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Old 2007-12-19, 03:24   Link #41
Access
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mentar View Post
Been absent for a while, so I missed this part.

What's "protect their distros or channels" exactly?
On the distro side, basically just keep things running, keep the right files going out and stop files that shouldn't be getting out from getting out, discourage DOS / DDOS attacks, or other more basic denial attacks, try to make as many distros as possible exclusive (carry only your stuff and no one else's), and try to recruit as many good distros as one could, also having members set up distros internally when possible. Once you got good distros behind you, you had to make sure they weren't recruited by any rivals and give them enough bennies to stay with your group over another.

About halfway down this editorial for instance:
http://web.archive.org/web/200404101.../Editorial.htm
I can't really speak for the sanity of the narrator, but there is probably some truth to the structure she outlines and the demands placed on distros.

"As it happens, devilray decided to break up the happy distro channel family due to file leaks.� He makes a preposterous 3 tier distro plan.� He puts TinyOne into his Tier 2 distro channel.� TinyOne finds that she is alone in there with the exception of someone she has never met before.� Her friends from the original distro channel are scattered between Tier 1 distro and the temp channel devilray designated for those people who are still unsorted.� TinyOne is lonely in the tier 2 channel since it is almost empty except for strangers.� She is sad that original channel was broken up.� She decides to quit the tier 2 channel and hangs out in the unsorted distro temp channel with some of her friends.� She waits with them until they get their status.� She waits with them for one week�then two�.then three�and finally devilray comes to them one by one and declares that he will not have them in his distro team unless they only distribute for E-F and no one else.� Of course this is unacceptable for most of these people.� So one of these people decides that he would create his own channel and invite all the people from the original distro channel into this channel so that they can continue as they were before.� TinyOne follows this friend of hers and makes his channel her new home.�"

As for channels, places like EFnet were largely unregulated/unpoliced so it was basically up to the group to protect any public channels they had, with bots and other measures. If you lost control of the channel, that could mean no releases getting out until you could reclaim it, or create a new one and get the distro to move over, etc.
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Old 2007-12-19, 05:47   Link #42
Ledgem
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScR3WiEuS View Post
i'm mainly noticing it in the way other people behave. and i guess i just miss it a bit. i'm not saing we should all go back to single-group memberships etc. that's not really "productive." but i wish both fansubbers and leechers would be more passionate about it. no matter what some people might say, leechers just see the fansubbers as tools nowadays. a way to get your anime. that wasn't the same back then. it's not a simple matter of respect, but rather involvement.
I agree here. I first entered the fansubbing scene as a leecher it was the "ETG era" and I remember how groups would synchronize FServe releases. That was always fun - seeing fserve advertisements and access being put on hold 1-2 hours in advance of a release, and suddenly the channel would be flooded. You don't really see fserves anymore. They've been replaced by group-sponsored XDCC servers, or XDCCs from people who seem to specialize in distribution (I never could figure those ones out).

Even with a measly ADSL connection I wanted to be a part of that community, to share releases and other random things as a file server. BitTorrent didn't exist, and IRC was where everything happened. It felt a lot more involved. I remember first seeing BitTorrent being tested with a Naruto torrent - it made so much sense, but I don't think any of us realized how big it'd become, or how it'd draw people away from IRC.

My involvement led me to become a fansubber, ultimately. That was after BitTorrent was established, so my first group's channel was extremely lonely (Seichi Fansubs). The bigger groups had a stronger following, but nobody followed those channel releases anymore - they'd just get the torrent. FServes were still relatively plentiful, but in hindsight they slowly disappeared. My emphasis on FServes isn't that they were a great distribution medium or anything, but that in my mind they really represented community involvement. People wanted to give back, and they were sharing with each other. It was a great resource.

It makes me wonder how people get into fansubbing now. If people aren't joining because they get addicted to that feeling of wanting to contribute back to the community, what draws them to it? Is it that they want to see their alias stamped on an episode (ego subbers)? It'll be interesting to see how things continue to change. But thank you for this thread - it brought back those memories of how the community used to be.
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Old 2007-12-19, 07:01   Link #43
Ugari-Pizza
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ledgem
Even with a measly ADSL connection I wanted to be a part of that community, to share releases and other random things as a file server. BitTorrent didn't exist, and IRC was where everything happened. It felt a lot more involved.
Ah I remember that all too well.

