Board Problems, Suggestions and Updates

[Albafika]

And what about those who don't do that?  Surely they should do the same, but many don't have backups or even come around here anymore.  Many good hacks were lost to mediafire that no one else has chosen to preserve before links are broken.

First things first: I don't think people are really influenced by what it says about Mediafire being preferred in the Submitting tab. Mediafire might kill some DL links now and then, but most are still there. Mediafire is also preferred for being easy to upload stuff to + easy to download stuff from when back in the day Megaupload had a 40 seconds delay and so did Rapidshare. At this era, Mediafire is still as good, just that now and then pops up a Captcha Recognition.

On the other hand, I could go on and suggest many different alternatives like Dropbox or Skydrive, but I wouldn't suggest ModDB, as it's just not as easy to download stuff from it as it is from the 2 mentioned above.

It really does not matter if we change the preferred site in the Submission page, as anything could fit there. It's all up to personal preferences.

As for spell check... There's a way to fix it: Read what you type before posting. This is not referring to your typing, of course, but to others'. I've not seen a forum with that tool implemented and I don't see how it'd solve any issue.

[Linkxp500]

First things first: I don't think people are really influenced by what it says about Mediafire being preferred in the Submitting tab.

From what I've seen from most of the present hacks, Mediafire has become somewhat of a ritual upload destination for most common users.  I know I've seen Dropbox and Skydrive used by the more advanced hackers, but that's because they too realize Mediafire's shortcomings.

I will have to agree that Mediafire is an easy place to download files.  I will also say it's an easy place to upload files.  The thing is, Mediafire has backups of those files to fix links whenever, but it also removes files if it violates their terms of service, which I have not seen as a problem for ModDB, Dropbox, or Skydrive.

And honestly, the only hassle for ModDB would really be the upload and page creation process.  Downloading isn't so complicated, but then again, it may require more than one click depending on where the Brawl Vault link directs to.

As for spell check... There's a way to fix it: Read what you type before posting. This is not referring to your typing, of course, but to others'. I've not seen a forum with that tool implemented and I don't see how it'd solve any issue.

I understand and agree with that fix, but not everyone is willing to type and text differently, and that poses a problem.  And I actually HAVE seen plenty of forums that provide a spell check function, but even that won't always work for someone who chooses to spend little time to make sure his or her message is legible.  It's probably just easier if others just learn how to understand such badly written comments, which, unfortunately, is a hassle for users who type in a proper manner.

[BlueBrain]

ive been using mediafire for what, 2 years? and ive only lost 1 link...

[Segtendo]

I've lost only a few things on there, and it was BRSTMs.

[Linkxp500]

Okay, so... Say everyone on the site has lost 1-3 every 2 years.  How many users is that?  How many hacks per person (excluding Megaupload hacks)?  I'd say at least 1/8 of all hacks are lost to Mediafire and aren't reuploaded (more than 4,000 hack submissions).  Many of those hacks are at least decent in terms of quality.

[Puraidou]

ive been using mediafire for what, 2 years? and ive only lost 1 link...

I lost 2 in 2 years.

IF people are really that [censored]y about mediafire, try mega.co.nz.. The big bro of MegaUpload. >_>

[KingJigglypuff]

IF people are really that [censored]y about mediafire, try mega.co.nz.. The big bro of MegaUpload. >_>

Or Dropbox. :P

[Puraidou]

Or Dropbox. :P

Mega gives you 50GB free storage, dropbox gives 2GB...

[KingJigglypuff]

Mega gives you 50GB free storage, dropbox gives 2GB...

Dammit. I forgot about that. *Table flip*

[??_?]

If you wanna be super safe, I'd use dropbox or a similar cloud storage service, such as sugarsync or google's or microsoft's services.  There's always a possibility that sites such as mediafire will be shut down like megaupload did.  They've already been issued warnings and stuff...

[BlueBrain]

wanna be super safe, use them all at once, upload every single mod to all the servers available, and add all the links in the description :srs:

people are free to do whatever the hell they want as long as it's in the rules, so yeah, we're not discussing anything at all actually

[Puraidou]

wanna be super safe, use them all at once, upload every single mod to all the servers available, and add all the links in the description :srs:

Megafire Skybox
Mega, Mediafire, Skydrive, Dropbox.

[Miacis]

Speaking of images... why is there no attachment feature in posts?  Is it to reduce bandwidth consumption of the server or did you just see no need for it?

Probably both. It's not really a necessary strain to put on our already heavy boards. It's already bearing the load of a bunch of mods, plus the whole of BrawlVault, after all. And using image hosts really isn't that complicated, and probably easier to manage than uploading from here.

URLs were easy to copy and paste into the address bar and undo the word filter's changes if we were familiar with what was filtered and changed into what.

I am certain that all the newbies on that forum loved dealing with that feature on every single deformed link. r)

Another thing I've noticed is that the hacks are predominantly uploaded to mediafire, which seems to lose lots of files linked from the site.  Couldn't we find a site (if the Kitty Corp site server isn't a good choice to preserve uploads) that is reliable enough to keep these hacks on the internet?  I would suggest ModDB, but I'm not sure how well that would work out.

Hosting them ourselves isn't much of an option in the current situation. And I have never heard of a "perfect" hosting website with no ads, immediate access to downloads, and that never deleted any files ever, so I'm pretty sure MF will have to do for now. Maybe MEGA is better? I'll need to give it a try.

Also, I'm pretty sure ModDB is more about full games or full "mods" like Brawl+. Individual add-on characters/Stages/BRSTMs doesn't seem like their thing. But I dunno, it sounds like we aren't talking about the same website.

I understand and agree with that fix, but not everyone is willing to type and text differently, and that poses a problem.  And I actually HAVE seen plenty of forums that provide a spell check function, but even that won't always work for someone who chooses to spend little time to make sure his or her message is legible.  It's probably just easier if others just learn how to understand such badly written comments, which, unfortunately, is a hassle for users who type in a proper manner.

As a matter of fact, people who currently don't re-read their posts and didn't bother intalling a spell checker themselves will generally not bother re-reading through it with the help of our own spell-checker.
I don't really see why a forum would bother imposing a spell-check on their whole userbase, unless they actually use it as an excuse to be more severe against poor spelling (which is quite justifiable). But considering the rather young and (pardon my harshness) "internetly incultured" population that mostly lurks around KCMM, it seems like such a policy would be an insane crusade.

Okay, so... Say everyone on the site has lost 1-3 every 2 years.  How many users is that?  How many hacks per person (excluding Megaupload hacks)?  I'd say at least 1/8 of all hacks are lost to Mediafire and aren't reuploaded (more than 4,000 hack submissions).  Many of those hacks are at least decent in terms of quality.

Which is why:
1) You should always keep backups.
2) We have the BV Community Support.

Not to mention, your calculus is really wrong on the parameters. It's not a question of how many each user loses (since a user with only two hacks has little chances of losing both), but the rate per user. And so far, we've got ... what? A 2% chance? That's pretty negligible, and really far from that gross 1/8 estimation.
And it's heavily mitigated by the #1 and #2 I just mentionned above.

So yeah, I think MF is just simpler for the way we make and publish hacks, here.

[Linkxp500]

Fair enough (to all of those points).  It seems like you've all thought about these issues more than once before.  Of course, it's always easier to let things happen the way they have been, and that may be the best thing to do regarding Mediafire and the lack of a spell-checking option.

[??_?]

May I suggest a steam pin thing along with the MSN and IM things down below the awards?