Answered Improving the download request section

[~SnowAngel~]

I'm positive this may have been mentioned before, but I'd like to know if action will be taken on this.
The general rule for the download section is to first search, then provide the name of the album and artist.
For me, I found the first sticky slightly confusing when it said to use asterisks * to find something. It would be better with an example to see how it works.

Aside from that, there are to ways the instructions can be improved.
1. use this database: http://vgmdb.net/ I use this all the time to find things. Sometimes the titles will be different than the requests, or there will be shopping links to help see exactly what the person is looking for. In this database, there is a wealth of information that can be used when searching such as the catalog number.

2. A quick explanation to search google better. I use quotations, minuses, and plus to find music. It takes a few tries, but sometimes I'll be lead on a trail until I find something. There was a request recently where someone could not find something, but it was actually on AS already. It was the first result after searching the title with quotes.

I do realize that some people won't search, while other just don't know about using special search functions as I mentioned. If people are given these instructions it will make finding the albums easier, and limit the number of requests. It can get to the point where a user only asks for help when they are searching in a foreign language, which there should also be a few words about how to search like that.

 

[Checkmate]

Everything you outline is correct, however, if 99% would read what you suggest before actually creating any thread, we would not even bother having moderator/staff/helpers.

What do you suggest? Sticky some guide, make it a must read, and ban everyone who appears didn't RTMF before making a request?

There's the cold hard fact that most people doesn't even want to read a few line of sentences, let alone several paragraph, else they would have found what they need themselves.

 

[~SnowAngel~]

Banning doesn't help anyone unless it is an extreme problem they are causing. I'm just saying to add some more details into the guide. I've noticed that there can be a huge gap for the time between a given request and a fulfilled response. I'm sure that a user would find it far more beneficial to try on their own a few times more than waiting months. You may consider that for every request a user makes, they must help another's request to be able to get a response. This way, fewer empty requests would pile up, and it would discourage false requests. (meaning, they didn't try searching as suggested). If more people know the different ways to search, we can improve the overall content provided, or prevent a blind search. (content already on AS, but they didn't find it).

If there's a problem with making people read some sentences, is it possible to make it mandatory to take a test about the rules? It can be simple as true/false, multiple choice, etc.

 

[Checkmate]

If there's a problem with making people read some sentences, is it possible to make it mandatory to take a test about the rules? It can be simple as true/false, multiple choice, etc.

No, there's no way to make it mandatory to take a test, nor we can design such an effective test. How about if you can put it into a nice guide, we will stick it up, deal? :x

 

[~SnowAngel~]

It'll take some time to develop depending on how much detail people want. I could use examples, pics, urls' etc. Either way, I'd want some feedback from others before it goes up, just to see if they know something I didn't. Where should I make the draft, and where should I add the final?

 

[Checkmate]

You may start a thread in the Tech Support Section and creates a discussion there. Once it is ready, we will make a linked copies to the Request section, then, sticky it.

 

[Uninstall]

What's good (●´・∀・｀)ﾉ

I'm normally having a hard time trying to find what I'm looking for, but perhaps it could always depend on let's say the "popularity" of whatever you're looking for (I hope I'm phrasing this correctly! Apologies if I don't!)
For example basically for the most part, all I listen to is Hip-Hop and Reggae (or what some people like to call "rap sh*t" hehe), more specifically a lot of the stuff I listen to comes from Japan and in Japan itself, where this "Black Music" (which is really what they call it lol) movement is still blooming and you'll be lucky to find anything coming from an underground label online - e.g. I can find Zeebra's stuff (basically the Godfather of Japanese Hip-Hop, now signed with Sony Music) a lot easier than say, anything from TAO, who is waaaay to underrated in my opinion and works with an independant, underground label "ILL EAST RECORDS" who is probably broke out of their butts right now ｡･ﾟ･(*ﾉД`*)･ﾟ･。

Anyways cutting to the chase, I hope I can contribute to this discussion but in order to find some of the more underground stuff I normally go P2P, which may make others feel a lot more uncomfortable than DDL on the web but I've been doing it for years and my collection has grown pretty large.

Why P2P? Well I'm not sure when it comes to "other musical genres" but what I've noticed with file sharing in Japan is that, although you have places like KMC where people share their J-Pop or whatever, a large amount of people trade files. Personally I've been using Utatane for many many years in a private server where people trade their "Black Music" albums, singles, mixtapes, maxis, DVDs, etc.

So how it works is that you connect to a server; there are a number of public servers but there's an increasing amount of private servers now for some reason where you probably will need a friend or contact to get in and to start trading. Also you will probably need to know very basic Japanese at the very least, for the most part a translation machine will do the trick but there are times when the other users don't like foreigners and you really have to kiss their butts to get what you're looking for lol

Then you basically approach a user or a user approaches you and one asks if you want to trade and usually gives each other a list of stuff they're looking for. Once you agree with what you'll trade, most of the time if the other user is friendly they'll add you to a "white-list" after the trade so then you don't have to trade anymore and you're just free to browse through their files and download it. Then of course it'd be nice if you did the same!

It can be quite a pain sometimes especially when looking for stuff like rare limited mixtapes, but most of the time it pays off if you can't find anything through a Google search or don't know how to. I haven't really gone to the public servers but I'm sure there's lots of stuff people could be spending ages looking for on Google or waiting for here.

I believe this also works for Anime for example with clients like Perfect Dark but I'm not too sure I've never had too much experience with it but from what I've heard about it is that it's really good.

Sometimes I hop on Soulseek as well which is international and yeah people do share some good stuff on there (I've found some great 80s-90s Japanese pop music on there!!) without having to trade but sometimes they'll ask that you share your files as well.

 

[~SnowAngel~]

thanks Uninstall! I have a draft here so far. Depending on how many responses there are, we may need to make a second thread for specifics. I don't want to overwhelm people with the main simple stuff, but I also want to cover anything useful.