As the captain of this website, I have now decided to make my final
decision in regards to the future of this website and the fate of the
Hip-Section. I have received 1 vote from Sentinel in favor of removing
it due to the amount of resources that are currently being wasted which
in turn, affects the rest of the website. Sentinel has stated that as it
is now, the problem will not go away unless the entire section is
removed and everyday he is proven correct.. I have received 1 vote to
stay out of any decision making from Lass. My final decision is that the
entire website must change... and that means we will move away from free downloads and into "Premium downloads"
That's right. Hip-Hop will stay but there will be no more Adfly and all visitors will have to pay to download from this website. Why? There are many reasons and the Hip-Hop section is the main culprit. This change will not happen right away, it will take time. The world itself is still in a pandemic. We are still directly affected as is most of visitors. We're still going through this. Once we, as people, as in society, stabilize, then we will make the transition. But as of right now, we will continue as we are, with free downloads via Mega.nz and Adfly. When things begin to return to normal, I will announce the change. I am currently looking at Florenfile as a possible host. Not everyone will like this change. It pains me to know that after 6 years of being the free alternative, it must come to an end and the most absurd way as well. The community we've built, the visitors who have always followed our guidelines, the one's who were there from the beginning, those are the one's that I am the most sad for because I know that this will be the end for them. I know that we have lost them for good. We never wanted to go premium. We've been serving our audience for 6 strong years as a free alternative and were damn proud of it, relying on the generosity of of our users and their donations via bitcoin which still occurs today!. That can no longer be a reality.
We've done all we can in regards to trying to get the Hip-Hop audience to cooperate. Nothing has worked and nothing will work. We simply cannot continue as we are with the amount of resources that are being used up. I'm sure some have read this before but now it's time everyone knew what is actually happening behind the scenes.
65% of all errors, mistakes, not following guidelines etc... are from the Hip-Hop section alone. once more, that's 65%
The bot works like this. When a user reports a dead link, the bot will read the comment and then check the link in question. The bot does this a total of 10 times to ensure the claim is both true and to eliminate the possibility of an error by the bot's own accord. If the claim is true, the bot will publish the comment and proceed to move on the the next comment. Thee problems begin like this. An example is when a user reports a link that is not offline. When this happens, the bot checks the claim, same as before, 10 times, records a screen capture demonstrating that the links are still online, submits it to imgur.com, gathers additional information for the user because they've made an error, , deletes the original comment and then publishes the report. After all of this, the bot finally moves on to the next comment. Now, multiply that same error by 20.
Now that's just one type of error. More problems occur when the users who report dead links don't specify which of the 2 links are dead. As in, the publication contains a FLAC link and an AAC link.
all of these examples are actual comments left by users of the Hip-Hop section and they almost always occur in publications that contain 2 different links. Same as before, the bot will verify if the claims are true by checking the comment a total of 10 times with each passing time, checking to make sure the post has either 1 link or 2 different links. Now multiply this problem by 20 times. Now we have a serious problem because the staff for every 1 comment that a user leaves that properly specifies to the bot which link is down, there's 20 more that don't and there's another 20 that claim that links are offline when they are not. This in turn slows down the amount of content the staff can submit because the bot spends more time and resources with these comments than submitting the genuine comments that properly request updates.
This never stops and all of this, the majority of it comes from the hip-Hop section. The remaining 35% of all errors come from the rest website. That means that the rest of the genres combined, only make up 35% of these errors. For those that use the Dolphin browser and were reviving errors, this matter was kindly brought to us by a user and a screenshot was submitted to the FAQ's section. The information is there and has always been there. The majority of that audience simply doesn't care.
Up until recently, we've had severe problems with Adfly in regards to their inability to remove many Microsoft Technical Support scams on their service. We took it upon ourselves to report these to Adfly which in turn, have been removed (for the most part) However at this time, these adverts are no longer the problem. Now it the increase in pornographic content which Adfly claims is in direct violation of their terms of service.
No matter how many times we report these to Adfly, the same pornographic adverts still continue to appear on their adverts. It has gotten to the point that we've reported so many within the last year and the beginning of this year that all of our emails are now blocked from Adfly's report abuse email address. Every time we try to submit a report, complete with Screenshots! which is what they ask for! the message is blocked by them meaning that they are well aware of this problem and no matter how many times they claim to not allow these types of adverts, they would rather keep them than to do their job and remove them. This is beyond unacceptable and more time is being spent tracking and reporting these adverts than the actual practice of publishing content which is already hindered due to repeated disregard for our guidelines by the Hip-Hop section. I can no longer continue to have this website or my associates operate under these conditions.
Myself & Sentinel have many releases that were only ever released on Vinyl records and moving them into the Premium territory is the only way we can have those on Mediasurf since Adfly is now plagued with pornographic content. The introduction of our Vinyl rips was actually supposed to be the big surprise for 2020 but due to the conditions laid out above - that didn't happen. Once more, we are not talking about the Vinyl pressings of the albums that are already available on Mediasurf, we're talking about albums, E.Ps, singles etc.. that are only available on Vinyl from various generes, Hip-Hop included. Myself & Sentinel were able to buy turntables that can digitally rip the records into FLAC. These rips, just like many of our rips here on Mediasurf, will contain photographs of the records as well as AAC versions for those that want them. Once the change to premium occurs, we will begin publishing those rips.
