EDM364's MOD DIARY, PAGE 2

Diary pages are going to be running a day behind, so what you read on 1/15/17 will be dated 1/14/17, etc. I can't make conclusions before I finish out my day, and I don't feel like writing before I go to bed because I usually wait until I feel like my eyes are falling out and I can't take it anymore, lol. So, I've decided I'll type up the posts first thing when I get online and add up all my tallies and whatnot then. If you missed the descrip and general purpose of these entires, you can read it on the first page; just click the previous link at the bottom of the page.

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/14/17 was not out of the ordinary aside from being a short day for modding. Woke up approx 2 PM, stayed in bed because I felt like shit, drank a metric ton of peppermint tea. Checked Newgrounds, deposited experience, and got to work modding for a few hours. Stolen content was being submitted at about the same rate as the day before. That's to say, about as fast as I could handle it and sort legitimate submissions to scout or give feedback. I did spend some time with @littlemisfortune before she had to head back to college and watched some American Dad, the episode where Stan transplants his brain into a horse. Had to go to bed before I wanted to because I had plans early the next morning, so I didn't get as much done as I wanted to; however, I did play some Pokemon Go and get a few more incubators. Haven't been keeping up with my phone or social media much, but I am concerned about my ex-girlfriend, who has a pretty serious infection in her throat that spread to her sinuses and lungs, last I heard. Other than that, not much doing. Have not touched any art nor music in a while, although I did proof read some poetry and songwriting I had been working on, and I need to fix a project file for @RealFaction to spit on -- if I can find the damn thing. Recorded a few more screencaps and videos of Skyrim gameplay here in my spare time. Mostly archery stuff, sneaking, dragons glitching, shit flying out of the floor in Arcadia's shop, etc.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Stolen submissions: 56
No. Disallowed DAW Uses: 4
Duplo Music: 1
Non-remix: 4
Total Unpublished: 65
Users Banned: 28
Infractions per Capita: 2.322

BREAKDOWN:
Out of 65 submissions reviewed, all but 15 were for Geometry Dash or stolen by Geometry Dash centric accounts. 4 songs used disallowed DAWs such Music Maker Jam and MAGIX Music Maker, and one was entirely comprised of loops (duplo). An additional 4 songs were non-remixed content such as cuts, applied FX, nightcore, etc. The remaining infractions were people uploading songs they simply liked, for whatever purpose. Finished the day out with a mean of 2.322 thefts per capita.

CONCLUSION
The high infraction rate per capita I suspect is due to a smaller sample size than usual (due to early bedtime), as well as stumbling over a couple users who managed to scrape past with 10+ stolen submissions without getting snagged yet. One guy I came across had uploaded the same song about seven times, along with some other junk and GD "cuts". Another had made a new account to evade bans and was about to upload the 13 song catalog of "remixed" videogame VSTs that were nightcored, slowed, flanged to hell, or reverbed, which Tom had removed the day before. Across a lot of these, I notice from the descriptions that newcomers to the portal just don't seem to understand how NG works, how we enforce our rules, why they're in place, etc. if they even care. I am seeing a bigger turnout of accurate flags though, so keep it up, guys. Blow that whistle, baby!

<< PREVIOUS ENTRY - NEXT PAGE >>

EDM364's MOD DIARY, PAGE 1

I figured I'd make this not only as an easily accessed record to keep myself accountable, but a public and transparent tracking system for my affairs in the Audio Portal, interspersed with some commentary and daily life jazz. Note, this is only what I'm coming across, myself. Other mods may be pulling even more stolen and rule breaking content off the site, and there are quite a few of us to do just that. @TomFulp is probably the biggest workhorse of all of us, now that I mention. So this little series of posts here is for me, but if you enjoy it and find it interesting too, great!

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/13/17 wasn't a super busy day for me. I had @littlemisfortune at my house overnight, and the day was not particularly out of the ordinary; the day before, we had stayed out playing Pokemon Go and taken a nice long walk, and I ended up going to bed around 5 AM. When I woke up at around 3 PM, the first thing I did was check NG and of course, play some Skyrim and get to answering my PMs. It seemed like an ordinary day, if albeit a bit fraught with stolen content in the unscouted section of the AP, some sour-grapes flagging legitimate submissions, etc.

Amusingly, I discovered that users I've banned for theft have taken to zero bombing and flagging my latest music, as if it does any good aside from damage their whistles and bump the rankings around a bit. Took them long enough though, I suppose. I've always figured, if you're not making anyone mad, you're not doing the job right. I did my duties throughout the day as normal and narrowly managed to get around to depositing my experience and checking out the flash portal. 38 days until level 23, I think, but the unscouted AP really kept me busy. Also, I took out the garbage, and some weird brown shit leaked onto my bare foot. That was probably the grossest thing that's happened to me in a decade aside from getting musked on by a frisky snake.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Stolen submissions: 72
No. Disallowed DAW Uses: 12
Other Rule Breach: 1
Total Unpublished: 85
Users Banned: 45
Infractions per Capita: 1.888

BREAKDOWN:
69 out of 72 thefts were explicitly for Geometry Dash or by Geometry Dash centric accounts. The remaining 3 were people uploading music they liked. Some were even obviously ripped from YouTube. Of the 12 disallowed DAW submissions, 10 were Music Maker Jam, and 2 were MAGIX Music Maker. Several more that I couldn't quite put a finger on were identified and taken care of by other helpful users and mods and are not included in this count. I also ran into another less prevalent rule breach -- an advertisement for some sort of sports site focusing entirely on games of cricket. These breaches totalled to 85 removals across 45 banned users, at a rate of 1.888 infractions per capita. All but 9 songs were submitted within the past five days.

