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Trade Posting. What do you guys think?

 
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Saeren



Joined: 03 Aug 2002
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 7:30 am    Post subject: Trade Posting. What do you guys think? Reply with quote

What do you guys think of starting up a thread in here for trade posting in ABMAR? I.E. I'm missing such and such from this series. I'll post such and such ep from that series if you post the one I'm missing.

Good idea? Bad idea?
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Onakra



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 89
Location: Geldrop, Netherlands

PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 2:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We had quite a big discussion about this not too long ago (http://abma.x-maru.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=20). My opinion since then remains the same. If you are trading between 2/3 people there are a lot of better ways of exchanging files then to take up newsserver space such as FTP, DCC, WinMX, ICQ, whatever.

The chances that when you are missing a few eps someone else is missing the exact same files is not that big, but when you have you're missing ones filled someone else requests other ones and thus in effect creating a full repost of a series again. And we have far too many of those already. But that's just my take of course...
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 2:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While allot of that goes on in ABMAR as it is, I think formalizing it like that will worsen the current situation. Really, when only one person needs something, it's usually pretty easy to find a way to send it directly instead of broadcasting it on the groups. Unless things have changed recently, ABMAR doesn't need even more traffic, although such things are better there than AB(M)A.

Now creating a forum (whether here or somewhere else), totally separate from the newsgroups, for people to setup _direct_ trades isn't a bad idea, since that is not allowed on the newsgroups themselves. But that's up to xo. Really the request section here is used for that quite a bit. Many of the fulfilled requests are done off-group. So I dont know if another forum would really serve any purpose.
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 9:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm definitely against trade posting via Usenet, at least between small numbers of people. If you have something to send to someone, post an intent message to see if anyone else wants it. If more than, say, two people respond then go ahead and post. Otherwise, use FTP or some other one-to-one file transfer method. We're already using waaaay too much bandwidth.
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Saeren



Joined: 03 Aug 2002
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2002 8:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I read through the discussion link posted and after seeing the link to the usenet statistics, I have to agree that it's a bad idea all around. I had no idea ABMAR was talking up so much usenet space. Hurray for anime and all but it does seem to be a bit excessive.

That being said, someone in that discussion mentioned that there are better places to do such trading and I for one would like to know where? I've looked and I can't find one. Yes, there are better ways to trade files than usenet, I knew that from the start but where is there a place to initiate such trades?

In most of the IRC channels that I have been in trading talk is banned. You get kicked if you try to ask to for trades. I understand the neccessity for those rules or else the leechers would get out of control. I've popped into #animetrading on Dal-net and no one is ever there.

I've searched for pages on the internet and those are always for trading VHS copies and nothing for digital trading. Is there any place where people can get together, exchange lists and then set up between themselves how to trade files? If it exists, it's not easy to find and maybe that's part of the problem to why ABMAR is getting so much trade traffic. If people had some other place to go to exchange files, it would probably lessen the trading traffic that ABMAR gets. It's a lot easier to exchange files between two people than it is to upload/download them from usenet. I'm betting leechers would prefer something like that over using usenet.

Anybody know of any such place?
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2002 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well "trading" really requires two steps (yeah I know I'm explaining allot of obvious stuff, but I'm going somewhere with it Razz ):

(#1) Locating folks who have what you need and are willing to trade
(#2) The transfer of the files between the traders.

Most of what we are discussing here is that ABMAR and usenet in general is not a good place for #2 because it is a broadcast medium and it's a waste to use it for file transfers between individuals. (Being a binaries group is also not good for #1).

#2 is easy, though, as you can use FTP, ICQ, IRC (your own channel, not necessarily an established one), various point-to-point methods, etc. for sending the files. #1 is actually the tricky one. You could consider creating (or locating) a newsgroup for trading. Where in the hierarchy that should fit is tricky, since it really wouldnt belong in alt.binaries.*. I dunno, maybe alt.multimedia.trading? I don't know if there is enough traffic to make alt.multimedia.trading.anime (or similar) a viable group, simply because creating a new newsgroup properly requires proof that there will be enough traffic. Also you arent supposed to "skip" a higher hierarchy. (For example. you wouldn't create alt.binaries.multimedia.anime unless there is an alt.binaries.multimedia that is receiving too much anime traffic.) Also note, there may very well be a newsgroup for this, I haven't looked into it as I'm not really interested for myself.