Things were a little closer back then that's for sure. Like you pointed out the nature of distribution back then meant the fans where in constant contact with each other. Anyone that had hung around the big channels long enough was bound to make at least a few close friends (as long as they didn't make an ass of themselves that is).

After I had been around a while I would rarely grab something from the big distro/group channels unless I was really into the show. By that point I had access to plenty of "semi-private" FTPs and hung around in smaller channels full of close friends who shared with each other. This was basically the only way to get rare stuff (or stuff few people watched) back then, there was also the issue of "large" encodes (movies mostly) which people were unwilling to share with "lowband" users because it held up everyone else in the queue.
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Old 2007-12-19, 08:04   Link #44
cyth
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ledgem View Post
My emphasis on FServes isn't that they were a great distribution medium or anything, but that in my mind they really represented community involvement. People wanted to give back, and they were sharing with each other. It was a great resource.

It makes me wonder how people get into fansubbing now. If people aren't joining because they get addicted to that feeling of wanting to contribute back to the community, what draws them to it? Is it that they want to see their alias stamped on an episode (ego subbers)? It'll be interesting to see how things continue to change. But thank you for this thread - it brought back those memories of how the community used to be.
Natsuii... yeah. Maybe the more practical fansubbers of today don't appreciate what's being reminisced here, but exactly the feeling of contributing back to the community made me get involved, set up my own fserve, and ultimately start fansubbing. I couldn't do that with torrents alone. Sure, I can upload all I want, but BitTorrent is a faceless distribution medium.

I remember some channels had reward systems for fserving. They would scan the channel for fserves, voice them, so those clients would be able to get releases faster than others, and put them up for further distribution. Maybe fansubbers can't see things that way anymore, but RSS torrents exist today because people want that episode as fast as possible. When torrenting was on its way to overshadow existent P2P programs (like eMule, Kazaa etc.), the fastest way of getting episodes was through IRC. Simply lurking there and waiting for those subs meant time spent chatting with people of similar interests, and that really brought the community together.
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Old 2007-12-19, 10:35   Link #45
Hanxue
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hurf de durf leechers today don't have any appreciation for any of the hard work we do, things were always better in the divx3 era if not in the laserdisc era if not even before that ;_;
Why do I have a feeling I've heard all this before? I was around during that time as well, I ran my own Fserve for a while and I eventually ended up fansubbing (although I'm mostly retired now), but I really think you're either seeing it through the rose-colored glasses of hindsight, or you're just being bitter about the current state of affairs.
I hang out (read: lurk) on IRC a lot, and it's as active as ever. Sure, people don't run Fserves a lot anymore, but they still visit group channels, use XDCC bots, discuss the latest releases, swap links, play trivia games, thank the fansubbers for the releases and just hang around in general. A lot of them also ask questions about how they could help out. I don't see any signs whatsoever of a declining community here, rather the opposite; it's a lot more chill, a lot less elitist and has just generally become nicer over the last few years. There's also a lot more forums and blogging activity than there used to be. The degree of involvement hasn't gone down (I think it's actually gone up), it has just taken other forms.

Actually, to stop skirting around the issue: can you people stop it with the passive-aggressive elitism? I'm mostly talking about Ledgem here. I know you've been around for ages and that you deserve some amounts of respect for that, but implying that everyone who hasn't been along for as long as you have is an egosubber and/or isn't "contributing to the community" (however you want to define that) is definitely not being a nice member of the community in my opinion.

Last edited by Hanxue; 2007-12-19 at 10:46.
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Old 2007-12-19, 13:50   Link #46
ScR3WiEuS
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you're blowing this entire thing up.
this isn't a "bitter" thread.
it's called nostalgia.
we, or at least I, are not saying that it was better back then in every single aspect. i've made that quite clear. whilst the scene offers us a lot more resources to fansubs, like staff and distro, the sheer growth of the scene also resulted in a less personal atmosphere, with a more professional outlook than amateur. it is not my intention to make it sound as if leechers are ungrateful bastards. most are, but that's fine. there are at least as many "fans" for each group as back then. but the great majority of the leechers just can't show a trace of respect or at least politeness. that's what's sad. if we sound bitter, it's perhaps because nowadays we're continuously flamed by random leechers. we're not asking for fucking worshippers, we're asking for people that will at least leave us the fuck alone when they don't like a moot aspect of the release.
and when i say less personal, it's not only fansubber-leecher, but also amongst fansubbers, even of the same group. i was bored to death in most group i worked for recently. they just finish their task and pass it on to the next person, hardly caring what happens. in most groups fansubbing has become a very sterile thing.
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Old 2007-12-19, 14:12   Link #47
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Screwball. You sound like a sorry old fart who's all lonely and needs attention. Then again, what's new? :P
Nostalgia's an ugly bitch. People talking too much about the good ol' days is sad in some way. Especially when you're under 40 years old.
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Old 2007-12-19, 14:17   Link #48
ScR3WiEuS
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attention is always welcome :xxxxxx
i'm only 22 years old btw ;_;
and meh, people don't have to read this thread if they want to.
i just don't understand why people have to start flaming us really, considering we're enjoying ourselves. you don't see me barging in on fucking retarded convos ( which sadly represents 99% of this forum ) about which encoder has the largest e-penis, or "how do i liek make fansubers?"
and hey :x sure i miss some aspects of the old scene, but i'm still fansubbing amirite? even if i think some other groups are fucking boring, at least i try to make my group a fun place to work.

