marktrade's work in progress

[marktrade]

Hey mate,

Were you looking for this?

Yeah, I suppose. There are already a couple scans on ADO but Phillyman wanted a scan from a Retromags user so we could officially complete the Official Dreamcast collection here. Do you have a physical copy? Last one I saw on eBay went for about 50 bucks.

[KiwiArcader]

Nope to physical copy.

I do have the PDF I acquired from Underground-gamer though and I don't have any issues making it available on OGM. It was protected but that was an easy fix so I can whack it out easily enough......

[marktrade]

Btw, the issue 03 of GMR uploaded today has the alternate cover at the end of the archive and I took the opportunity to straighten a few of the pages with deskew. The file on my ADO page has been accordingly switched out.

Issue 04 up tomorrow.

[marktrade]

I rescanned all the pages for issue 04 yesterday so most or all of the dirt lines were removed from the unedited copy.

Issue 05 uploaded today has the alternate cover!

Still on track to upload one issue a day.

[E-Day]

Can you start adding the Retromags Thank You page at the end of your scans? We like people to know where these original scans came from once they spread around.

[marktrade]

Can you start adding the Retromags Thank You page at the end of your scans? We like people to know where these original scans came from once they spread around.

I've been meaning to talk about that, because I upload my scans to several places and I'm not sure how I feel personally about taking credit.

If I added a credit page, I'd probably want to design it myself and be inclusive of all the places where I originally uploaded it, including OGM and ADO, and have it explain something of my personal philosophy or intentions. But I find all of that a bit much and at the end of the day I should focus more on getting the work done than on worrying who gets the credit.

Then again, maybe the purpose of such a page is not actually to let a person know where the scan originally came from, but to let them know there is an active community of people interested in preserving game magazines, to thank them for their interest, and welcome them to join, possibly even help.

In that sense maybe I should point them to Retromags because ADO's forum is borderline unusable and OGM is limited to comment sections. The mags are originally hosted in several places but this is a forum where we gather.

Would you accept a custom page or is it important to have a standard?

[Sean697]

In my short time here, it seems this comes up a lot. I believe when you upload here it should always include the credits page. I don't believe it's been forced anywhere else. I wasn't here for the prior stuff and controversy, but maybe we should have a policy that admins attach it regardless if missing? We don't want situations again where mags get pulled from the site by disgruntled members. You essentially cede retromags a copy. And in return they agree not to profit from it and credit you on the scan page. And it helps bring awareness to to the site.

[E-Day]

It's purpose is not to say "Hey, look at us. We are awesome and you should bow to us for this scan" . It's more "Hey, if you like this scan, there are plenty more at our site for you to get, along with a community of people who like this stuff too". It's more to get people to the site and active in preservation than self promotion for stroking our ego

We have a standard page that we use (found here) for consistency. I have asked Phillyman to weigh in since he is the head curator, but he's had a standard thank you page from the start.

[KiwiArcader]

I find the inclusion of a "Thank You" page a waste of time as our files are seeded around the various sites without the things being included in the majority of cases as they don't want you to know where they ripped them off from.

Additionally, in the case of the Retromags version it doesn't "Thank" or acknowledge the person that scanned and provided the magazine in the first place and who is essentially the only person who probably deserves thanks anyway. Then you put a statement in that you shouldn't hurt the publishers by charging for making a copy for anyone else even though "we" essentially pirated it in the first place. Bit of a moral conundrum that one is in my books.

Then there's the fact that you are advertising yourself as "pirates" to the publishers. That's a two edged sword .....

The reality is that anyone wanting/ interested in finding these magazines is automatically going to get directed here or OGM simply by searching on Google as we've been around for quite some time now so it's questionable to say it has ever resulted in someone "finding" the site without actually doing the research to prove it one way or the other.

