Sound off: Oink - Loss or Gain?

[Excrement_Cranium]

As a cruise some of the smaller sites for music since the death of Oink, I'm noticing a pickup in the selection and quality of rips available... so it brings about a question:


Was Oink going down a loss or a gain for the overall internet music community?

Sure, we all know that Oink was unparalleled in selection and rip quality, as well as speed. But part of what made it so is what turned some people off, or made them inactive or unable to get the most out of the selection.

While there is no problem with insisting on a high quality baseline, some of the early ratio enforcement left people seeding torrents for long periods of time due to a late grab and low activity.

This problem was only amplified when discographies were taken down (which was in some ways, a good move) and the amount of "ratio building" torrents took a hit.

Yeah, yeah... Oink was "the best," but it wasn't for everybody. A lot of people felt the elitest sting and lost accounts due to low ratio and/or activity.


The defense? Ratio enforcement ensures sharing!

No no... ratio enforcement ensures "I scratch your back, you scratch mine."

Whatever you thought of it, for now, Oink is gone, and its userbase is scrambling to find a new "home."

It seems that a good amount are spreading out to "lower tier, lower class" trackers... but as many of those people hit one tracker, pull a torrent, and post it on another tracker, it appears that the spirit behind Oink is going viral and a wider base is now able to appreciate the benefits of the standards set by that community.


What do you all think?

[HelenaP]

...


The defense? Ratio enforcement ensures sharing!

No no... ratio enforcement ensures "I scratch your back, you scratch mine."

Whatever you thought of it, for now, Oink is gone, and its userbase is scrambling to find a new "home."

It seems that a good amount are spreading out to "lower tier, lower class" trackers... but as many of those people hit one tracker, pull a torrent, and post it on another tracker, it appears that the spirit behind Oink is going viral and a wider base is now able to appreciate the benefits of the standards set by that community.


What do you all think?

Sharing is what P2P is all about, no matter where you do it, IMHO...

[etos45]

I liked Oink a lot, but I find I am much happier now using the other sites. The ratio problems there were the killer for me. I never wanted to download from there because it was hard to get the ratio back to 1 on older torrents and I always seemed to get in late on the older stuff. With sites like STMusic I find myself snatching more music because it's a little easier to keep your ratio up and more people seem to be downloading off of there. I had a ratio of 5 there for awhile without even really trying. Waffles is nice because it's new and all the torrents are "fresh", but I'm thinking in the long run they're going to have the same downside as oink.

[HelenaP]

I liked Oink a lot, but I find I am much happier now using the other sites. The ratio problems there were the killer for me.... Waffles is nice because it's new and all the torrents are "fresh", but I'm thinking in the long run they're going to have the same downside as oink.

I had a little problem with OiNK at first, but after 8 months (LOL), finally made it beyond a 2.0 (I sometimes still tear up, *sniff*...).

I am actually starting to think that STMusic will finally become, "The One."
It's not like they weren't free registration for almost a year.

I am still hesitant about What and Waffles, but see the same possible outcome you have described...
...and before anybody pisses EC (or me, LOL) off;
NO. I do NOT have invites to anything.

[IshareManyFilez]

Oink was amazing, except the fact that I uploaded 25 gigs in 3 days, waited to become a power user, and when i got invites, I lost them because some reprobate here cheated with their ratio. Besides that experience, unbeatable all around. As long as your not a stingy, parsimonious, penurious scrooge, you will either leave your computer on to seed, or upload torrents. If you are to lazy or do not have the right resources to do it, leave the site, and go to thepiratebay... That may seem elitist but it is the truth, if you can not handle something leave instead of complaining, or even better yet, try to improve it.

[enter8]

Did you know that when you allow deer hunting, the deer produce a hormone that makes them reproduce more so efforts to create less deer actually create more?

This is a very vibrant time for music filesharing. The current trackers have no where near the selection of Oink, even cumulatively, but the speed at which they're growing is almost blinding. Even if they progressively lose considerable momentum, it still looks like cumulatively, they should hit Oinks torrentbase in less than 4 months.

On a personal level, At Oink, I sat for hours on end for month after month grabbing new files that I thought were going to help me build a good ratio, and, at the end of the day, I had a buffer of about 15 gb. In two weeks at What and Waffles, I have a combined buffer 20 times that.