. All of this will take time and it will not happen overnight. As things are now, this will definitely happen and I do not fault anyone who wishes to leave and never return but based on what I have laid out, it must happen.
That's right. Hip-Hop will stay but there will be no more Adfly and all visitors will have to pay to download from this website. Why? There are many reasons and the Hip-Hop section is the main culprit. This change will not happen right away, it will take time. The world itself is still in a pandemic. We are still directly affected as is most of visitors. We're still going through this. Once we, as people, as in society, stabilize, then we will make the transition. But as of right now, we will continue as we are, with free downloads via Mega.nz and Adfly. When things begin to return to normal, I will announce the change. I am currently looking at Florenfile as a possible host. Not everyone will like this change. It pains me to know that after 6 years of being the free alternative, it must come to an end and the most absurd way as well. The community we've built, the visitors who have always followed our guidelines, the one's who were there from the beginning, those are the one's that I am the most sad for because I know that this will be the end for them. I know that we have lost them for good. We never wanted to go premium. We've been serving our audience for 6 strong years as a free alternative and were damn proud of it, relying on the generosity of of our users and their donations via bitcoin which still occurs today!. That can no longer be a reality.
We've done all we can in regards to trying to get the Hip-Hop audience to cooperate. Nothing has worked and nothing will work. We simply cannot continue as we are with the amount of resources that are being used up. I'm sure some have read this before but now it's time everyone knew what is actually happening behind the scenes.
(1.) The bot and its resources.
 |
| Screenshots from the bot's archives detailing the many failures of the Hip-Hop section. |
65% of all errors, mistakes, not following guidelines etc... are from the Hip-Hop section alone. once more, that's 65%
The bot works like this. When a user reports a dead link, the bot will read the comment and then check the link in question. The bot does this a total of 10 times to ensure the claim is both true and to eliminate the possibility of an error by the bot's own accord. If the claim is true, the bot will publish the comment and proceed to move on the the next comment. Thee problems begin like this. An example is when a user reports a link that is not offline. When this happens, the bot checks the claim, same as before, 10 times, records a screen capture demonstrating that the links are still online, submits it to imgur.com, gathers additional information for the user because they've made an error, , deletes the original comment and then publishes the report. After all of this, the bot finally moves on to the next comment. Now, multiply that same error by 20.
Now that's just one type of error. More problems occur when the users who report dead links don't specify which of the 2 links are dead. As in, the publication contains a FLAC link and an AAC link.
all of these examples are actual comments left by users of the Hip-Hop section and they almost always occur in publications that contain 2 different links. Same as before, the bot will verify if the claims are true by checking the comment a total of 10 times with each passing time, checking to make sure the post has either 1 link or 2 different links. Now multiply this problem by 20 times. Now we have a serious problem because the staff for every 1 comment that a user leaves that properly specifies to the bot which link is down, there's 20 more that don't and there's another 20 that claim that links are offline when they are not. This in turn slows down the amount of content the staff can submit because the bot spends more time and resources with these comments than submitting the genuine comments that properly request updates.
This never stops and all of this, the majority of it comes from the hip-Hop section. The remaining 35% of all errors come from the rest website. That means that the rest of the genres combined, only make up 35% of these errors. For those that use the Dolphin browser and were reviving errors, this matter was kindly brought to us by a user and a screenshot was submitted to the FAQ's section. The information is there and has always been there. The majority of that audience simply doesn't care.
(2.) I've grown tired of Adfly and it's practices.
Up until recently, we've had severe problems with Adfly in regards to their inability to remove many Microsoft Technical Support scams on their service. We took it upon ourselves to report these to Adfly which in turn, have been removed (for the most part) However at this time, these adverts are no longer the problem. Now it the increase in pornographic content which Adfly claims is in direct violation of their terms of service.
No matter how many times we report these to Adfly, the same pornographic adverts still continue to appear on their adverts. It has gotten to the point that we've reported so many within the last year and the beginning of this year that all of our emails are now blocked from Adfly's report abuse email address. Every time we try to submit a report, complete with Screenshots! which is what they ask for! the message is blocked by them meaning that they are well aware of this problem and no matter how many times they claim to not allow these types of adverts, they would rather keep them than to do their job and remove them. This is beyond unacceptable and more time is being spent tracking and reporting these adverts than the actual practice of publishing content which is already hindered due to repeated disregard for our guidelines by the Hip-Hop section. I can no longer continue to have this website or my associates operate under these conditions.
(3.) The introduction of Vinyl rips.
Myself & Sentinel have many releases that were only ever released on Vinyl records and moving them into the Premium territory is the only way we can have those on Mediasurf since Adfly is now plagued with pornographic content. The introduction of our Vinyl rips was actually supposed to be the big surprise for 2020 but due to the conditions laid out above - that didn't happen. Once more, we are not talking about the Vinyl pressings of the albums that are already available on Mediasurf, we're talking about albums, E.Ps, singles etc.. that are only available on Vinyl from various generes, Hip-Hop included. Myself & Sentinel were able to buy turntables that can digitally rip the records into FLAC. These rips, just like many of our rips here on Mediasurf, will contain photographs of the records as well as AAC versions for those that want them. Once the change to premium occurs, we will begin publishing those rips.
. All of this will take time and it will not happen overnight. As things are now, this will definitely happen and I do not fault anyone who wishes to leave and never return but based on what I have laid out, it must happen.
- Buccaneer for Mediasurfer.ch
