my upload speed based on volume downloaded, I was in a fortuitous position to take timely advantage of a service preview which should serve to at least double my upload speed for the remainder of 2007. As of this morning, I was getting upwards of 60K in upload speed, which is really more like it compared to my previous 28K. And, it will upload at this speed whenever my BT client is on, as always. For anyone reading this who has Charter Hi-Speed, but has not received this recent upgrade preview, I highly recommend you contact them for a free alteration of your modem settings. The imbeciles may try to charge you more, like they did me, but let them know that you know that this is a free preview promoted by Charter - and don't take any of their lame garbage!
I don't spend my time reading many old posts, and maybe this has been proposed before, but what I would suggest is that you convert to more of an ebay-style format, where everyone starts at zero and works up through various thresholds. Instead of ebay colored stars, maybe you'd use musical notes or something. But the idea would be based on a public display of absolute upload volume, only (say, for every 100GB uploaded, towards a 1TB gold star, for example). This way, you accentuate achievement of contribution to the community without any 'relative deficits' even figuring in. Viable alternatives would be to either privatize the statistics, or begin enforcing ratio in some fashion. Sometimes, the happy middle-ground just doesn't work so ideally as conceived, and perhaps needs a little tweaking on occasion. As such, I hope you'll accept this as constructively-intended commentary on my experiences with TTD, regardless of the vitriol flying around us. It's often only through honest feedback that we can affect positive change, and that's what this has been about.
In the meantime, I say just move the music folks, to the best of your ability, individually. That's all we each need to be doing here, without creating and applying false standards with which to measure ourselves against others we don't really know very well. This isn't the Army, where the shit really does flow downstream. The creepy, backbiting environment fostered here is just not where a lot of pure music lovers will want to spend their time.
Happy Trails -
Dudogger, of the
Ratio Manifesto
P.S. - If you'd like to discuss the validity of unenforced ratio, and put up a synopsis of why it's actually a good and constructive thing, please have your say - I'd really love to read more than one intelligible response!
Alternately, for those of you who only know to insult, you may now resume.