[robincheema]

i wish that i had that much bandwidth..

[filonome]

i really miss oink, i like how you could discover new artists through it, was a big plus in my opinion. cant really comment on how good waffles is or whatever cus i dont have an account there, but i dont see how it could be as good as oink was.

[Auggie2k]

I got lucky with Oink when I joined the second time (IP conflicts first so I got banned - still don't know why) and I was recommended by the invitee to download a new 4GB file (believe it was a Software bundle) to get started and share (it had a lot of peers) and I ended up sharing 15GB+ of that file... so I could basically download anything I wanted and keep a good ratio - while still sharing of course, I donated to Oink so I sure as hell kept seeding, it made the site.

I haven't got much time for torrents (or downloading in general) lately and I miss the fact that if I wanted an album, I could head to Oink and get it in any format in a matter of minutes... just like I popped to the shop. Ah noooo, I just remembered that Oink had Photoshop and a tonne of great OS's and software... shit buuuuuzzzzz!

I got an ST account, not as easy to use as Oink but she's catching up with content.

[Mels_Smileys45]

Fuck that POS site, and all the rest while im at it.

[enter8]

i wish that i had that much bandwidth..

Yes, it's nice. Although sometimes I see people with much bigger pipes than my own and say the same thing.

My provider recently started offering symmetric 20/20 service, which, for ~$20 more is seriously tempting, but I really can't justify it. Yet :) I really like the idea of symmetric service, though. If I could do 10/10 for what I'm paying now (I've got 20/5), I'd jump at it.

[mr.t.f.]

One thing I liked about Oink that I don't see on other music trackers is the ability to see what else people who downloaded a certain torrent got. That was a cool way to see if I might like something.

[etos45]

Oink was amazing, except the fact that I uploaded 25 gigs in 3 days, waited to become a power user, and when i got invites, I lost them because some reprobate here cheated with their ratio. Besides that experience, unbeatable all around. As long as your not a stingy, parsimonious, penurious scrooge, you will either leave your computer on to seed, or upload torrents. If you are to lazy or do not have the right resources to do it, leave the site, and go to thepiratebay... That may seem elitist but it is the truth, if you can not handle something leave instead of complaining, or even better yet, try to improve it.


Okay, this has been bugging me since yesterday... I understand that you probably have a higher upload bandwidth, but how are you getting the connections? I've left every torrent I've downloaded open for weeks to months depending on the size and it seems like I just get a pinch here and there.

On oink I found that uploading software and tutorials is the only reason I had any kind of buffer. But waffles doesn't offer that option (to my knowledge) and while my ratio there is okay (a 2) my buffer is only a couple of hundred megs and I've been seeding for some days.

Tips to upping my upload would be greatly appreciated. :)

[filonome]

yeah etos45, i have that same problem at a lot of music sites. basically what i do is get new releases of stuff even if i dont want them because a lot of times if i grab it early then i beat the rush and people grab more from me. that way i can get a lot of upping done on that.

try something like that out for yourself.

[Excrement_Cranium]

yeah etos45, i have that same problem at a lot of music sites. basically what i do is get new releases of stuff even if i dont want them because a lot of times if i grab it early then i beat the rush and people grab more from me. that way i can get a lot of upping done on that.

try something like that out for yourself.

Pretty much it.


I don't grab anything I don't want entirely... I pick a genre I enjoy, browse the first 2 or 3 pages of ups, and grab anything I have never heard of.


It comes twofold, as a lot of other people are doing the same... trying to explore new music.


Getting a 7-1 ratio on a single file has been no problem.

[alkillyou32]

Huge loss. Eventhough from the ashes several trackers are emerging (waffles, what) and other have gained in popularity (libble, stmusic, etc.) and other will be born (boink), oink can never be replaced. The biggest online music store has closed and moved everything it had to other sites. Thats great that its still available, but now you have to look for it when you would just know were to get it.

RIP Oink

[etos45]

Pretty much it.


I don't grab anything I don't want entirely... I pick a genre I enjoy, browse the first 2 or 3 pages of ups, and grab anything I have never heard of.


It comes twofold, as a lot of other people are doing the same... trying to explore new music.


Getting a 7-1 ratio on a single file has been no problem.