CONCLUSION
Audio theft has really picked up since the 2.1 update of Geometry Dash. Hoping to catch more stolen and rule breaking content today, and that with strict enforcement, we can keep this place clean and free from any legal problems careless thieves might bring down on our heads. Every time I go to unscouted, I catch a few more stolen songs. I don't know when these boneheads will get the memo, but keep your eyes open.

NEXT PAGE >>

Hey Newgrounds regs, EDM364 here with another help resource I typed up in my spare time -- How to Review Anything, the Right Way -- and I do mean anything, in a constructive manner according to Newgrounds' rules and general good nettiquette. Pay attention, and you might even score some medals along the way.

Now, it may seem common sense, but if you've been around NG any length of time, you've probably seen enough useless reviews to know why proper constructive criticism is important. Still, maybe you're confused about what exactly separates a "useless" review from a "helpful" one, or what your average review is supposed to encompass. Perhaps you're even looking to bolster the number of reviews under your belt without having to worry about lesser quality ones disappearing, or how to write reviews more efficiently without sacrificing quality. Statwhores, I'm looking at you.

Well, whether you're trying to break your first 10k reviews without the hassle or just curious about how to leave proper feedback, this guide is for you. Let's get started.

What are reviews? What's their purpose, and why are they important?

It might seem like a stupid question, but reviews and comments are a staple of any user-created content site. YouTube, SoundCloud, DeviantArt, even Facebook, they all have some form of commenting system, often with comment threads where people go back and forth about things that aren't even remotely related to the actual content they're viewing. YouTube is pretty much a giant cess pool and in general a great example of what happens when you have a large community with little to no rules or guidance regarding what it can or can't talk about in the comments. Just look at this shit.

This is why we can't have things -- or rather, why Newgrounds doesn't have a threaded comment system. The General Forum is cancer enough. However, some sites have more direct alternatives; you'll notice DeviantArt has a critique system. This is most similar to what we have here, scored reviews, which are regulated with help from the userbase and a team of moderators. Unlike the scores that rank our content numerically, these are actually the driving force behind the ever-improving body of work we see from the great artists, animators, and music producers endemic to Newgrounds.

Think about it. Would any of us as newcomers have been motivated to keep submitting content if no one ever bothered to say, "Hey bud, your stuff right here is crap, but there's this one thing I like about it that you should keep doing," or vice versa?

Well, this is what a good review does: it tells people what they're getting right, what they're getting wrong, and how to step up to the plate better prepared next time they're making a submission, without the flame wars, verbal garbage, and drama inherent in other communities. This keeps creators motivated and opens up new avenues for fresh and improving content -- because a Newgrounds review isn't an opportunity for people to get brownie points for making asses of themselves; it's an opportunity for the creator to learn something. In fact, this is precisely the reason our site isn't subject to a plague of amusingly accurate Star Trek memes like the sterling example below, and probably what we owe our staying power to.

Accurate af.

So, what separates good reviews from bad? How can I write reviews that won't get deleted?

Let's start off with what a proper review strives to accomplish -- telling the creator what they got right, what they got wrong, and how they could possibly improve, if you know. There's plenty of leeway since each submissionis different, but if you keep that in mind, you and your reviews should be safe.

Just remember your absolute DON'Ts:

• DON'T write anything that breaks Newgrounds review guidelines
• DON'T ask about anything unrelated to the author or submission
• DON'T talk about breaking NG rules. This will get you banned
• DON'T accuse the submission, author, or reviewers of breaking rules
• DON'T leave one word reviews. Even a sentence can be meaningful
• DON'T mass review without offering any useful comments about the work
• DON'T ask to be scouted or advertise your own work
• DON'T ask the user to upload something else aside from an update
• DON'T aim personal attacks at any other users
• DON'T solicit and just be a douche in general
• DON'T plagiarize other reviews

Pretty simple. Stay on topic, keep it clean, and make sure your reviews don't look like these:

Additionally, if you find on your quest any reviews like this, flag them either useless or abusive -- the latter only if they explicitly break Newgrounds rules, such as in the case of reviews containing personal attacks, accusing anyone of theft or rule breaking. @NekoMika has said that reviews asking to be scouted or soliciting uploads aren't written-in-stone abusive in the guidelines, but she and most review mods will remove them anyway. @RohantheBarbarian's slightly dated Abusive Review Guide goes back and forth on the topic, and you can find more examples of abusive reviews, as well as resources, there. There's also @Hacsev's Abusive Review Quiz, which is a pretty good assessment in identifying helpful, useless, and abusive reviews, and @Psychopath's Whistle Cow Crew.

Now, why is the distinction between useless and abusive so important? Useless reviews can and do get the chop, but flagging a review that simply reads "shit" the same as you would a review that says "you are shit" is an error. One is a useless review, and the other is a personal attack. If you see more than one single-word review by the same person that just says "shit", then these fall under the "don't make tons of crappy reviews just to up your stats" rule, and you can flag them abusive.

There are some exceptions to the general rule, such as instances when reviews containing long strings of gibberish are actually level exports from games like Punk-o-matic 2. For the purposes of this guide though, just don't write useless and abusive reviews. It's not worth it.

If you have questions about reviews, you can send a PM to review mods such as @Malachy, @NekoMika, and @Exedor, too.

Now, that we've covered what not to do, your absolute DOs:

• DO always pay attention to the submission in its entirety
• DO try to give feedback to the best of your ability
• DO talk about what the author got right
• DO talk about what the author got wrong, and try not to be a dick about it
• DO offer advice and alternative methods and improvements, if you have any

Basically, the less humorous version of @JujubeLock's How Not to Write Abusive Reviews.

