Here we are now, entertain us!
With springtime here (southern hemisphere folks - please play along), the staff team has done a little bit of site cleanup.
Rules Updates
As long promised, it's time to officially end support of mp3 V2 as an untrumpable format. While small-file-size torrents had their use in years of low bandwidth & small storage capacity, the time has passed. Now, V0 will trump all other mp3 formats (except 320, which may still stand alone). With modern encoding of V0, there is nearly no reason to use any other mp3 encoding level, except for some legacy DJ equipment that still relies on 320 CBR. Some of the site rules have been updated to add clarifications and to remove specific mp3 V2 callouts. Please note, there is no need to go around reporting existing V2 uploads on the site - these will be taken care of programmatically. There was also some other cleanup to do with spam releases and 24-bit downsampling.
2.1.23 was changed to put in writing the already-permitted practice of downsampling WEB-sourced 24-bit FLACs. See here and here for more information.
2.1.24 was added to clarify the prohibition of spam releases. Although this was already captured by 2.1.14.1, a new rule & wiki article should add clarity to the matter. See here for more information.
2.2.0 has been spruced up with a brand new trump chart.
2.2.5 had all V2 references removed
2.2.9 had all V2 references removed
2.2.9.8 properly explains V0 & V2 hierarchy
2.2.9.12, 2.2.9.13, and 2.2.9.14 have been removed (legacy lossy rules)
2.3.18 was extended to include incorrect year in folder name
A complete and detailed summary of the changes can be seen here.
Staff Changes
You may have noticed a new face around the site. Please extend a warm welcome to our newest staff member garbageCollector! They will be helping with general site moderation and keeping the place clean and tidy.
Also, we will take this time to bid farewell to our wonderful team member Spider. After several years of tireless service and assistance, they have moved to another phase of their life. When you send tokens to another user and add a cover note, you can thank Spider for that.
Spider also made a big revamp to the database design to slim down the main user tables and push optional settings into what we call attribute tables. In some ways we hope you will never exercise this part of the code, it is used to record whether people are naughty, and thus banned from posting, making requests, uploading or purchasing invites or a number of other privileges.
Another major piece of work behind the scenes was to extend our Phinx setup to work with both Mysql and Postgresql, replacing a bunch of ad hoc scripts for the latter. As well as a number of bugfixes here and there in Gazelle.
Thank you for all your help, Spider.
Wiki Updates
rubric_alert has been hard at work cleaning up our site wiki. With new tutorials, clarifications, and guidance, be sure to look there for answers to your long-standing questions (or questions you didn't know you had!)
Bonus: Some Stats
Many of you have hit the [RP] button on a torrent before. Have you ever wondered where it goes? Reporting a torrent adds it to the staff queue, where the details can be examined and the report resolved. Some of these reports are quick to handle, but some require detailed investigation, occasionally taking significant time and effort. Each report is handled independently and on a case-by-case basis. With that said, here are some stats:
Reports resolved in the last month: 3,279
Total of all time: 127,237
The four most common types of reports are:
- Trump (46,051)
- Dupe (20,934)
- Lossy Master Approval (17,079)
- Checksum Trump (11,923)
Thank you, everyone, for your continued contributions to the site.
-Orpheus Staff