and anyhow, nostalgia is subjective. even if the scene wasn't perfect, even if it was A LOT worse or something, that wouldn't stop some people from having good memories. so there's really nothing to criticize here.
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Last edited by ScR3WiEuS; 2007-12-19 at 14:28.
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Old 2007-12-19, 14:26   Link #49
Hanxue
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I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because my experiences are a lot different to yours.

If I remember my early fansubbing history right, there was a LOT of fucking retarded flaming going on (some of which I contributed to, young and dumb as I was), both on IRC, the short-lived anime.mircx.com forums somewhat later on, as well as in other related places. If anything, the current climate is mild by comparison. As for the "sterile" thing, well, the last project I was active on ended a couple of months ago but I don't remember it as being particularly sterile. Sure there wasn't much discussion in the project channel, but on the other hand the staff channel as well as the group channel were frequently full of the usual babble.

And, well, if calling the technical help threads "fucking retarded" isn't at least slightly elitist, I don't know what is.
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Old 2007-12-19, 14:34   Link #50
ScR3WiEuS
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well, reading 100 threads about the same issue, and having the same people flaming each other and trying to outdo each other is retarded (it's not for nothing that asuki has a reputation of being "tard haven" even amonst fansubbers today )... imho anyway.
so there's one thread were most people are actually getting along, and enjoying themselves talking about how they think of the old days... how is that bad?
there wasn't any BS until the entire "elitism" thing started.
"If anything, the current climate is mild by comparison."
that's one of the main things that i was criticizing anyway. i like dynamic environment.
i'd rather have hate than indifference. indifference is boring.
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Old 2007-12-19, 17:47   Link #51
dj_tjerk
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScR3WiEuS View Post
[...[
i'd rather have hate than indifference. indifference is boring.
Too bad it is.. i already got a real life full of indifference and boredom.. can't have another one that's so boring too or i'll really die. Let's make some hate!
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Old 2007-12-19, 18:58   Link #52
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I wasn't going to post anymore in this thread but eh...
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScR3WiEuS View Post
but the great majority of the leechers just can't show a trace of respect or at least politeness. that's what's sad. if we sound bitter, it's perhaps because nowadays we're continuously flamed by random leechers. we're not asking for fucking worshippers, we're asking for people that will at least leave us the fuck alone when they don't like a moot aspect of the release.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScR3WiEuS View Post
i'd rather have hate than indifference. indifference is boring.
Aren't you contradicting yourself a bit there?


Anyhow what I originally came to post was: my experiences with leechers in general have overall been pretty positive (if not to say overwhelmingly positive). Sometimes people criticize your choice of fonts or stuff like that, sometimes they ask when the next release is going to be. That can be pretty annoying but it's not like they mean anything bad by it so I find it pretty easy to forgive or at least ignore. Then you get the occasional fuckhead making some bogus flame and/or complaint about whatever but they're vanishingly rare compared to the people who say a simple "thanks" or "great release, nice work". Thing is, that occasional fuckhead is equally likely to be another fansubber, in my experience.