Since there were fewer images of helpful reviews than I'd hoped for, I figure I'll just rip some that I personally found helpful. Note that you don't have to know a lot of terminology to leave a good review, but it does help!

Not all helpful reviews have to be long or detailed, of course, but the more detailed, naturally, the more helpful and constructive. Sometimes, there isn't much to say about a short animation, simple art piece, or tiny loop, though, and even something as simple as "Decent but could really use more detail" is about as good of a comment as you can leave behind. No shame.

That's about all there is when it comes to leaving good reviews. I'm sure you're wondering by now when my next book comes out, and I really need to get back to writing on things for this masterpost of resources. See ya!

Closing footnote, if you're mentioned here, I probably used your content as a resource in this guide-slash-filibuster. Special thanks to @Psychopath, @RohantheBarbarian, @Hacsev, @Tekcos, @splap, @Asandir, @JujubeLock, @TaintedLogic, @Daydream-Anatomy, @CyberDevil, @NekoMika, @Malachy, @Exedor, and many others for your contributions in making Newgrounds great!
 

Send me links!

In the interest of helping to keep Newgrounds clean, here I will link answers to questions regarding the audio portal rules, what and what not to flag, discussions regarding what we can and can't submit, etc.,divided into sections. Some of these will be written by me. Some won't. All will be helpful and accurate as far as I can judge. You may submit recommendations and corrections in the comments, as well as subscribe to updates!

FLAGGING

1. EDM364's Definitive Guide for Finding and Flagging Stolen/Abusive Audio. Added here 1/12/17. Contained within is a comprehensive guide focusing on rooting out Geometry Dash theft, as well as some humor and biography. Lengthy but worth a read. I've used this method to find thousands of stolen songs. My hope is that it eventually becomes obsolete.

PODCASTS

1. Submit yours!

REVIEWS

1. How to properly review content, and why it's important. Added here 1/12/17. Contained within are links to several help resources, the official review guidelines, and examples of both helpful and abusive reviews, as well as some humor and medal opportunities.
2.  
3. What to do when people ask to be scouted in their reviews. Added here 1/12/17. Contained within is a somewhat dated post I need to correct now that tree-scouting has been corrected similarly thanks to @PsychoGoldfish. It's still however worth a read.

RULES

STATISTICS

1. EDM364's Mod Diary. Added here 2/1/17. Contained within is an episodic diary detailing my experiences as an audio mod, Audio Portal infractions, and daily life/projects, intended to give insight into the problems the portal faces, as well as chronicle my life and times -- as well as of course creations. Entries also cover extensively the problems inherent in GD versions 1.9 through 2.1, the cancerous side of the GD community, why GD was removed from Steam, and proposed solutions.
2. Submit your own chronicles and statistics here!

SUBMISSIONS

To be edited and formatted further as I have time. Categories alphabetized 2/1/17.

Audio Flagging, For Dummies
Everything You Need to Know, by ADR3-N.

Greetings, NG!

What you're about to read is a celabratory guide post marking my first week as an audio mod, written while I was vacationing in Arkansas some time in Dec. 2016. It is now May 1, 2018. As a present to you and a help-resource, I'm posting my not-quite secret methods for finding and flagging rule-breaking content in the Audio Portal in the hopes that it will benefit your whistles as much as your help will the moderation team and site as a whole.

With high hope and much pleasure, I present to you, without further ado:

ADR3-N's Pretty Darn Definitive Guide for Finding and Flagging Stolen/Abusive Audio

Heya NG regulars! ADR3-N here, still in Arkansas at the time of writing, hiding away from the sub-freezing temperatures and snow. As you may know, I've recently become a part of the mod team (thank you all so much; you too @TomFulp!) and now spend most of my time zapping infringing audio and smiting abusers of our fine establishment.

In the past couple of days alone, I've found probably over 2,000 stolen songs, banned tons of thieves, and run neck-deep into a whole lot more crap than I bargained for. It's an absolutely massive task keeping the AP clean, especially in the advent of a particular brand of thieves migrating to NG like passenger pidgeons in their prime, blackening the skies, shitting stolen content out like... Uh, like those plastic toy birds that poop candy eggs every three steps or so, and there seems to be no end in sight.

One and a half years later, and still going strong!

Sure, the current situation sucks, but what this means for you is whistle points galore  -- potentially, if you know your stuff and don't mind doing some sniffing. Lucky for those of you chasing a deity whistle, I can save you a lot of trouble. All you need to know is what to look for.

This guide focuses primarily on stolen content and Geometry Dash abuse, but it may also overlap with spam or other rule breaches. If you want more whistle points, or just want to make NG a better place -- faster and more efficiently -- dig in. Some parts bolded for skimming. Yes, TLDR sufferers, even with my propensity for massive posts, I thought of you.

Step One - Mr. Easy and Mrs. Obvious

If you're poring through the audio portal, unscouted section, or search pages, you'll see a constant stream of content. You may be tempted to go through it all, but should you really? No! Listening to every submission on Newgrounds is just not possible. You'd burn yourself out before you even scratched the surface.

Take things one submission at a time. Stop when you start feeling like it's tedious. Take short cuts, too, like searching specific sections or tags in unscouted like GeometryDash.

Any tips in this guide can probably be searched for and pull up some rule-breaking content; just remember to focus on one thing at a time and pay attention so you don't flag anything legitimate.

Whenever you're ready to begin, click the disc on whatever catches your attention firsthand, and most importantly, look at the TITLE of the submission.

