Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future
The wheels of time keep turning and and twisting and Orpheus rides along. As Orpheus gets tossed around the time-space-continuum, our rules do need adoption to fit the needs of our ever-changing environment.
But first I would like to take a moment to welcome and introduce our new staff members XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX. Thank you for being part of the team!
While not being an actual staff role (but comes with a shiny AD badge alongside your name), we are looking for an Artistic Director who can help make the site more beautiful.
uTorrent has long been a widely used client that saw its glory day in the earlier torrenting era, most likely as the overall best client available. Unfortunately, over the course of time uTorrent has shifted to a less user-friendly piece of ad-ridden bloatware. On the other hand, many excellent open source clients such as Deluge, qBittorrent and Transmission have taken over the space uTorrent once occupied and serve as a stable and superior replacement.
Our commitment to open source software and the distaste of more recent changes to the uTorrent client have prompted us to phase out uTorrent. Moreover, older versions of uTorrent do not support newer bittorrent features and especially have no support for current encryption standards. We are going to remove some other older clients that have similar issues, together with the old uTorrent versions.
In order to give all current users of uTorrent enough time to update their clients we will remove whitelist entries:
Please migrate to a different whitelisted client before the stated date if you are using uTorrent.
This clarification will only affect a handful of users, most of whom will already have learned about the fact. There exist some services that offer seedbox-like services without allowing users to control the torrent client itself. Such services cannot be used with Orpheus because the user is unable to ensure an approved client is used, and in many cases the clients misbehave. Additionally, the clarification emphasizes that torrent clients may under no circumstances be shared among multiple users, which is already implied by Golden Rule 3.5.
If you are using a service such as put.io or real-debrid you are at high risk of having your account disabled.
For CD uploads we have had rip logs for a log time. They are useful tools not only to judge the quality of the audio extraction process but at least equally as useful to find similarities and differences between different rips. As CDs become less and less prevalent, and WEB uploads become more and more popular, the idea to have something to discern the later has spiked.
After some discussions we settled on something we dubbed "audioinfo" file, which carries similar information to what is found in a CD rip log.
There is a technical description of the format and an implementation in bash (linux command line).
In the near future we update the upload form to accept such audioinfo files for WEB FLAC uploads. Once there is a sufficiently large ecosystem for creating the audioinfo files, including hopefully, support for widespread upload tools, we will change the way bonus points for uploads are awarded: WEB FLAC uploads will then no longer award bonus points for the upload itself but for uploading the accompanying audioinfo file, which can at any time be generated from the files by the uploader or any other user. Audioinfo files may be included within the torrent data but are not necessary because they can be created from the audio files. With this change we hope to strongly encourage adding audioinfo files without further raising the complexity bar for less experienced uploaders. We hope for this process to take place over two to three months from now.
Now that the reaper is running smoothly, it is time to circle back and purge V2 uploads from the site. The only exception is when V2 is the only remaining lossy format in a group. This will begin in the next week.
Warm thanks and eternal appreciation must be given to all the people on Orpheus who took the time to read the reaper alerts and go through their archives to restore uploads that had ended up in an unseeded state. Thanks to their efforts, 2,672 uploads have been saved to date, that otherwise would have been lost. This is a pretty impressive figure.
Orpheus is far more than a music sharing site, we are a community! Engaging with others on the forums and on IRC can be great fun. To lower the entry barrier to IRC you can now use the web client at chat.php! Come chat!
The wheels of time keep turning and and twisting and Orpheus rides along. As Orpheus gets tossed around the time-space-continuum, our rules do need adoption to fit the needs of our ever-changing environment.
Welcome to our new staffers
But first I would like to take a moment to welcome and introduce our new staff members XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX. Thank you for being part of the team!
While not being an actual staff role (but comes with a shiny AD badge alongside your name), we are looking for an Artistic Director who can help make the site more beautiful.
Phasing Out uTorrent
uTorrent has long been a widely used client that saw its glory day in the earlier torrenting era, most likely as the overall best client available. Unfortunately, over the course of time uTorrent has shifted to a less user-friendly piece of ad-ridden bloatware. On the other hand, many excellent open source clients such as Deluge, qBittorrent and Transmission have taken over the space uTorrent once occupied and serve as a stable and superior replacement.
Our commitment to open source software and the distaste of more recent changes to the uTorrent client have prompted us to phase out uTorrent. Moreover, older versions of uTorrent do not support newer bittorrent features and especially have no support for current encryption standards. We are going to remove some other older clients that have similar issues, together with the old uTorrent versions.
In order to give all current users of uTorrent enough time to update their clients we will remove whitelist entries:
- on 2023-12-31 uTorrent 3.0 and later
- on 2024-06-30 all remaining uTorrent versions (including uTorrent Mac)
Please migrate to a different whitelisted client before the stated date if you are using uTorrent.
Clarification to Golden Rule 3.3
This clarification will only affect a handful of users, most of whom will already have learned about the fact. There exist some services that offer seedbox-like services without allowing users to control the torrent client itself. Such services cannot be used with Orpheus because the user is unable to ensure an approved client is used, and in many cases the clients misbehave. Additionally, the clarification emphasizes that torrent clients may under no circumstances be shared among multiple users, which is already implied by Golden Rule 3.5.
If you are using a service such as put.io or real-debrid you are at high risk of having your account disabled.
Audioinfo Files
For CD uploads we have had rip logs for a log time. They are useful tools not only to judge the quality of the audio extraction process but at least equally as useful to find similarities and differences between different rips. As CDs become less and less prevalent, and WEB uploads become more and more popular, the idea to have something to discern the later has spiked.
After some discussions we settled on something we dubbed "audioinfo" file, which carries similar information to what is found in a CD rip log.
There is a technical description of the format and an implementation in bash (linux command line).
In the near future we update the upload form to accept such audioinfo files for WEB FLAC uploads. Once there is a sufficiently large ecosystem for creating the audioinfo files, including hopefully, support for widespread upload tools, we will change the way bonus points for uploads are awarded: WEB FLAC uploads will then no longer award bonus points for the upload itself but for uploading the accompanying audioinfo file, which can at any time be generated from the files by the uploader or any other user. Audioinfo files may be included within the torrent data but are not necessary because they can be created from the audio files. With this change we hope to strongly encourage adding audioinfo files without further raising the complexity bar for less experienced uploaders. We hope for this process to take place over two to three months from now.
The end is near for V2
Now that the reaper is running smoothly, it is time to circle back and purge V2 uploads from the site. The only exception is when V2 is the only remaining lossy format in a group. This will begin in the next week.
Warm thanks and eternal appreciation must be given to all the people on Orpheus who took the time to read the reaper alerts and go through their archives to restore uploads that had ended up in an unseeded state. Thanks to their efforts, 2,672 uploads have been saved to date, that otherwise would have been lost. This is a pretty impressive figure.
Come Chat!
Orpheus is far more than a music sharing site, we are a community! Engaging with others on the forums and on IRC can be great fun. To lower the entry barrier to IRC you can now use the web client at chat.php! Come chat!