Just my 0.02 SEK.
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Old 2007-12-19, 19:50   Link #53
ScR3WiEuS
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not really, that second part was mainly about stuff between fansubbers.

and yes, while it's true that we do get a lot of praise, a very very large part are still haters. now, hating with a reason is fine, hating because your fansub doesn't correspond to their every wish is something else.
if you produce fansubs with good translation, good encoding, timing, typesetting, various formats, various distro options ( xdcc, bt, ddl, usenet, etc ), what's there to hate?
recently we got flamed by some people because the scripts we share on our website aren't timed to one of the 5 billion different raws the leechers get... meh
i don't wanna sound like a crying toddler, i'm merely pointing out what we were criticizing in the first place.
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Old 2007-12-19, 23:21   Link #54
Ledgem
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanxue View Post
Actually, to stop skirting around the issue: can you people stop it with the passive-aggressive elitism? I'm mostly talking about Ledgem here. I know you've been around for ages and that you deserve some amounts of respect for that, but implying that everyone who hasn't been along for as long as you have is an egosubber and/or isn't "contributing to the community" (however you want to define that) is definitely not being a nice member of the community in my opinion.
Since you singled me out, I'd just like to point out that I haven't been around for ages - I was an active fansubber for two, maybe three years. There are some discussions where I'd like to think that I'm worthy of a lot of respect for that, but I'm really just a baby in that sense. And I left the fansubbing scene - it doesn't matter to me anymore, in all honesty. It's all about the nostalgia and the fond memories.

I wasn't saying that anyone joining the scene today must be an egosubber. I was merely musing over my own experience and comparing it to today's scene. Egosubbers definitely existed in my time, don't get me wrong. I'm just remarking that it does seem to me like it'd be a lot less likely for people to want to join as fansubbers out of a desire to give back to the community. Look at BitTorrent: as ScR3WiEuS has remarked, it's a faceless means of distribution. Even worse, it tracks numbers of downloads. For the first few episodes that I helped to sub I'd run to the tracker stats and look at those numbers. I would not classify myself as an ego subber, but when I was new to the game, knowing that my alias and part of the work that I'd contributed to was being seen by hundreds of people was thrilling. I think that by the tenth episode I'd worked on, at latest, it didn't matter to me anymore.

BitTorrent isn't harmful to the community, but what does it mean when people are brought into the scene in such a way? If a person wants to join as a subber is it because they saw the numbers of downloaders, or something else? I'm not being passive aggressive in this, either. I'm genuinely curious. Most likely the answer is that it hasn't changed much. Most of my old groups seem to be having difficulty replacing retired members, though. Do less people want to join as subbers? Is it just natural that groups eventually die out? Do new people wanting to sub just want to make their own groups (whether for ego reasons or not) and disregard the old ones?

Those are honest questions. I know that many subbers get very prideful about how long they subbed, how much they subbed, how many groups they were in - anything to sound like they're deserving of respect. I'm guilty of occasionally doing it too, but I'm not doing it here. With this conversation I feel rather detached from my history of a fansubber. There's no pride about it for me, and I don't mean to sound like I'm putting down newer subbers. I'm merely sharing my experiences and musing over how the scene is changing.
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Old 2007-12-19, 23:32   Link #55
Ugari-Pizza
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There are rude people in every community. Believe me these problems aren't unique to the fansub community (I should know I deal with this stuff every day ).

In short there were assholes back in the "good old days" and there are assholes now, and there will be assholes when today is considered the "good old days".

The problem is people, they're demanding, spiteful, annoying, and down right rude. On the other hand they're thankful, understanding, patience, and for the most part good people. You just have to take the good with the bad and accept that every now and again someone is going to come a long that pisses you off.

Quote:
but I really think you're either seeing it through the rose-colored glasses of hindsight, or you're just being bitter about the current state of affairs.
Probably a little bit of the first one but none of the second one I assure you. I am very thankful to the current (and past) fansub groups and the fact that they release their stuff via bittorrent meaning I can grab it quickly and at my leisure. I can't remember the last time I had to get something from IRC...it has been years.

I also enjoy coming to this forum and lurking around from time to time, in my attempt to stay up to date (can you tell I'm behind the times by years?).

But at the same time I'd love to go back to around 2000 or so...and talk to all the long lost contacts. Maybe pick up some of the stuff I missed (which is almost impossible to find now-a-days).

I'm not trying to come off as elitist...I'm just a guy that enjoyed the scene back then and enjoys talking about it today.
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Old 2007-12-20, 04:30   Link #56
Access
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How you deal with rude / hateful people is really just a measure of 'maturity', there are so many of these guys online the only thing thing you can do is ignore it. If you let any one of them press your buttons then you are just playing into them. You are going to get pointless criticism no matter what you do, it's simply a measure of sucess. If you are getting to more people online, you are going to see more of it, nothing to get depressed or all worked up over.

