Since I'm the person who has set up the direct connect hub, I guess that makes me at least partly responsible... I feel obliged to step in here with some comments.
First of all, let me remind everyone that the taper, Patrick, has gone on public record (in another thread here on eskimofriends) that he does NOT want to see the 4-15 and 4-16 (nor indeed any of his shows) shows appear on sharingthegroove, period.
Let us not forget he is a taper, and without tapers there would be no shows to trade. I have the utmost respect for all tapers, and so should you. Please respect Patricks wishes.
On the subject of STG: some people think *everything* should be torrented. I disagree. It is another tool, and it has it's place. Certainly there should be SOME torrents, to keep the momentum going... but NOT every single show. STG is, in general, full of leechers. I know, I seeded an orbital video there... within minutes of the first completed download... they disconnected leaving me once more the sole seed; within days I saw the video offered for sale on ebay. I spent an entire 4 days uploading... "frustrated" does not come close. At one point I offered to seed some damien shows on STG... but I was told not to - and so I didn't. That's cool, I totally understand the concerns, given my experiences.
But what are the options? Well unless anything has changed recently, you've basically got mail trades, or Mario's ftp. Mail trading is cool; the anticipation of waiting... the excitement of receiving... the pleasure of listening.
ftp is cool too; Mario's ftp has an awful lot of cool shows, and I've got a lot of respect for the service provided, and for the time and effort that must take to run.
HOWEVER... and this is key to why I started the hub. Damien is becoming incredibly popular. I know this, because there is a whole bunch of people posting here. The most recent torrent pulled in around 400 downloads - that's a lot of fans. Mario's ftp is nigh-on impossible to connect to anymore. There is a perceived (by me at least) frustration that newcomers cannot connect, and cannot even begin to listen to all the great material that's out there. For every b+p thread that comes around - there is always a dozen or more people disappointed that they missed out (e.g. this thread!). There have been several threads asking about direct connect hubs.
I felt this was something the fans wanted, and that the time was right.
Make no mistake: I've had to put a lot of effort in to make this work. I've had to buy new hardware. I've had to pay for a domain. I've had to write a website. I've had to setup the hub itself. I've had to maintain the hub. I'm still maintaining it now, with help from some very good friends. Am I looking for sympathy? Not really. Am I looking for understanding? You bet.
Why have I done this? Back in january I hadn't even heard of Damien. In february I saw him live. All I can say is: wow. I was moved so such that I went and found Marios ftp, and over the next few months downloaded most of the shows. And now, I want to give something back to the community. I don't have enough bandwidth to run an ftp, but I do have the time and inclination to run a hub. Especially when I perceived a need for one.
Now, some people have levelled criticisms at the hub as being too public, and too open to abuse. Those are valid points, so I feel the need to respond. Certainly the hub is public - we will not turn away any fans and certainly it is 'open' in the sense that no registration is required. I could perhaps argue that Marios ftp is public, since the address/user/pass are common knowledge, but that is straying from the point. However it is certainly a LONG way from STG. The maximum number of users we have had to date, is 20. The hub has realtime chat; new members are made welcome. We have a very strict set of rules on what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behaviour - and we enforce them. No shows are stored on the hub: it is merely a connecting place for damien fans - the users share the shows. In that respect it is akin to a distributed ftp model.
We are trying to be a pleasant, focussed community. I'm doing everything in my power to make it so. We want to work with the tapers; we want to bring new shows to the community; we want to respect the tapers wishes. All new shows we seed on the hub, will be with the tapers permission. We want to coexist with the existing trading channels... please help us to achieve this!
Apologies for the long and sometimes rambling post. There. I feel better now! :-)
best regards,
stephen
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