Is the text:

• spelled wrong
• weird looking
• broken English
• indicating an author other than the NG username
• "not mine" or geometry dash related (GD cuts)
• named after a popular song/artist
• named similarly to content reported in AP cleanup
• [NCS Release] <song title>____</song title>

Example titles: Skrillex - Cinema, Re (as in Reanimate), Alan Walker - Shine, Fade [NCS Release], Death by Glamour, for Geometry Dash, Hellcat - Desmeon, Pegboard Nerds, cool, NOT MINE DON'T REMOVE, AAAAA, etc. Check for mispellings too!

Tip: There are tons more examples in AP cleanup. You can check which are unpublished by clicking the CD icon beside the name. The more popular a song is, the more likely it is to be stolen. Still, be careful. Sometimes people report legitimate content -- rare but enough that it deserves a mention.

I've seen big batches of stolen NCS releases, Skrillex, TheFatRat, MDK, and other popular works. If the username doesn't match the artist name, it's probably stolen, disincluding any impersonators like the fake Lensko account we found earlier. Any EDM, pop, or Hip-Hop song is a prime target for theft. Chippy soundtracks like Undertale are popular too!

Of course, while the AP cleanup is an excellent resource for inquiring/learning about and reporting stolen content, it's not a flag-whoring thread. You can lose whistle points by flagging any legitimate submissions reported there, so it's important to only flag submissions you know or highly suspect to be stolen/copyrighted/spam. Most people find these through the search feature, looking for common terms associated with AP abuse.

If you want someone to spoon feed you flags to help repair your whistle, ask around at your own risk, but piggyback flagging can actually hurt more than it helps. You're better off looking on your own and tapping a mod on the shoulder if you're not sure what you're looking at.

Excellent terms to search for: NCS, Skrillex, Borgore, not mine, all rights, no es mia, esta cancion, gmd, geometry, for gd, geometry dash, Alan Walker, Hellcat, Desmeon, MDK, Fingerbang, Reanimate, tombstone, thefatrat, Pegboard, Krewella, Monstercat, please scout, pls scout, scout me, undertale, sans, papyrus, etc. Basically any popular artist or song, GD related tags, you get the idea.

These are just what I've seen the most of, and my god is the unscouted section at large a massive treasure trove -- or dung heap, when it comes to flagging. There are at least 5-10 rule-breaking songs every day from some idiot(s) who never read the disclaimer, or did and don't care.

Naturally, even though people like myself go through these hotspots daily, there's no way mods can catch every single illicit submission, not alone. This is where users like you come in. Don't be shy! Dig in, and as I mentioned before, be VERY careful about scouting given the current situation with thefts, spam, and impersonating accounts for GD.

Occasionally, we get suckered into scouting a thief, since most GD thieves are not aware, under the current GD API, new artists must be whitelisted by RobTop himself, and stolen songs won't make the cut!

You might wonder, if there's so much music in the world, why are so many of the same songs, tags, and artists in general so common? Why are these terms so easy to pinpoint? Why does this keep happening?

Cancer? Sort of.

Let me explain. 80-99% of what we see is people stealing songs for Geometry Dash, an unintended consequence of GD creator @Zhenmuron (RobTop) updating his game to be able to use custom songs from Newgrounds. Almost immediately, we were bombarded with a bunch of people who didn't know or care about our community trying to upload their favorite Skrillex songs and getting mad when their submissions were swiftly taken down for theft and copyright violation.

Their next move? Thousands of NCS thefts from YouTube, because clearly, copyright infringement was the only problem in this equation. Some of these thieves have made multiple accounts to evade their permanent bans. Others whine that copyright is stupid, @Zhenmuron should have partnered with YouTube or SoundCloud, and Newgrounds moderation team sucks. The image below is just a fraction of the cancer.

In particular, the theft-minded crowd is a thick-headed bunch that believes they're entitled to upload whatever they want, despite a clear warning not to submit music you didn't personally make. Mods hear a lot of bs in their defense -- whether it's "fair use" (which doesn't fly here or anywhere else), non-copyright material, so-and-so said they could upload it wherever, etc.

They don't care about us, our rules, or if our whole site gets taken down over their five seconds of fun. Many even steal from artists, some already on Newgrounds, in the same breath as they harass them to upload their favorites and beg for other NG users to scout them. Tom himself has asked them to stop to no avail.

This results in a lot of the same songs being stolen ad nauseam and a lot of workload for moderators. You may find yourself running into the same song submitted by 50 different people, all of whom seem to think they're going to get away with it and that the submissions will stay up if they get scouted (wrong, and wrong!). At the very least, it makes for easy whistle points and list making for the AP Cleanup thread.

If you find any submissions that are clearly rule-breaking, flag them (intelligibly) and (optionally) report them to AP cleanup. If you want to dig deeper and find more elusive rule-breaking crap, keep reading and we'll move on to the harder stuff.

Step Two - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Rule-Breach

You do have the occasional a-hole that tries to get sneaky and obscure the name to make rule breaks harder for mods to find. Check everything, always. "Remixes" in particular are not immune to this, as GD thieves will try to hide the original songs by calling them remixes and even affixing their own usernames to them, sometimes in combination with totally changing the title and even impersonating the artist.

What do you do when a suspicious submission's title is obscure?

Check out the summary, description, and tags.

Does one or more:

• make no sense, have illegible text
      "AA" "asdfasdfgh" "11234" "lol"
• mention Geometry Dash, Zhenmuron, or RobTop
      "I don't make music often. I just shorten songs from my PC for GD"
• admit theft
      "not mine", "all rights to...", "esta cancion no es mia", etc.
• talk about the song in a way a creator would not
      "I love this song!" "Great song" "I could listen to this all day"
• mention a popular artist, movie, anime, or game (it may have copyrighted material)
      Undertale, Rurouni Kenshin, Skrillex, any NCS artist, etc.
• address NG mods or other users in any way, especially derogatory
      "fuck u NG" "if anyone removes this u r a dick"
• mention DAWs not allowed on NG AND consist entirely of loops
      Magix Music Maker, Music Maker Jam
• link to ANYWHERE else
      Scrutinize that, esp. for any NG backlinks. Usually they are crediting a source. It could be a smoking gun.
• beg to be scouted (some people even do this with reviews, which you should flag too)

99% of these will be stolen/spam or otherwise rule-breaking. If you happen upon one that isn't a combination of these, it could have no tags at all, a virtually nonexistent description, or be in a completely bullshit genre and have misattributed authorship, like the uploader playing "bass" on an EDM track uploaded to the Easy Listening section I came across the other day. Yes, some people are this stupid.