Other than the effects of moving to BT, you can understand the changes of the time just by looking at the archtypical recruit. In 2000 digisubbing was new, cutting-edge, unknown and somewhat exclusive, you couldn't be part of it without being involved with some controversy and processes weren't to well understood. These days everyone already knows how to do everything, raws are easily attainable, most new recruits already know what shows they want to do, largely understand how to do them and don't expect controversy or any real sense of mystery / discovery in the process. Every new hobby goes through this process, ie. can it survive when it's no longer 'new' and 'cutting-edge' or does it fade away just like disco rock, yo-yo's, video arcades or virtual pets. Just be glad that fansubbing has survived through this cycle and is still around today.
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Old 2007-12-20, 05:17   Link #57
False Dawn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ledgem View Post
Most of my old groups seem to be having difficulty replacing retired members, though. Do less people want to join as subbers? Is it just natural that groups eventually die out? Do new people wanting to sub just want to make their own groups (whether for ego reasons or not) and disregard the old ones?


I don't know if I can really talk about "new people" to fansubbing as I've been subbing for almost two years now (my first project was in Spring 2006), but like Ledgem, I think I'll post some observations.

A lot of people completely new to subbing don't follow the old channels of getting into fansubbing - the way I understand it, a few years ago, if you wanted to start subbing, you'd join a pretty respected group and as long as you seemed a hard worker and able to do a reasonable job of the task you'd applied for, one of their experienced members would take you under their wing. If that actually happened - I'm not sure (all hearsay from other subbers I know), but it's not really something that happens now or even when I joined. It may do in the more popular groups like SHS, but as far as I'm aware, a lot of groups don't really take on board that new members *might* be new to the scene.

When I learnt, I pretty much learnt for myself and gained tips off other subbers' work - especially as an editor, you pick up an idea of style a lot easier that way: but I can't remember anyone giving me advice.

And maybe that's why we're not getting so many replacements for retiring subbers. It's become the case that, to learn how to sub something that can be seen as a quality sub, the new subber needs to have a lot of self-motivation. I frequently tell new subbers I meet to watch as many different groups' releases as possible so that they can see what's different in them (and from there, make up their own mind on what type of "style" they want to assume) - but it just doesn't occur to people to do that, really.

I think demand for fansubbers has also become higher, so it's not rare to have people spread across various groups, which in turn, means those people rarely have time to do anything in the community other than subbing itself. I've even had times where I've stopped conversing in IRC and on forums just to cope with the workload I've given myself.

Why this has happened, I can't really pinpoint. It seems to have been happening when I started and hasn't resolved itself since then, so a lot of more well-known groups are being affected now, when before, they'd have plenty of staff.

That's my £0.02 anyway.
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Old 2007-12-20, 09:18   Link #58
Hanxue
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Regarding the problems with replacing retired fansubbers: I'm not sure. Yeah, the kind of "mentoring" you're talking about isn't as common as it used to be (personally I taught myself though), but on the other hand there are a lot more (and a lot better) guides out there now than there used to be, and some aspects of fansubbing has become considerably easier. In fact, so easy that new subbers seem more likely to start new groups rather than joining existing ones. I don't really see a problem with a lack of interest in becoming a fansubber, judging by this forum and by IRC.
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Old 2007-12-20, 10:39   Link #59
cyth
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanxue View Post
I don't see any signs whatsoever of a declining community here, rather the opposite; it's a lot more chill, a lot less elitist and has just generally become nicer over the last few years. There's also a lot more forums and blogging activity than there used to be. The degree of involvement hasn't gone down (I think it's actually gone up), it has just taken other forms.
[...]
I don't really see a problem with a lack of interest in becoming a fansubber, judging by this forum and by IRC.
Our perception of what the fansubbing community encompasses must clearly differ then. Sure, the blogging community has taken off, LJ pederasty discussions are the new fad, people are making fandubs, YouTubers just can't seem to stop uploading them NARUTO episodes, there's a Wikipedia article for every anime series imaginable... but I digress. One of my U.S. buddies once described their boonies as "the land where food magically comes from". To compare, this is what your average YouTuber (the majority) thinks about fansubbing, that we're some sort of mystical force that is going to meet their every demand. I'm sure most of them aren't too explicit to think of it like that, but the fansubbing community is being perceived as a tool, even moreso than before, not as an actual community. I honestly don't think I'm overexaggerating. You know, my perception of the state of the current community may be affected by my past experiences, but numbers don't change:

- There are less people fansubbing now than they were 3 years ago (recruiting complete rookies has also become harder).
- There is less oversubbing, but not because the community became a better place, but because fewer groups manage to pull their projects through.
- Our IRC channels have grown smaller. Medium-sized channels usually held ~800 clients, today they hold ~300. Eclipse and Shinsen-Subs are on top with about ~1200 at peak times. AnimeOne had OVER 9000!!... erm, over 3000 leechers on Naruto release dates.
- The "bigger" groups of today manage to churn out approx. 3-4 different series a week, when back in 2003-2004 you had bigger groups doing 8-10 series or more. AnimeOne and AnimeJunkies were at each respective points sufficient for a whole lot by themselves (also, we rarely had problems with lack of quality subs).