[Sean697]

It's all ultimately irrelevant yes. But in mind it's also symbolic. (My opinion only here) By including the page you by act signify you are placing this to be curated on the site and have no claim of ownership. (As if anyone could) And that you believe in the mission of retromags to save these magazines for prosperity and help distribute them through this site to interested parties. Also people who take it out when hosting it elsewhere are performing an act saying they want to take this and host it without crediting its origins. Both things require a willful act. Also in a sense by uploading here I do think it does denote some sense of quality, that there were some sort of standard on how it was preserved (Even if there are quite a few examples of sub standard scans I've run across here). Sure people can remove the page, but at least they have to make an concious effort to do so and recognize what they are doing. Which is all you can really do. Ultimately for me I'd like my scans to be available as widely as possible as well as the scans of others. But knowing there is a repository where they can find more is a good thing. But to me it is perfectly reasonable to have a page added for anything uploaded here and is the rules if I'm not mistaken. I personally have no problem with that.

[marktrade]

All great points.

Any search of "old game magazines" or similar has Retromags as the number one spot followed by OGM and ADO. As bandwidth has grown the times have changed and we rely much less on circulation for distribution. I can't imagine where people are now that they're reading scans and they haven't heard of Retromags.

I very much like the spirit of letting people know there is a community here who cares about preserving game magazines, but since I already have the impression that this community is easy to find, the thank you page seems a bit antiquated.

[KiwiArcader]

Each to their own. Phillyman wants them on Retromags .... I don't on OGM. To me it's as much about the fact that the magazine didn't come with them so why add them. It makes the magazine less than a perfect digital reproduction of the original because extra content exists where it doesn't with the print version.

In my personal experience nothing grates on me more than having all those "scanned by <insert pirate group name here>" pages on the front or rear, or in some cases both, of a digital download. They just suck and detract from the experience of reading the magazine/comic in my books so the first thing I do is delete them out of the PDF/CBR etc. But that's just me.

That's one of a few reasons why I don't actively make my magazine scans available here anymore. I respect Phillyman's desire to advertise the site in any way he chooses but I don't want to be forced to comply with that, or use .CBR files etc, so I created OGM. And as someone who has seen the absolute worst aspects of a forum community on this very site in the past it's one of the reasons I went with WordPress rather than use a forum myself for anything other than scanning members.

[marktrade]

I added a standard Retromags Thank You page to today's release just to see what it felt like. No big deal.

But I'm uploading a version without it to ADO and Kiwi will have a version without it on OGM. I'm not sure what kind of effect that will have.

[Phillyman]

First off let me say that I hate discussions about proceedures. It has caused us to lose soo many members due to disagreements over how things should be done. From my standpoint, all I am trying to do is run a project that has standards, is organized and looks coherent. Never think I am coming off as "My way or the highway", we are just trying to lay down guidelines for easier management of day to day operations. So a bit of a backstory.....when Retromags started there was a BIG discussion on watermarking every page we scanned. Back then there were only 3 of us scanning, and anyone who was not helping was looked upon as being not worthy of pristine scans that did not bear our mark. Well I finally got the other guys to agree on not watermarking pages. We ultimately started using .NFO files that were bundled with our releases. These were small text files that had some information about the scans and this site. Keep in mind back in those days we had NO direct downloads, nor sites like FileFactory. All of our releases in those days were on Torrents, and the only traffic we got was from Mininova.org and ThePirateBay.org. Users would just link to torrents from the forum topics here, and this site was basically just a forum at that point. Well the NFO files were a pain in the ass, as you could only fit so much information and in order to bundle them with the releases you had to put a NFO and CBR inside of a ZIP.....which then lead to users trying to rename the ZIP to CBZ....well then we just said, what if we add another page to the back of the magazine, stating that Retromags is where you can come to help and gather more magazines.

So that is where it was all born from. We want users that stumble across these magazine releases to come back to Retromags and contribute to the site. No one wants to be the only one scanning, no one wants to be the only one posting on the forums. This site is at its best when we have a group of people being active. This is a hobby site, we have no advertising budget....every visit is coming from users who stumble across our releases elsewhere. When Google changed their algorithm for ranking websites, we barely get any traffic from them. Sign out of Google and search for anything that we should rank the highest for....

Download Nintendo Power Issue 50

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=download+nintendo+power+issue+50

Read GamePro Issue 15

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Read+GamePro+Issue+15

Sega Visions Issue 10 CBR

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Sega+Visions+Issue+10+CBR

We are not even on the first page of any of those results. So in the end, it is not a dealbreaker by any strech....but it is appriciated when the Thank You page is inserted at the end. How you choose to distribute scans at other sites is between you and that site admin....so please don't think I am asking for the Thank You page to be present over at other sites.