Now, find a submission with a funny names, bullshit tags, and/or suspicious descrip?

Check out the uploader's account too. Is it:

• GD, MLG, or "gamer" related? A lot of these guys turn out to be thieves.
• made the same day as the upload, or near it? This is often someone evading a ban.
• possibly impersonating a popular artist? Lensko, TAG-Underground, Desmeon, etc.
• totally void of any links, newsposts, other content?
• description is strange or incriminating
• ageless, genderless, picless, etc.?
• Stat-less, lvl 1, no posts, etc.

You get the point. Scrutinize that profile, especially if you see any of the other signs of stolen, abusive, or spam content. None of these by themselves mean much, but in combination with suspicious audio can be a big red flag. Once you eye-ball the descrips and the submitter, check out the submission itself again.

Does the song:

• sound too high quality? (this is a big one for me)
      esp. "first" songs or just pro quality music in general from a newer, barren acc
• sound like a full orchestra or poppy, girly Japanese/Chinese/Korean lyrics?
      These are probably stolen from anime, cartoons, or TV (you'd be surprised)
• sound like something you've heard before?
      esp. videogame themes, NCS music, or popular songs. Serach the title.
• differ significantly from their other submissions?
      eg. a country song, an orchestral arrangement, and a rap song on the same acc
• sing in a different language other than the user's text and other submissions
      A Peruvian 14-yo's acc was uploading a 39-yo Korean's music
• have an acapella? Search the lyrics.
      Failing that, use an audio search.
• have a jarring intro and fade? This is pretty much a dead giveaway of a YT rip.
• have copyrighted material? Flag it.
• consist entirely of loops in an unoriginal arrangement? Flag.
• contain ear-rape/spam or hate speech? Flag.
• consist solely of advertisements? Flag.

These are just a few indicators of possible AP abuse. As you scour the portal, they become more natural and easily identifiable. When you find content with similarities to any of the above, I just about guarantee it's stolen, spam, or just malicious. Of course, always look for proof if you can't immediately ID the content.

Tip: Having trouble? The internet is your friend. The easiest way to pinpoint a theft is to find it on YouTube. Often thieves rip their songs from here to begin with, so all you have to do is search the title if they haven't defaced it. 90% of songs I didn't recognize that weren't purposefully obscured or outright admitted stolen were easily found on YT, approximate duration included. If the name is screwed up, look for clues around the account to help you. Occasionally, they'll even upload the same song twice -- dead giveaway.

Failing that, use some sort of sound search app on your smartphone or simply ask in AP cleanup about it. It's hard to go wrong, really. Just remember, if you find one rule-breaking song on an account, anything else they have is most likely also bad news, though not always. Eye-ball it all just as hard as you did the first song, and only flag what you know to be rule-breaking, and you'll be fine.

Step Three - You're a Grand Old Flag

Unlike flagging reviews, flagging in the AP isn't a one-click affair, but that doesn't mean it has to be a complicated process. Just make sure your flags are intelligible and informative and you'll do great. It could be as simple as recognizing the song or linking to an earlier YouTube vid containing it.

If you do link a YT video, make sure the upload date is before the NG submission's and that the submitter in question is not the same person. Granted, we have had some impersonator accounts here on NG, but those are usually easy to identify if you follow the above advice.

If you manage all of that, you may find keeping track of your queue in notepad useful for reporting to the AP cleanup thread. This way, you can inquire about songs you were unsure about in the same breath as reporting the stolen audio. If you have any other questions, of course, you can always grab an audio mod!

That should about wrap it up. Happy flagging! Report rule-breaking audio here!

~A

Popping in to let everyone know I made it back to safe, a few days earlier than expected due to circumstances a few of you are aware of. 9 hr drive. Now just got to unpack my shit, get some modding in for the night, and get some rest. It's been a long, long day!

Some things before I go. Tomorrow I'm gonna finish making my pop filter (hello pair of socks and coat hanger!), record that guide on flagging abusive/stolen audio I've been hyping somewhat lately, and post a transcript/text version here as a newspost, which I will send to the front page. @Psychopath, you might like this one; stay tuned. :)

I may make sequels as time goes on with the current theft trends or start logging the types of rule-breaking content I run into often. Could be fun, and I'd like to show people exactly how much flaggable content they can run into if they pay attention.

Anyway, time to get back to doing my job. See you tomorrow!

Safe and sound in Arkansas without much event barring some good Mexican food. I'll be here until the 23rd or so. No VA equipment, but still available for writing lyrics, most production needs, reviews, etc. Having a pretty good time. Man, I really didn't realize just how much I needed a vacation!

~A

Packing up and heading to Arkansas for a good nine days or so. Who knows, maybe it'll cure my artist block. If anything interesting happens, might update this post.

I'm seeing a lot of people spamming reviews on new songs for others to scout them lately, and I'm here to tell you now, don't do it, tell all your friends not to do it, tell your friends' friends not to do it, share this post... You know where I'm going with this. This isn't generally a problem, so newer users are especially vulnerable to be taken for a ride.

