Restricting Abuse of the Download Manager

[badinsults]

Have you guys ever approached the Internet Archive to host the magazines? They already host a ton of them, I'm sure they would be all over archiving these magazines. The person to ask is Jason Scott. He is actually actively canvasing for magazine scans right now.

[Phillyman]

Have you guys ever approached the Internet Archive to host the magazines? They already host a ton of them, I'm sure they would be all over archiving these magazines. The person to ask is Jason Scott.

I have already reached out to him. Once I have everything together we are going to send him a hard drive to upload

[RocketRobinHood]

Ho, I've only been a member for about a week and I have to say downloading from this website drives me up the wall, in the past week I've been downloading all I can, I've only managed to clear about 12 issues. The official download from this website has not worked for me once, something always screws up, and I cannot download again for what seems like it could be days.. I have not managed to dl a single magazine through the official upload server. FileFactory is hogswash, it says that I have to wait another hour after completing one download, but its actually much longer, maybe like 2 or 3. FileFactory also comes up with absolutely every reason not to upload to me, just now I tried to dl something without realizing I just downloaded it already, so now I cant dl anything for another couple of hours, and I didnt even download anything DX.

I found out about this website when I downloaded a nintendo power from ed2k, if I figure out how to scan my mags I'll submit them with ed2k links so people can share them as they please.

[marktrade]

Have you guys ever approached the Internet Archive to host the magazines? They already host a ton of them, I'm sure they would be all over archiving these magazines. The person to ask is Jason Scott. He is actually actively canvasing for magazine scans right now.

I am already hosting all my scans there. You can find them at http://archive.org/details/@marktrade

[Sean697]

I have already reached out to him. Once I have everything together we are going to send him a hard drive to upload

I haven't uploaded my own scans there yet because I was waiting to see what would become if this.

[te72]

I have already reached out to him. Once I have everything together we are going to send him a hard drive to upload

Don't suppose you'd be willing to sell external hard drives of a similar nature? Would save me a ton of time on bandwidth, and I'm happy to archive stuff like this.

[KiwiArcader]

I have already reached out to him. Once I have everything together we are going to send him a hard drive to upload

Doesn't that make running your own site somewhat redundant?

Why don't all the scanners just upload directly to Archive.org and then there's no real need for Retromags at all. Save you a ton of work administering the site etc. Collating scans doesn't cut the mustard as an excuse when really, there's only a handful of scanners on pretty much all preservation sites like ours. If you want Retromags to be an acquisition site then why would people donate when the scans are freely available over at Archive.org?

I'm actually interested in your rationale for this one given the position I am in of running a similar site ......

[tcaud]

It would make sense for there to be some kind of economy around this. I think there is considerable demand for scanlation, but how to manage and finance it? There are people who are willing to sponsor ("pay for") work, and there are people who won't or can't. Both sides find reward in their respective behaviors, so why not just concentrate on meeting the demand regardless of the particulars?

Retromags seems to me something of a time limited project/enterprise unless it finds a way to grow, and the path to growth is scanlation. Scanlation is the last archival frontier. It is economically realistic and opportune: even if per-nation demand is low, on a world wide per-major language scale demand is huge. Scanlation will increase competition and result in more varied and sophisticated product overall. Rights holders are likely to be receptive, and I and many others are hopeful that Retromags will evolve in this direction.

[KiwiArcader]

All you are doing is coming across as the "Leechers Lawyer"

You have 16 posts to your name, most of which are somewhat derisive of Retromags, mainly due to Phillyman putting systems in place to stop people who don't contribute one iota to the site from leeching the heck out of it. I could understand this if Retromags were in some sort of trouble, e.g, Phillyman was struggling to pay hosting bills etc, which is clearly not the case, so again, your line of posting appears to come back to you don't want to contribute and your magazine feed is now cut down dramatically therefore you will have a bit of a moan about it, albeit in a polite way of course .....

On a side note, why would rights holders be happy with a site like this one not only scanning their content but then translating it into languages for markets they might have no interest in servicing whatsoever?

And why on Earth would E-Day or anyone else be happy not only spending significant time scanning it but then having to try and extract English off a page before miraculously inserting Hebrew or whatever, while maintaining the original integrity of the page format?

[Sean697]

Doesn't that make running your own site somewhat redundant?

Why don't all the scanners just upload directly to Archive.org and then there's no real need for Retromags at all. Save you a ton of work administering the site etc. Collating scans doesn't cut the mustard as an excuse when really, there's only a handful of scanners on pretty much all preservation sites like ours. If you want Retromags to be an acquisition site then why would people donate when the scans are freely available over at Archive.org?

I'm actually interested in your rationale for this one given the position I am in of running a similar site ......