[marktrade]

Sounds good, Phillyman.

On the note of changes to the community over time, one of the reasons I'm scanning magazines now is because of "Back to the Future Part II." In fact today is the day in the movie when Marty arrives from the past, about 20 minutes ago on the west coast October 21, 2015.

I imagined a lot of things about "the future" and this day in particular. One of them was that everything would be digital and easily accessible on computers. We would never have to worry about art and information dying or being lost to history. Everything old would be digitized and preserved and we'd all read about it on our personal electronic devices on this day reflecting on the past and how far we've come.

A lot of that came true but earlier this year I was sad to see that the part about preservation was not coming true, especially for game and tech magazines—things that were originally made on computers. The weight of time past was growing larger and I thought, if I don't get work on some of these magazines, maybe no one will.

Anyway, long story short, I think the best way to show my appreciation for this site and the mission it stands for is to provide good scans and that's all I want to do. I don't know how successful the Thank You page has been in bringing people here, but I've been visiting on and off for many years, and well, I knew I had to stop waiting for others to do what I wanted.

Magazine collections are big, heavy, and costly to move. I've had to throw so many of them away as I moved to different places. It's 2015 and people should not have to lose things like that forever. The technology is here to have every magazine I've ever owned in my pocket and accessible anywhere. It's time to get it done! You know?

I hope I can do that without worrying who gets the credit or adding logos to things. In the long run scanning sites are those kind strangers on the street who pick up that thing you dropped and give it back to you, and you say thanks and maybe have a conversation. For some people it's a lot of dropped things and we're their guardian angel. If I aspire to be that, it means making more good scans, and that's all there is to it.

[KiwiArcader]

We ultimately started using .NFO files that were bundled with our releases. These were small text files that had some information about the scans and this site.

I remember those. They were a pain indeed. Although I think I came along at the time when we'd just started direct downloads rather than or in addition to torrents. As I recall I argued that PDF's rendered everything moot and when I tried offering my mags as PDF's I got banned for my troubles by the mods of the day. Quite heated it all became......

Interesting reading about your search results via Google. Not sure why you don't get hits. If I search Google using a new browser, clean cache for Amiga Format, Nintendo World, Atomic:MPC, N64 Magazine I get front page hits for OGM while other magazines don't show until page 2. I'm guessing it's popularity of searches for those magazines determine their caching order? Maybe forums are more difficult to pull information from than HTML/WordPress based sites?

[marktrade]

Although I posted issue 08 of GMR earlier in this thread, today's upload contains the alternate cover and once again I took the opportunity to straighten a few pages and clean up some edges. The file on my ADO page has been updated as well.

[marktrade]

I would like the record to show that the CBR I just uploaded was packaged at 11:58pm on the west coast of the United States on October 29th which means that my issue-a-day streak remains unbroken.

[E-Day]

Cutting it close

[marktrade]

GMR IS DONE

All alternate covers confirmed!

Now going to work on PCXL. Since I'm missing issues 1 and 2, I figure I'll start backwards from the final issue and maybe with some stroke of luck we'll finish with those two!

I'd like to find out who took away issue 2 for $80. :/

[Leathco]

Interesting history that GMR had. Shame it ended the way it did.

[Areala]

Mark, you are THE MAN!! Excellent work!!

*huggles*
Areala

[marktrade]

Mark, you are THE MAN!! Excellent work!!

*huggles*

Areala

Aww shucks

Did you guys notice this in the fine print of the final issue of PCXL?

They knew this day would come!

[KiwiArcader]

The fact they crossed PC Accelerator off the current catalog of magazines above that small print shows they knew she was a goner .....

[marktrade]

The fact they crossed PC Accelerator off the current catalog of magazines above that small print shows they knew she was a goner .....

They're all kinds of funny bitter references to their demise in the final issue. I meant the part where they said they don't give a shit if we scan and distribute issues of PC Accelerator. It's like they knew we were going to be here someday preserving it, hoping we would.