Why not just check these guys out and scout? It might seem innocent at first, but scouting isn't a one way street. If you scout someone and they later break the rules, you're also held accountable, and even though the song you're being asked to scout them on could be legitimate, you also have to consider that they're asking you to scout them in an illegitimate way. The review box is for reviews, not solicitations.

Not only are these reviews useless to you, but usually these people are stealing music for use in Geometry Dash (or just plain personal gratification) and trying to use you to get away with it. Prime example, today, this guy steals this song from Stephen Universe and uses reviews to dupe YOU into jeopardizing your privileges in the audio portal for 5 minutes of fame. What does this mean for you? You could lose not only your ability to scout other artists but be unscouted yourself and/or receive a permanent ban from submitting to the AP. No bueno.

What should you do instead? Well, first, those of you worried about your whistle, I'd check if they're copying and pasting these reviews elsewhere. If so, they fall under the "don't leave tons of junk reviews for points" rule, and you can flag them "abusive".

You can flag them "useless" if this doesn't seem to be the case, or you just don't want to risk losing your hard earned whistle. Asking people to scout you in a review isn't explicitly against the rules, but a lot of mods will remove these reviews anyway, just because they're, well, useless.

Secondly, I would check to see if the submission they're asking to have scouted is STOLEN. Search for the title, do an audio analysis search, w/e. If you see a guy that joined very recently, and his audio seems top quality, yet he's claiming something is his first song or something like that, this is suspicious and should be handled with care. Pay close attention to the description as well, especially if it seems incoherent, erratic, or is pressing for people to scout. If it mentions Geometry Dash at all, or its creator, RobTop, this is a huge red flag for me as well. Very seldom are these submissions legitimate.

If you find stolen audio report it here to the Audio Portal Cleanup thread and flag it. Proof could be something as simple as finding the material on YouTube or SoundCloud from a different author on an earlier date, or just knowing the material was from a well-known producer like Skrillex. Don't write a review saying the track is stolen. This is against the rules.

If you find abusive reviews or need a second opinion before flagging reviews, @Psychopath, who runs the Whistle Cow Crew, is generally regarded as an expert in this area. You could contact him or a mod if you find you really just don't know what to do here. Never respond to an abusive review with another review.

I will say that since the Abusive Review thread was locked for, well, abuse of the flagging system, information on abusive reviews is usually shared by PM or newspost. Now, just because there's no threads to lock or forum users to be banned in this equation, you should never flag a review just because someone else thinks you should flag it, only if you see rule breaking. This is a good way to lose whistle points. When in doubt, flag "useless" or don't flag at all. Asking for future reference is a big help, too.

TLDR, when you see these guys soliciting scouts in reviews:

• Don't scout
• Check join date
• Check for spam/abusive reviews
• Flag rule breaking reviews
• Check out the song(s) in question
• Check the title and description
• Find originals (if stolen)
• Report to AP Cleanup
• Tell your friends

Bottom line, don't give these guys what they want. They don't care about the songs they're leaving junk reviews on, our community, or what damage they do to your account if they manage to dupe you into scouting them and they later get caught stealing audio (which they certainly will).

Be careful who you scout, and if you see someone breaking rules, it's up to you whether to confront them about it or not. If you do write them a PM, bear in mind you're probably in line for a lot of entitled noise about how NG rules are stupid and we should be able to post whatever we want, or our rules are unfair somehow. Keep it classy. Honestly, I'd just shoot a mail to the people getting these junk reviews, link them my post or whatever. People need to know when they're being taken advantage of.

~EDM364

NOTICE: if your work contains unlicensed music, it will be removed. The Audio Portal, Kevin MacLeod's huge archive at Incompetech, and freemusicarchive.org are great resources for original music you may use. If you're not in any rush, you should also try the Collabinator!

Remixes & Covers: If your song is a cover or remix, it must be done with the permission of the original artist and must not be for a song that is represented by a major label or licensing agency. We are unable to host this sort of material.

These policies are like telling every artist ever they can't draw Deadshot because someone else already drew him and made money off of it, despite someone else drawing Deadshot and calling him Deathstroke and making money off of it, and someone else drawing Deathstroke and calling him Deadpool, and... you know what? Now that you mention it, you just can't draw any snarky spandex clad superheroes, period, because the comic companies want to make money off of them and you drawing stuff for free doesn't make them any money, because someone else might like looking at your content more than theirs. Of course, if they draw your characters and make money off of it, even if you can prove they were yours first, that's okay, because they have more money than you, and you're comparatively broke and therefore powerless.

This logic is being applied to everything under the sun, from automatically silenced/deleted YouTube videos to the logos on those blurred out shirts in that last rap video you watched. That's right, that sweet couples-things slideshow your friend linked to his girlfriend that was unceremoniously deleted by automatic algorithms and that blurry T-shirt you were trying not to stare at in that one Eazy-E video have something in common, and it's the same thing that's happening to music in our portals. Probably won't be long before our Art Portal starts getting cleaned out of its brand name characters and fanart, too.

This is what I'm talking about, copyright infringement, and let me just start by saying the prospect of this whole thing has me completely, totally, perhaps permanently PISSED OFF...

But before I really dig in, I know this new content policy isn't the NG team's fault. @TomFulp never would have let things go as far as removing flashes based on copyrighted BGMs and remixes of popular songs if it weren't necessary; after all, he himself has used copyrighted music in his older creations before and we, NG, collectively stood up when that preposterous SOPA crap started. Why? We had to. It spelled death to the internet and free speech as a whole, y'know, kinda like what's going on now that China made puns illegal and only selectively enforces it.