Fact is, and you can take this from me since I did the alt.config and control message work for ABMAR, that creating a new newsgroup, even in the alt.* hierarchy, is a pretty miserable experience. You can do it easy and wrong, but that not only reduces the number of people that will be able to participate in the group but also "screws" people whose news service is strict about adding groups (ABAT comes to mind.)

So, what should you do? Well a web forum is an easy way to deal with #1. There are various free web-based forum providers that you can use. I used www.proboards.com once (I think that was the name), I don't know if they are still around. xo might have something to say on this topic, since he might even want to have something like that here, or perhaps considers such discussions on-topic for this particlar "Requests" forum.

The reason I dont like that idea is because I like to think of this forum as being for the folks that use AB(M)A only even if the files are sent off group. I'd rather not see it become a generic anime trade forum for everyone on the net. But if the request is for something that has been posted, It seems to me that it's perfectly on topic. Just work out how it will be sent after the fact. For example, (inc) recently made a request for a file that had been posted, I offered to send it by FTP unless other folks needed it, noone seemed to, so I arranged with inc to get it off my FTP server. If neither person runs an FTP server there are plenty of other transfer methods as I mentioned above.

However, if you want something that is more comprehensive, I think the best idea is to look around and make sure something like this doesn't already exist on usenet or on the web. Essentially you need a forum for finding people to trade with without using that forum for the file transfers. I bet something already exists for anime, you just have to find it. Also I bet some IRC channels do allow trading, finding them is the tricky part, which you've run into.

Then, if nothing really works for that, then you'd want to set up a forum, and I feel web-based forums would work best for this. Only problem I see with using a free service is I bet they'd consider the trading discussions illegal (they tend to be nervous about legal issues, I think) and so you'd have to find an individual to host it on their own server. Or you could start up #animetrades or the like on an IRC network. There are lots of options, but the key issue is to do it right so it's widely adopted. Since the more people that use it the more likely you'll get the files you want. And no matter what, you'll have to do _allot_ of work to popularize it. For example the #animetrading channel you said was empty. That's silly since lots of people are looking for just what you are, the key is to get people together to do that. Usually that requires at least a person or two to allow him or herself to be leeched severely, to get people to show up, then, hopefully, a few will stay and help. Razz
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Saeren



Joined: 03 Aug 2002
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2002 9:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think making a new newgroup is the answer and frankly, I don't think I want to go through the pain. I wasn't thinking of making this place trading central either. My first thought was that maybe the people using this board might want to get together and do something like that but I don't think it'll be appreciated if we try to turn this board into the anime trading center of the net.

I'd like to try and start up an IRC room but I'm not connected enough to maintain a room, bot and all that goes with an IRC channel upkeep. A new board seems like a good idea but the problem is spending the word. If a board like that was started would people object to the word being spread in ABMAR? It's been my understanding that such advertisements were discouraged.

As to finding something on the web, I've looked. I can't find anywhere that people get together and trade digital fansubs. If anyone knows of a place, maybe we could refer people there and take some of the slack off ABMAR.
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Vulpix



Joined: 29 Jun 2002
Posts: 10

PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2002 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whats wrong with the idea of starting up another forum for trading? Plenty exist for trading warez and suchlike, which is considered a lot worse than trading anime.
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Saeren



Joined: 03 Aug 2002
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2002 5:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think anyone is saying that anything is wrong with starting a forum for trading. I just think they're saying starting that forum here wouldn't be a good idea and I agree.
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oblio



Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 106
Location: Detroix, MI

PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2002 12:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another option is a mailing list... easy to set up, easy to remotely admin. The only thing that would hurt is if people started just sending their lists out over the list. That could add up to a lot of traffic pretty quickly. Probably the best way to deal with it is a custom php/mysql site tying an email address to a list of available files with a way to search files and automaticly generate requests via email.

The non-custom coded version is just a webboard like this somewhere- they are easy to set up if you don't care about too many details.

Just some thoughts... I personally don't think having xo setup another topic would be so bad, but then I wouldn't be using it.... *shrug*
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