Virtual Communities: Special Interest
Topic: Torrent Sharing/Music
Class Links
Project Links
- Discobelle.net
- What.cd
- Unfortunately as What.cd requires membership to access, the link just takes you to a login screen
Background/ Website Summaries
- Discobelle is a blog based in Sweden run by DJs who identify themselves as Discobelle. Niklas and Martin are the primary posters but there are other DJs who they work with who contribute occasionally with posts. The focus is Electronic music, with most of the posts consisting of hip-hop and indie music remixes. The songs they post are generally hosted on zshare and are available for download. Some of the music they post are given to them by artists to leak, and others are distributed on the internet by DJs who cannot legally sell the remix they've created. The site also frequently features mixtapes and DJ sets from DJs around the world, these are mixes lasting around 40 min. and resemble the experience you would get seeing the DJ live. Often these remixes are exclusive to Discobelle.
- What.cd became a site as a result of the raiding of Oink.cd founder Alan Ellis's home and arrest. With Oink shut down there was a 180,000 person community with no site to latch onto. As a result the websites Waffles.fm and What.cd were started with OiNK's rules and practices as guidelines. The code for the website was lost as well so the programming teams that manage the site had to work to get a functional website running. What created a site similar to OiNK quickly and plan to release a faster, updated model which they've called Project Gazelle in the near future.
- What.cd is an exclusive community organized to share torrent files containing audio files, ebooks, and applications (both freeware and cracked). In order to become a user a person must be invited by a current user who has earned invites through proving they are a quality user. Invites being sold or traded online are closely monitered and users accounts are deleted if they are found to be doing these things. Users are expected to maintain a ratio of uploaded material to downloaded material. If a user fails to meet certain ratio expectations their account is deleted after they've been deficient for 14 days. Users posting torrents are also held to standards of quality (bitrate higher than 192kbps for music, no transcodes). Status is established in What through the ratio system, with users maintaining ratios of 1.05+ and 25 GB uploaded gaining Power User status. Power user status allows the user to use the Top 10 page, and their username cannot be deleted due to inactivity. Automatic deletion due to inactivity can also be usurped by donating to the site.
Additional articles
- When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide
- What Waffles? The Hydra Lives On
Access Journal
February 18, 2008
Time Accessed (10:30PM - 11:45PM)
- What.cd - 30 min.
- Discobelle.net - 30 min.
- Total Time: 1 hr.
- Looked at the what.cd Top 10 list page. This page offers 6 top 10 lists relating to the torrents on the site. The lists:
- Top 10 Most Active Torrents Uploaded in the Past Day
- Top 10 Most Active Torrents Uploaded in the Past Week
- Top 10 Most Active Torrents of All Time
- Top 10 Most Snatched Torrents
- Top 10 Most Data Transferred Torrents
- Top 10 Best Seeded Torrents (with minimum 5 seeders)
- On Discobelle, I read the newest 4 articles and watched a video, One post concerning DJ Amazing Clay sounded interesting so I listened to one of the DJs songs on zshare, where the blog hosts their files.
- I didn't have time to listen to more of the artist so I downloaded the other two files from zshare and plan to listen to them sometime this week while walking around between classes on my mp3 player
February 20, 2008
Time Accessed (11:00AM - 12:00PM)
- What.cd - 30 min.
- Discobelle.net - 30 min.
- Total Time: 1 hr.
- Since I didn't check Discobelle yesterday other than to grab a few songs, I had some reading and listening to catch up on today. I like both Björk and Ratatat and today they posted a new Ratatat remix of a song from Björk's newest album "Volta"
- Check out the post here: Björk - Wanderlust (Ratatat Remix)
- I listened to a song by Estelle on Discobelle featuring Kanye West and I liked it so I navigated to What to check the availability of albums by Estelle, who I've never heard of before. There weren't any full albums posted on What and Estelle is probably a new artist so I looked in the request section of What for any requests for her albums and found a couple that looked promising. I added my vote to two of these requests.
- As there was no full album available with the song, I downloaded the file from zshare for future listening. There was also a remix of the song posted, but I didn't like it as much so I didn't grab it
- There was also an Ocelot mixtape exclusive Discobelle that looks very promising, I'm going to have to grab this to listen to later.