This is of course a consequence of a much bigger problem, but please, don't lie to yourself that leecher involvement has increased. No, what happened was that the overall anime community had grown bigger, but it distanced itself away from the fansubbing portion of it. I'm not being bitter about the situation (I'm still subbing, last time I checked), but it's quite clear to me that things have changed for the worse. What's certain is that our own cabbage patch has grown smaller. Yeah, yeah, call me selfish for wishing our group channels and forums were more active, but honestly, what's wrong with having an actual community? Scr3wboy and getfresh are so right: All the flaming, ego tripping and old-fashioned elitism weren't the perks many of us were proud of, but at least the community felt more alive that way, enough to keep my interest over these past four years. When killshok sent that letter to Urban Vision, he shed new light on a topic that kept the community talking for years. I mean, it was a disgrace to fansubbing in general, but it produced so many lols you probably can't imagine.

The real fansubbing community today remains as a plethora of fansubbing staff channels and distro rooms on IRC. Group fanboys have fallen and most public IRC channels are just barren waste lands (the most active community on Rizon is actually Nipponsei <_<).
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Old 2007-12-23, 23:00   Link #60
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Access View Post
On the distro side, basically just keep things running, keep the right files going out and stop files that shouldn't be getting out from getting out, discourage DOS / DDOS attacks, or other more basic denial attacks, try to make as many distros as possible exclusive (carry only your stuff and no one else's), and try to recruit as many good distros as one could, also having members set up distros internally when possible. Once you got good distros behind you, you had to make sure they weren't recruited by any rivals and give them enough bennies to stay with your group over another.

About halfway down this editorial for instance:
http://web.archive.org/web/200404101.../Editorial.htm
I can't really speak for the sanity of the narrator, but there is probably some truth to the structure she outlines and the demands placed on distros.

"As it happens, devilray decided to break up the happy distro channel family due to file leaks.� He makes a preposterous 3 tier distro plan.� He puts TinyOne into his Tier 2 distro channel.� TinyOne finds that she is alone in there with the exception of someone she has never met before.� Her friends from the original distro channel are scattered between Tier 1 distro and the temp channel devilray designated for those people who are still unsorted.� TinyOne is lonely in the tier 2 channel since it is almost empty except for strangers.� She is sad that original channel was broken up.� She decides to quit the tier 2 channel and hangs out in the unsorted distro temp channel with some of her friends.� She waits with them until they get their status.� She waits with them for one week�then two�.then three�and finally devilray comes to them one by one and declares that he will not have them in his distro team unless they only distribute for E-F and no one else.� Of course this is unacceptable for most of these people.� So one of these people decides that he would create his own channel and invite all the people from the original distro channel into this channel so that they can continue as they were before.� TinyOne follows this friend of hers and makes his channel her new home.�"

As for channels, places like EFnet were largely unregulated/unpoliced so it was basically up to the group to protect any public channels they had, with bots and other measures. If you lost control of the channel, that could mean no releases getting out until you could reclaim it, or create a new one and get the distro to move over, etc.
What I meant more by "protect distro" is protecting against the wrong people getting in your distros. There have been many cases of individuals getting in a distro and releasing something that is NOT ready for release, or people from rival groups getting in the distro and getting release time info, distro member names, ftp info etc etc.

If people believe that there isn't still childish BS done by groups against others because of A) fear that another group will have a better release, B) the other group will release first, C) We don't like a certain person so fark you all, etc...

As for protection of channels, there are still many people out there with flood scripts, war scripts etc... who have pathetic personal lives and feel they need to prove their manliness on irc. Or they lost in the contest of subbing so they will get revenge in something they are good at.

Sadly they don't realize that losing the Super Bowl but getting to Disney World first doesn't get even, it just makes them look stupid while they still have the suckage of "its a small world after all" the ride.
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