It's been two weeks since the req forum was closed, can we have it open now?

[the_argentinian]

Haven't enought requests been filled? Maybe the ones left are hard to find releases?

[GabryJ84]

I was asking myself the same question...in these 2 weeks of shut-down very few relases were completed and posts have been non-existing. I believe it is slowly dying if this situation persists.

[euphoricvocals]

Soon. Don't forget here viewforum.php?f=14

[xNxRxGx]

Soon. Don't forget here viewforum.php?f=14

im pretty sure those requested before January 2021, so whole page 3, can be deleted till now... no one has them

[GabryJ84]

Well...hope never dies (I have two requests not done by me but that I am equally looking for in that section + other two that I'd like to add in my collection despite the fact that no scene release exists for them), so deleting them I believe it is a bit too harsh...on the other hand they are in the "Archived" section for that reason. The only thing is that closing requests for that reason could lead to close the forum forever or for a long period of time, since there is no provision that the same will be ever (or in a reasonable ammount of time) filled.

[euphoricvocals]

Right, not depending on the archives to get filled just letting others know agian.
Thanks to everyone helping get stuff filled.

[eldorado007]

The way I see it, closing the forum and closing the requests at the same time is not the ideal solution.
I've been around for a while now and have seen what's going on here in the forum. There is a group of users who only make requests and have only fulfilled few or no requests so far, and others who mainly or only fulfill requests. So if the requests are closed and the forum at the same time, it looks like the users who usually fulfill requests do not have this data and cannot find it, and no new users can register for these requests either to fulfill. Registering to create a request would not work at the moment anyway because the requests would be closed.

My personal opinion is that if no mechanism is built in over the long term that encourages or even demands give and take, this beautiful forum has no chance of surviving.

[GabryJ84]

The way I see it, closing the forum and closing the requests at the same time is not the ideal solution.
I've been around for a while now and have seen what's going on here in the forum. There is a group of users who only make requests and have only fulfilled few or no requests so far, and others who mainly or only fulfill requests. So if the requests are closed and the forum at the same time, it looks like the users who usually fulfill requests do not have this data and cannot find it, and no new users can register for these requests either to fulfill. Registering to create a request would not work at the moment anyway because the requests would be closed.

My personal opinion is that if no mechanism is built in over the long term that encourages or even demands give and take, this beautiful forum has no chance of surviving.

This is not "euphoricvocals" related, but it is related to every and each forum whose purpose is to share scene releases. I have always said, that the main problem in boards like this (publicly advertised and open to anyone), is the vast heterogeneity of users that can sign up. Basically you can have:

a. People just wanting to download music (and that doesn't care about releasing format), and that, as such, is completely unable to fill 99.9% of the requests (you can take action against this type of users simply with board rules, banning non scene material, but you have to be careful since this is reducing your average user base and you have to check wheather these are just a minority or quite a number)

b. People OCD with scene releases, but in this group you have:
b1. People OCD with scene releases that just downloads because afraid of busting (in some countries downloading is civil - small fine, sharing is penal - jail)
b2. People OCD with scene releases that just downloads because has no access to private ftps and his/her collection is so small that it is unable to fill rare requests.
b3. People OCD with scene releases that downlads and uploads sporadically because the sources he/she has do contain something but quality releases.
b4. People OCD with scene releases that just uploads, since having access to special sites (meaning places with Petabytes of Music) grants them all they want and they have no point in asking something they have already available. They are the most prolific uploaders and very rarely ask for something and if they do, it means that the scene they're looking for has been dead for years even in the most inaccessible and richiest of sites (It can happen - we have some examples here on the forum too).

The mathematical sum of the forum user base compared to the categories they fall into, is where you can start to develop a direction for the board and it obviously goes through what you want your forum to become.

You can have some options:

1. make the board private (meaning no advertisement page, no domain name - just ip, no google ranking, nothing). This might move users of b1 category to start sharing something, but you have the wild card of them falling also in b2 category, and this decision might be self-defeating.
2. install a ratio system (meaning a certain number of fillings, yields a certain number of requests). This is not necessarily moving things up since if someone does not have access to release sites (wheather because it is a courier or has access to pay ftps), the ratio system is only preventing him from doing requests, but does not put meat on the table. Request number might fall rapidly and only the same users might be ping-ponging requests and fills. It is the same mechanism onto which xprm and musicforum are relying upon, where the ratio system is not only present, but it is enforced in such a paranoid way that might keep away the users.
3. leave things as they are, at least, untill there's a balance and nobody is lamenting. If users are getting their requests, uploaders are not lamenting and there is a good mood in the board, there is no need to mess things up. If things get worse, you can always change direction.

As a matter of principle, tightening things up, reduces the number of users and music circulating, but gets more action between users of same level (horizontally) and freeing the handle raises the number of users and music circulating but the ratio between sharers and requesters might go unbalanced.

So in the end it all depends on the type of board you are deciding to keep: superspecialised, for just a handful of users that have access to scene sites and/or have big collections or for general public, with the possibility for everyone to ask but the assurance that that user might not give back. Each one of the two has its own advantages and disadvantages...it's up to the administrator to decide where to go.

[xNxRxGx]

haha OCD with scene rlss... yup guilty since mid 00's i guess, started with Hard&Steel which then basically became GroundZero etc

but i only had axx to some str0s over 10y ago hehe, met some cool people on forums and on dc++/soulseek etc
but havent used any of that in like 10y... pretty much nothing but my own collection since early 10's