- On What today there weren't any new torrents posted that I was interested in so I browsed around for a while and checked what my friends were listening to. You can choose any user and "add to friends" bringing a link to their profile into your friends section of the site, where you can see what they've recently snatched
- What.cd - 1 hr.
- Total Time: 1 hr.
- I was again looking at What's Top 10 page and noticed that within the page there is a selection of Top 10 lists relating to users as well. These allow the user to see who the most active members of the site are. The categories included for the user Top 10 list are:
- Top 10 Uploaders
- Top 10 Downloaders
- Top 10 Fastest Uploaders (average, includes inactive time)
- Top 10 Fastest Downloaders
- A couple weeks ago I was trying to download Carl Jung's Man and Symbols audiobook, but the last .1% of the torrent never downloaded and after reviewing the other user comments on the torrent I saw that others were having the same issue. The problem continues after the torrent has been up for over a month so today I reported the torrent for breaking the rules of the community:
- Since I've been discussing the Top 10 list a fair amount I thought I should point out that features like the Top 10 list aren't available to everyone on What. There is a hierarchy of user classes and the Top 10 is a premium part of the site only accessible by Power Users
- Here is a list of What's different user classes:
- the stylesheet is different than the other screenshots because the letters weren't visible with the black stylesheet ("DarkSpace") that I normally use. This stylesheet is called "Remember OiNK" in reference to the pink color of OiNK.
- What.cd - 50 min.
- Total Time: 50 min.
- Browsed Torrents, found new artists: The Whip, Taken by Trees, Snake and Jets
- Looking at the site and analyzing it, I'm realizing that What is an odd sort of community. It's highly specialized, concerning music, programs, audio/e- books, which must be offered at a high quality level or the community rejects you. It's basis seems almost elitist, which the site's predecessor Oink.cd (originally Oink.me.uk) was often accused of. I think the expectations of the community seem reasonable and thus I reject the idea of What as elitist. Some members of the community may certainly be elitist, but the implementation of standards isn't elitist in itself.
February 21, 2008
Time Accessed (4:00PM - 5:00PM)
- What.cd - 30 min.
- Discobelle.net - 30 min.
- Total Time: 1 hr.
- There is a new message on the front page of What today concerning the leeway period users are given who have ratios below the requirements of the site. These users are currently deleted after a 2 week period if they cannot improve their ratio.
- The proposed plan deals with a 36 hour allowance of inactivity time (time when the user is not actively attempting to upload). When the user is inactive the time would diminish, and could be added again through time connected. This seems to be a fair idea that would work well to force users to upload, but I don't feel that the requirements are severe enough to warrant such a plan.
- The current ratio requirements for the site are as follows:
| Downloaded (GB) | Upload Ratio Requirement |
| 5 | No Requirement |
| 5-10 | 0.10 |
| 10-15 | 0.15 |
| 15-20 | 0.20 |
| 20+ | 0.30 |
- Another interesting thing I noticed today was a post on Discobelle (Get Tough) from Monday
- The post discusses a mix by a Swedish artist that the writers like, but the mix is an exclusive for another website, so they direct their reader to go to the other blog. This is interesting because it speaks to the cooperative nature of the blog culture. While competing for readers, the bloggers don't mind sending their readers around the web to try out other blogs.
February 22, 2008
Time Accessed (7:00PM - 8:00PM)
- What.cd - 20 min.
- Discobelle.net - 40 min.
- Total Time: 1 hr.
- Looked in forums for What ratio proposal information mentioned yesterday
- In order to minimize comments, What took regulatory measures in the forums against users who weren't adding anything new or useful to the conversation but posting comments supporting or just mentioning dislikes of the new plan. The administrators stated that they would "warn" users who comment unneccesarily and don't advance the discussion in any way. This is an interesting way of regulating the community discussion board that isn't as severe as many other communities I have seen. That said, there are other forums on the site that aren't policed in such a way.