1. In so far as getting these distributed to the most people possible, archive.org is an excellent platform. (My personal primary concern is these magazines get preserved and made available to all)

2. It relieves bandwidth stress on the site.

3. More people are familiar with archive's digital library, and scans with the retro mags page attached bring awareness of this site as the actual people archiving these magazines.

4. Have you been to their magazine section? They have excellent embedded readers that you can read mags in the browser with no additional software. A lot of time people don't need to download a whole magazine, they just need to look something up. It's great for skimming magazines to find what you are looking for.

5. Archives status as an online digital library gives them a somewhat better chance of surviving a lawsuit or being able to legally host these magazines.

6. It allows more users to get access to thes mags.

7. There are already extensive magazines of the site already uploaded on archive, some of them even not by people from our site.

8. The more digital online lockers and storage places for magazines the better, if one goes down there are other places where the information is backed up.

9. I don't believe magazines like these should be in some kind of exclusive access club , and I don't believe our restrictions are meant to do that, they are meant to prevent abuse of our DL manager. Having an archive option fills that need. We've all seen the problems that come when people claim ownership of scans and how it can tear communities apart.

10. Archive cannot replace our database functions or processes for preserving magazines, this site still is extremely relevant regardless as a game mag preservation hub.

11. Archive.org doesn't have bullshit wait timers and spyware ads constantly popping up every time you visit like file factory etc. When you go there you don't feel like you need to disinfect you PC with a full anti virus scan. And it is 100 percent more reliable as a download source. It is a much better second option than file factory is.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Sean697

[E-Day]

It would make sense for there to be some kind of economy around this. I think there is considerable demand for scanlation, but how to manage and finance it? There are people who are willing to sponsor ("pay for") work, and there are people who won't or can't. Both sides find reward in their respective behaviors, so why not just concentrate on meeting the demand regardless of the particulars?

Retromags seems to me something of a time limited project/enterprise unless it finds a way to grow, and the path to growth is scanlation. Scanlation is the last archival frontier. It is economically realistic and opportune: even if per-nation demand is low, on a world wide per-major language scale demand is huge. Scanlation will increase competition and result in more varied and sophisticated product overall. Rights holders are likely to be receptive, and I and many others are hopeful that Retromags will evolve in this direction.

The problem with there being an economy around this is that we do not own any of the content we are scanning. We don't have the rights to any of this stuff. What we do have is voluntary ignorance of most of the publishers/rights holders. That is to say, they know we are here, but they look the other way because we don't scan anything that is close to current, nor do we sell any of the scans. Donations drives in the past have been to pay for the site or additional magazines

And if Retromags is a time-limited project, then so be it. Some people seem to forget that this is just a hobby. This is no one's full time employment, or anyone's employment at all. Nobody is making a living from this site. People are spending some of their free time contributing, but there is no monetary reward. And scanlation is likely to never happen. We already spend a lot of our free time on this site, and I don't see anyone spending even more free time trying to translate a scan into dozens of different languages. If you want to do that and make that your contribution to this site, then you are free to do so. But that was never the goal of this site. The goal has always been to make a digital archive of game magazines from the past for people who are interested in reading them. There is no reason to go beyond that with trying to translate everything. If this site doesn't grow, then it doesn't grow. This has always been a smaller site, and it's functioned relatively fine that way. It's also kept us out of the cross-hairs of most publishers and rights holders, which is what our number one concern should be.

[tcaud]

In the copyright thread I discussed holding companies. I've had both psychology and business classes in college... I know what I'm talking about. Archive.org's status is untested... they recently uploaded a ton of old games for PC and console, including some that are on Nintendo VC. It was a really risky move that will probably get them attention from rights holders at some point. History suggests copyright reclaimation comes as a wave: some guy writes an article about how copyright is sacroscant, and points the finger against the easiest target, and all of a sudden the beuracracy of said target grows and becomes rigid, and things start disappearing. This was how Wikipedia lost its freedom: someone wrote an article about how long the Sonic and Pokemon articles were and about how this was supposedly a bad thing, and then came the Wikia drama and massive content deletions/removals. Attitudes are fickle, and usually reflect the will of the most shrill voice and the deepest pocket. The demise of megaupload and now rapidshare has resulted in lost access to many, many book scans, most of which are now lost to the internet. Is anyone going to collect/scan those books again? Probably not. Things really do disappear from the net, particularly when interest wanes and generations pass. Archive.org is growing now but it'll reach its limits and when it does it'll be looking to prune and the more conservative voices will determine what disappears and what doesn't. Anything of prospective commercial value (like magazine ebooks) will either be deleted or be restricted to historians. Ziff Davis has put up all the issues for PC Mag from like 86 to 2000, but if you think Google will still be hosting them ten or even five years from now you're probably mistaken. If you put your faith in Archive.org, consider it faith misplaced.