SOPA would've essentially been the same thing; whoever the rich people in power liked would get to do and say whatever they wanted on the internet. Whoever said things that pissed off said rich powerful people would get shafted. This is already happening on the internet and media worldwide, but SOPA would have just made it legally sanctioned.

So, if it's not NG's fault that our content is being policed, censored, and removed without summary explanation, whose is it?

Labels, media giants, moguls, all of the above, people and corporations who thought SOPA was a good idea and more -- not to mention the entitled morons who, despite visible warnings, still upload stolen copyrighted songs for geometry dash, the uninspired Justin Bieber remixers who essentially drop an acapella rip over a half-ass beat (easy targets), and Google's audio analysis algorithms, which are used to aggressively pursue possible copyright claims on videos posted to YouTube and quite possibly the rest of the web.

Seeing as it's become a part of their search engine on smartphones, not only can they catalog what's playing on your radio; they can even police the permanent-marker mixtape that one wannabe rapper friend played in your car, at least, once it starts recognizing the same samples the mainstream hiphop producers are so fond of.

With this software, Google has officially become dangerous, and the prospects are terrifying. If you doubt that, let's take a moment to appreciate how easy it is for Big Brother to listen to your private conversations via your iPhone, even when it's off. Google's audio search uses the same hardware when prompted, and it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to do the same thing some day, probably citing something like "market research" to cover their tracks someone ever discovered. After all, the government is able to get off scot free by citing "national security", despite many of their targets being law abiding citizens who just happen to be a little mouthy about the absolute bullshit the government has been doing for years. (Patriot Act anyone?)

"...getting the implant into the phone in the first place is “difficult,” but once there, the agency can usurp complete control of the device. Implants can be installed via a phone’s Internet connection, cellular network, or physical interception."

"American and British law enforcement and intelligence services have used mobile phones to surveil targets for years. A technique discovered in 2006 called “roving bug” also allowed spies to remotely switch on cellphone mics, and locate users within a few yards."

If Google managed this, the way royalties, work, your CD collection could turn you some label's personal piggy bank, and all it would take is for Google to sell them the proof and say you were in public with the location data to back it up. Considering they already sell the information contained in your emails to ad peddlers and track everywhere you go, it's not much of a stretch. Chew on that while you listen to Britney Spears on speaker.

So, big labels are bad, and Google, despite disliking SOPA-like regulations on paper is scary. What do powerful SOPA supporters and Google's audio recognition software mean for the future of NG content?

That's a big question, but it's one that's been on the table for a long time. We're only now just starting to see the answer clearly. So, what's in our future? Copyright infringement complaints, most likely. Ridiculous amounts of copyright infringement complaints. On everything. This news post will probably be in line for an automated DMCA because it mentions Britney Spears and CocaCola, actually, and has the word "coffee" in it.

If you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt and a couple more reasons to grind your teeth, take a look at this article on very real, very stupid automated DMCA abuse, which I suspect we may be facing at this very moment, and keep in mind that if a few (very big) entities like Warner Bros and Total Wipes get caught, it's highly likely a lot more are doing it. What you're about to see here is just two repeat offenders of many from Google's transparency report, and there's undoubtedly more around the world. Not everyone goes public with this kind of stuff.

Total Wipes, which represents 800 international labels, stated in an email to Ars Technica that the recent notices were the result of a bug in their automated anti-piracy script. According to the email, “several technical servers [sic] problems” during the first week of February caused their automated system to send “hundreds” of DMCA notices “not related at all” to any of their copyrighted content.

But the bug is only part of the problem. Sending automated notices, without human review, is itself an abuse of the DMCA takedown process.

The article goes on to detail the extent of the abuse, and some of the most ridiculous offenses.

Seeing ridiculous takedown requests from Total Wipes is nothing new. Back in August, TorrentFreak reported on a month-long DMCA notice-sending spree in which the music company targeted, among other things, sites that utilized the word “coffee.”

The more you read, the less it sounds like idiocy, and the more it sounds like mindless harassment, and almost certainly criminal. Of course, nearly limitless riches protect Warner and Total Wipes from nearly any who would bring charges against them. They need to be anti-trusted, imo.

We have in the past criticized Warner Brothers Entertainment for using robots to issue thousands of infringement accusations, without any human review, based primarily on filenames and metadata rather than inspection of the files’ contents.  Like Warner Brothers, Total Wipes is similarly using robots to abuse the DMCA takedown process.

... between May 28, 2014 and February 22, 2015, Total Wipes sent Google 41,321 requests to remove webpages from Google’s search results, with a median of 1,214 requests per week... [to] remove a total of 196,963 URLs. And according to the Chilling Effects database—which collects and analyzes legal complaints and requests for removal of online materials in an effort to help Internet users know their rights and understand the law—Total Wipes sent Google over 12,000 takedown requests in the last month alone.

So, as you see, with how connected the web is, it's easier than ever for labels to not only scour our site (or any site, really) for "copyrighted material" with bots, but to stroll YouTube for any of our content -- all you'd have to do is search "Newgrounds" -- find a copyrighted song via Google's audio analysis tools, DMCA us, and/or collect royalties on the YouTube video because it just burns them that they aren't currently liquidating every soundwave on Earth.

Supposedly, someone is supposed to review DMCA claims before any action is taken, but that isn't always the case, and they usually get away with it anyway.

Due to the lack of human review, automated takedown notices often result in censorship of perfectly legal content. Although Google has the wherewithal to analyze takedown notices and reject those that are unwarranted, it doesn’t always do that. And many other sites automatically take down allegedly infringing content upon receipt of a notice, even when the notice is clearly bogus. This is because so long as a service provider complies with the DMCA’s notice and takedown procedure, it is protected from monetary liability based on the infringing activities of third parties. Of course, unwarranted takedown requests would not subject a service provider to monetary liability, but not all service providers undertake even the moderate level of effort that Google does to assess whether content complained of should actually be taken down.