- Read new Discobelle posts
- The communication in the comments on Discobelle are mostly related to the songs posted, saying that the mix is great or bad. These are the sort of comments that What works directly to counter through their use of warnings. Blogs are a much more open atmosphere than What. I've stated before that I don't believe What.cd to be elitist due to their standards, but the community is certainly an exclusive one.
February 24, 2008
Time Accessed (12:30PM - 3:00PM)
- What.cd - 2 hr.
- Discobelle.net - 30 min.
- Total Time: 2 hrs. 30 min.
- Discobelle (and electronic music / remixes) has made me like hip hop more than I thought I ever would. the music has changed a lot and has become a lot more electronic sounding.
- Yelle - "a cause des garçons" tepr remix
- Investigate What IRC channels
- I got a chat client called Chatzilla that works as a firefox add-on. Now I'm floundering significantly trying to figure out how to do things in the IRC.
- I've registered my username and i've successfully chatted in the #what.cd irc chat!!! (but it took a while before i figured out how to use the text based operations)
- IRC is confusing in the way it's set up but that is probably due to its text based structure. With the java applets and advanced web design and style of web 2.0 sites I think we are spoiled in some way by the web sites we use being very approachable and intuitively mapped.
- I thought i should include a screenshot of the user profile on What to show the information that the community regards as relevant for judging a user's quality in the community.
- I blurred out the passkey in today's captures because that is how the torrent program identifies that the torrents i download and upload are coming from me. Each user has their own unique passkey. If a users passkey is corrupted or discovered in some way, it can be reset in the "edit profile" page.
- The capture below is of the program i use to download torrents, it is a free program, and the version I use is whatever the most recent update is. Occasionally hackers will break into versions of torrent programs, and this is when the programmers fix the bugs in their program and release a new version. What monitors these developments and if a user is operating a torrent program on their blacklist (programs with bugs) they won't be able to connect to the tracker. This happened recently with uTorrent and I was forced to find an updated version online (the program can be downloaded at utorrent.com)
February 25, 2008
Time Accessed (11:10PM - 12:00PM)
- What.cd - 40 min.
- Discobelle.net - 10 min.
- Total Time: 50 min.
- On What.cd I searched for the torrent that I'd reported for breaking the rules by not uploading the torrent fully for weeks. The torrent I'd reported and commented on was removed from the site and the same user (IvorTED) had re-uploaded the file, apparently with a new rip.
- I can see from the new post that my call was heard from the site administrators and they took proper action in letting the user know that there were problems with his torrent. They did not delete his account so there is a level of leeway on the site. Common mistakes aren't punished harshly, only direct purposeful violation of the rules for personal benefit.
- Some Project Gazelle info (What is going to switch their code and become Project Gazelle) Gazelle will appear like the screenshot below:
April 28, 2008
Time Accessed (12:00PM - 2:15PM)
- What.cd - 1 hr. 55 min.
- Discobelle.net - 20 min.
- Total Time: 2 hrs. 15 min.
- While this wiki may relate that I haven't accessed What.cd or Discobelle.net in the past two months since the virtual communities presentation, this is surely not the case. As before this project began I access both of the sites daily to check what new music is available.
- Since my previous post Gazelle has been implemented on What.cd and is working very well after a short time of bugs in the coding following the public release of Project Gazelle.
- Project Gazelle changes from What.cd code
- Each artist now has an artist wiki as is seen in the screenshot above
- User classes have changed (user classes continue to change as the moderators of the site eveluate the capabilities of their Gazelle code)
- With the changes of user classes I have actually been demoted to user, improved to Member status and hope to reach Power User status once again within the week
- The What.cd stylesheet is entirely customizable for users using CSS
- Torrent browsing is a lot cleaner in appearance with albums consolidated with all formats. Drop down arrows next to the torrents allow the user to view the different formats available
- What has also added a tag system to the torrents which allows for easier browsing of torrents and works well to group genres and artists together, allowing people to be introduced to new music based on previous interests
- Discobelle hasn't made any significant changes, they rarely do.
April 29, 2008
Time Accessed (4:00PM - 6:00PM)
- What.cd - 1 hr. 30 min.
- Discobelle.net - 30 min.