[gizmomelb]

tcaud, so if google and archive aren't going to be hosting archived material like these magazines for free - then Phillyman's option of paying to support hosting and storage is a valid option. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's free. So many people seem to either not grasp this fact or choose to ignore it. All content, even if not original needs a lot of work to be presented in an internet friendly fashion.

[Phillyman]

Alright I am going to loosen the restrictions a bit for Newcomers and Members. Now they are at 5 files and 15 files per day respectively. We will play it by ear and see how this works out. 150 files for just signing up is not too shabby, and 450 files per month for joining us on the forums....is not that hard to obtain.

[MichaelLyles]

tcaud, so if google and archive aren't going to be hosting archived material like these magazines for free - then Phillyman's option of paying to support hosting and storage is a valid option. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's free. So many people seem to either not grasp this fact or choose to ignore it. All content, even if not original needs a lot of work to be presented in an internet friendly fashion.

I'm sure most just choose to ignore it.

[Areala]

Right on point, lets be honest for a second. From an administrative standpoint, when I see a new account created here at Retromags, it could be the next E-Day, Areala, Marktrade, Sean697.....who actively add value to this site.

You're sweet, Philly, but I don't think my occasional blog post or cover scan is all that big of a deal.

*huggles*

Areala

[marktrade]

You're sweet, Philly, but I don't think my occasional blog post or cover scan is all that big of a deal.

*huggles*

Areala

Modesty, if I've ever seen it.

[Phillyman]

You're sweet, Philly, but I don't think my occasional blog post or cover scan is all that big of a deal.

*huggles*

Areala

You have 1900+ posts on this site. Only E-Day, Triverse and myself have more. I would say that is quite an accomplishment.

[Areala]

You have 1900+ posts on this site. Only E-Day, Triverse and myself have more. I would say that is quite an accomplishment.

Holy...crap...I had to double-check that. Had no idea.

Well, in that case, I expect some pretty darn huge fireworks for when I cross the 2,000-post threshold, you all hear?!

*huggles*

Areala

[Phillyman]

Holy...crap...I had to double-check that. Had no idea.

Well, in that case, I expect some pretty darn huge fireworks for when I cross the 2,000-post threshold, you all hear?!

*huggles*

Areala

Yeah so you have contributed quite a bit to Retromags! Only 71 posts away from that 2K celebration!

http://community.retromags.com/index.php?app=members&module=list&max_results=20&sort_key=posts&sort_order=desc&filter=ALL

[twiztor]

i see nothing wrong with this new system. i've downloaded an incredibly minor number of mags and really just come here to chat about magazines and old video games. i love keeping up with what everybody is scanning and uploading, seeing what everybody discovers in those old ads, and what gets people excited.

there's a wealth of knowledge available here in the forums, and cool people too!

[Montrealien]

As a dude that discovered this site just a few weeks ago, I totally undestand and respect this decision.

[DPsx7]

You gotta do what's necessary to keep things running smoothly. I came here because I knew a few of the early members from another forum but have not DL'ed any mags and only post infrequently since I'm busy trying to clear out this backlog that never ends.

I was going to ask if you guys had a need for recent GI magazines since I want to clean up a little and don't have any attachment to that mag. But considering the price of shipping and how new they are I doubt they're of much use.

[Areala]

You gotta do what's necessary to keep things running smoothly. I came here because I knew a few of the early members from another forum but have not DL'ed any mags and only post infrequently since I'm busy trying to clear out this backlog that never ends.

I was going to ask if you guys had a need for recent GI magazines since I want to clean up a little and don't have any attachment to that mag. But considering the price of shipping and how new they are I doubt they're of much use.

Game Informer is one of the mags we don't currently work on scanning/preserving, because they've asked us not to.

That isn't to say the information itself is not useful! If you're looking to contribute a little to the site on an irregular basis, adding an index of what's in those mags to the database here would be enormously helpful and you wouldn't even have to pay for shipping! Win/win!

*huggles*

Areala

[E-Day]

You gotta do what's necessary to keep things running smoothly. I came here because I knew a few of the early members from another forum but have not DL'ed any mags and only post infrequently since I'm busy trying to clear out this backlog that never ends.

I was going to ask if you guys had a need for recent GI magazines since I want to clean up a little and don't have any attachment to that mag. But considering the price of shipping and how new they are I doubt they're of much use.

If you have a scanner, we do need the covers for most of this year. You could always just pull the covers off an mail those if you don't have a scanner.