Why does this happen? If it weren't obvious already, the media policing, money hoarding brigade doesn't like competition, so it seeks to remove it at every turn. At the same time, it doesn't like sharing its profits or waiting around to find actual instances of copyright infringement, so it uses bots instead. This results in a ton of headache for victims at best and legal action at worst, maybe even termination of the targeted site(s).

Rather than get shut down under the sheer weight of copyright crap the labels are now so aggressively pursuing, seemingly without reason, we updated our policies not only to keep copyrighted content off of our servers but also to save users the headache of submitting content only to have it removed for copyright infringement now that corporations have caught on. That's well and good for keeping NG's butt out of the fire, but it really screws with older users like me, who didn't exactly have an advance warning before our submissions were taken down.

You heard me right. Some of my old submissions have been removed for violating a new policy forced into existence by some greedy corporate assholes. I don't even have backups for them, meaning that's a good couple hours of my life lost for no reason other than a record label wasn't getting .0001 pennies off of ad revenue/royalty -- because of NG getting hoisted up by the undies to get rid of flashes like mine or face legal action over copyrighted background audio -- the same exact reason @RealFaction got contacted to redo the sound track for Pico's School -- because Tom couldn't use the audio anymore without getting shafted, and a new soundtrack would be cheaper than a lawsuit. Speaking of, check out that link. It's lit.

Recently, @TomFulp asked me to replace the copyrighted music in Pico's School he could sadly no longer use, by making a new soundtrack for it. I was shocked, and I'm honored, because I know how iconic that game is and how it made Newgrounds what it is today.  If it wasn't for that game and the other controversial fun games Tom made, NG wouldn't have gotten it's popularity at the time. -RealFaction

I want to be clear, I don't blame Newgrounds or @TomFulp in any fashion for the new copyright policies. Tom has warned us for years that not relying on our own user created content is putting out rotten meat for vultures; they will come, they will flock, and they will gorge on anything their prying beaks can get at. I don't care if it's your grandma's hand-knitted CocaCola sweater you unwittingly rotoscoped in that fifteen second frame-by-frame animation you made ten years ago to the lime-in-the-coconut song, or a Clock Day short to Coldplay's "Clocks", these guys are mad they're not the ones making money off of it, and Tom himself has experienced first had what lengths labels and media groups go to when they're angry.

Once upon a time, Tom received a video in the mail with no return address. He was given permission (or rather encouragement) by the creators, to post it on Newgrounds, where it promptly went viral. Then, something magical happened. The MPAA, sensing they were not making money on this video, swooped in like the menacing vultures they and the likes of Warner and etc. usually pretend not to be when it's convenient.

we soon received a cease and decist letter from the MPAA. I had been under the impression their only purpose was to assign ratings to movies; boy was I wrong!

These high and mighty media police quite literally tracked him down with a PI and showed up with fancy papers, demanding he hand over the copyrighted material and shut down his site after "leaked" footage of "Freddy Got Fingered" blew up back in 2001.

"We request that you immediately do the following:

1) Disable access to this site;
2) Remove this site from your server; and
3) Terminate the account of the account holder for this site."

I'm of the opinion that generally, anything that requires you to hire a PI is probably morally incorrect, but this right here is exactly why we're having to implement this no-copyright-material policy -- because of media bullies like the MPAA who slam people with DMCAs and ask questions later. I guess at least this one wasn't automated though. Don't think the labels were at that point in their development quite yet. What we see today goes to show they would have if they could have, though.

"So think about that, the MPAA attempted to SHUT DOWN my entire website and have it removed from its servers over a PUBLICITY STUNT. Twelve years later, they are fighting to pass SOPA into law. Think they'll use it sparingly?" -TomFulp

I have no doubt Newgrounds never would have gone the direction it has if we had a choice, if the labels and media police weren't threatening to stamp us out. It's not like they haven't tried, and I'm sure the ultimate goal of forcing us to go by this policy is to drive users away from Newgrounds and toward sites such as SoundCloud and YouTube, not to mention app stores -- Y'know, where these guys make bank and content creators don't make $#!7 but for a chosen few that aren't censored to F&%# by groups like Warner Bros, the guys who silence your videos if their automated audio sniffing catches a whiff of their content. Otherwise, why would labels be trying to pin NG by the balls, despite most of us on NG not making $#!7, unlike those on SoundCloud and YouTube with better exposure?

Of course, SoundCloud doesn't pay its artists and actually charges their userbase to host their content (which NG doesn't), and YouTube will actually take your videos, block them in certain countries, delete them altogether, delete your account, or just transfer the dollars to whatever record label claims the audio in it. This could be a Britney Spears song playing in your brother's room, barely audible on your video, but Google's audio recognition system will automatically attribute it to a label and F&#% your $#!7. And don't even get me started about the ridiculous content guidelines.

You know, maybe the labels hate us so much because, unlike these other sites, we've always refused to roll over until now.

I've always felt like NG is being progressively backed into a corner, now more than ever. The labels hate us, Google hates us, we're blacklisted on Google's adsense... It's like the world is against NG, and that will probably never change, but I wish it didn't mean we had to change.

This is why this new policy pisses me off. It renews my hatred for the coporate bully and brings his tyranny home. It forces me to look at that reality with every audio submission I put through the Portal. I just hope it doesn't drive any potential talent away once they realize that awesome remix they made isn't welcome here.

However, if it saves us thousands in legal fees in the here and now, that's a small concession I guess we have to make. Just, God, audio mods, if you're going to start on my submissions, please, let me download all the mp3s first, PLEASE.

/rant