- Total Time: 2 hrs.
- Due to What.cd's new user class system I was demoted to Member status from my previous status of Power User which means that my account couldn't be deleted from a lack of use (which seems unrealistic for me in the first place.) In order to improve to Power User status again I had to upload 1 torrent and also reach an upload threshold of 25 gb. The best way to assure you will get upload credit on a torrent is to upload a new torrent to the site.
- I've uploaded around 23 and a half gigabytes on What.cd at this point, so I am approaching the 25 gb now required for power user status. But I still hadn't uploaded a torrent to the site, so I looked at my recently acquired music in comparison to the recent torrents uploaded on What.cd and found an album that hadn't been posted yet. I created a torrent file in uTorrent and uploaded it to What.cd.
- After uploading the file I searched the request section and found that 9 people had voted on the request for the torrent I'd uploaded. I filled the request and received a "bounty" of 180 mb upload credit.
- The bounty system on What.cd is new since the launch of Gazelle.
- When a user votes on a request it takes 20mb (or more if desired) of their upload statistic and adds it to the bounty on the request. This creates an incentive for people to upload quality torrents as soon as they are released
- The person who initially requested the album added a thanks comment shortly after the request was filled and the torrent has 17 comments currently, thanking me for uploading the torrent and saying which songs are their favorite. It was nice to receive praise for an "excellent up".
- The torrent I uploaded has been snatched 242 times and 10 people are currently leeching it. It is currently at #7 for the most active torrents uploaded in the past week. The day I uploaded the torrent it reached #1 on the top 10 for the day, which I was proud of (I didn't catch a screeshot in time before it dropped off the list because it hadn't been uploaded in the past 24 hrs. anymore.
- Today marks the first day since I started looking at Discobelle.net that they posted something I had seen on another music blog already (over a week ago!). This post includes more information on the song than I had received in the other blog though, and includes a video of another song by the band featured in the post. The post is also by Kristian, who doesn't post very frequently but when he does it's usually something good.
- Another interesting element of this post is his closing remarks, hinting at more from the artist featured coming soon on Discobelle.net. It's a small note on the end of a post, but small comments like this one could easily cause infrequent readers who liked the post to visit the site more often.
May 1, 2008
Time Accessed (10:30PM - 12:15PM)
- What.cd - 1 hr. 30 min.
- Discobelle.net - 15 min.
- Total Time: 1 hr. 45 min.
- On April 30, 2008 What.cd offered freeleech on staff picks. Freeleech in a torrent sharing community is when the administrators of the site make the download of certain torrents free by not counting toward download statistics. While the download of these torrents doesn't count against users, the uploads of these torrents still do count toward the users' accounts. Due to freeleech I spent most of the day with What.cd and uTorrent both open on my computer, monitoring the amount of uploads I was getting and ensuring the tracker was working.
- Freeleech offers a great opportunity for users with poor ratios to download torrents that:
- Don't count against their account as downloads
- Many other users are snatching at the same time due to the 24 hour limit on freeleech offerings
- Are easy to upload to other users because of the volume of users snatching the torrents
- Are generally good torrents as they are offered up as staff favorites
- Due to this freeleech offering on What.cd I uploaded around two and a half gigabytes of data and again improved my status in the site to Power User.
- I've checked back on the torrent that I uploaded to check the comments section. There are a few more comments thanking me for the upload and commenting on specific tracks of the album because it is a compilation album of mixes from a specific record label. There is one inflammatory comment on my torrent post (below) this sort of content is very rare on What.cd but it still appears occasionally.
- The line below is from the "Chat Rules" section of the rules of the site. No flaming is a rule on the forums, but it isn't clear how it is enforced. In order to have the administrators do anything about a comment like the one above a user would likely have to send a message to one of the administrators, complaining about the user.
- In my final act of the day I sent a Facebook message to Niklas Mijdema, one of the main posters on Discobelle.net. In appreciation of the great music on Discobelle.net I am going to give my extra What.cd invite to Niklas, provided he isn't a member already.
(Total Time representative of time spent working with wiki, I spend time on both Discobelle.net and What.cd every day.)
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