Ahh... that's a good and (sadly for me) obvious solution. I didn't do the new download thing because it's rarely anything a want, but I never tried it with a genre before. :icon_thum Guess I'll start trying that today see what happens... I'm tired of looking at all these blue faces on Azureus. :devil2

[GuyFawks]

I used TT anyways.

[eminn3m]

with the incredible selection, and great community of oink, it's obviously a negative that oink was shutdown but there are benefits.

Instead of one huge website that can be shutdown, there are now many websites stmusic, libble, what, waffles, and funkytorrents to name a few that all have a much better selection then they used to, due to oink refugees uploading content from oink.

[Excrement_Cranium]

with the incredible selection, and great community of oink, it's obviously a negative that oink was shutdown but there are benefits.

Instead of one huge website that can be shutdown, there are now many websites stmusic, libble, what, waffles, and funkytorrents to name a few that all have a much better selection then they used to, due to oink refugees uploading content from oink.

And that's my point.


As the other trackers pick up the slack from the void, and users from those smaller trackers spread uploads to other smaller trackers that they use, and thus, the larger community benefits.

[EzzyElliott]

Honestly, I could not get an invite so I was shut out.

So I don't miss it.

When P2P file sharing first started it was justified because it was sharing for the COMMON good.

Now PRIVATE sites rule the roost.

I prefer friend to friend as it guarantees privacy without being elitest and just replicating the music cabel system.

What we need is a Facebook for music, (checkout dargens (http://http://www.dargens.com/)).

The only thing I liked about private sites is that they gave you a sense of belonging.

And I was proud OINK was British.

But in general I think private sites take file sharing down the slippery slope to criminal conspiracy to defraud.

Sorry just my two cents.

[Mels_Smileys45]

Honestly, I could not get an invite so I was shut out.

So I don't miss it.

When P2P file sharing first started it was justified because it was sharing for the COMMON good.

Now PRIVATE sites rule the roost.

I prefer friend to friend as it guarantees privacy without being elitest and just replicating the music cabel system.

What we need is a Facebook for music, (checkout dargens (http://http://www.dargens.com/)).

The only thing I liked about private sites is that they gave you a sense of belonging.

And I was proud OINK was British.

But in general I think private sites take file sharing down the slippery slope to criminal conspiracy to defraud.

Sorry just my two cents.



I can agree with most all that. Dargens is a very interresting project. I could see it working well for indie bands that want to share their music. Its hard to get anyone to try anything other than BT these days. But.... I can remember when no one wanted to use BT either. Mostly because no one understood how it was supposed to work. I think youre sorta in that same proverbial boat.

[alkillyou32]

As a cruise some of the smaller sites for music since the death of Oink, I'm noticing a pickup in the selection and quality of rips available... so it brings about a question:


Was Oink going down a loss or a gain for the overall internet music community?

Sure, we all know that Oink was unparalleled in selection and rip quality, as well as speed. But part of what made it so is what turned some people off, or made them inactive or unable to get the most out of the selection.

While there is no problem with insisting on a high quality baseline, some of the early ratio enforcement left people seeding torrents for long periods of time due to a late grab and low activity.

This problem was only amplified when discographies were taken down (which was in some ways, a good move) and the amount of "ratio building" torrents took a hit.

Yeah, yeah... Oink was "the best," but it wasn't for everybody. A lot of people felt the elitest sting and lost accounts due to low ratio and/or activity.


The defense? Ratio enforcement ensures sharing!

No no... ratio enforcement ensures "I scratch your back, you scratch mine."

Whatever you thought of it, for now, Oink is gone, and its userbase is scrambling to find a new "home."

It seems that a good amount are spreading out to "lower tier, lower class" trackers... but as many of those people hit one tracker, pull a torrent, and post it on another tracker, it appears that the spirit behind Oink is going viral and a wider base is now able to appreciate the benefits of the standards set by that community.


What do you all think?

very true but no site will ever replace it.

[Zombieman123]

I don't really care that it's gone tbh.. They didn't have anything I couldn't find over at Demonoid,I had an account, but it got disabled due to inactivity. I didn't want to download much because it's hard to seed(unfortunately, my internet got upgraded a couple weeks after it got shut down..Isn't that a bitch)
But seeing as how I don't keep music on my computer..Oink wasn't for me.