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update: all's well that ends well
reply from drop.sc
I've changed the policy so that users can't request replays to be removed anymore. (There are corner cases where the previous policy would be a problem, like you point out)
preface
it all started with an innocent submission, if there is such a thing, to the GM / Master map hacker and general cheating thread. quite the mouthful, i know.
after being accused of maphacking by a terran who would later be confirmed as a maphacker (that's usually how the story goes) the user yeohong decided to submit the replay he was accused in. however shortly after he decided to remove the link. at this point i had already grabbed it, and promptly reposted the link or re-uploaded the replay.
On December 14 2012 17:08 nunez wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2012 13:19 yeohong wrote:
hmm. won't let me download. let me try again
why did you remove the replay link? it worked fine. reposting it for later. http://drop.sc/284214
whether i reposted or re-uploaded i am no longer sure but it doesn't really matter.
edit: from the hacker analysis of yeohong's opponent i had written a note that confirmed me reuploading the replay.
On December 14 2012 20:20 nunez wrote:
note: had to reupload, seems like someone removed the initial rep
miffed
browsing through the thread today, i remembered this curious case and decided to recheck the name of yeohongs account. to my disappointment the replay had been requested taken down by yeohong, for some reason that i am not aware and won't bother to speculate in.
i was miffed and decided to shoot off a mail to drop.sc support, because at this point i was pretty sure that i re-uploaded the replay, and after a quick check in the terms of service i did not see anything that i had done wrong.
faq
drop.sc quickly responded:
Seems like this replay has been removed due to other user requesting removal.
still miffed i set about querying why this other user's request for removal weighed more heavily than my re-upload of the replay. at this point i was still certain that i reuploaded the replay.
however before drop.sc could answer my mail, i found the answer i was looking for in the faq section of their webpage:
How can I remove a replay?
Unfortunately we don't have the resources to be the replay authority and decide disputes regarding replay removal. We'll remove a replay only if the original and logged-in uploader makes the request. Requests can be send to support@drop.sc
so regardless of whether i had reuploaded the replay or not, yeohong's request would be the one with the power to request removal, and worded thusly it looks like the original, logged-ins uploader's request will be honoured.
case
i do not think this is a good policy. the time of upload says nothing about ownership or rights, and if i were to guess i would guess that blizzard is sitting on those. from the sc2 eula:
5 Ownership.
All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including without limitation any titles, computer code ... and any related documentation) are owned or licensed by Blizzard. ... You have no interest, monetary or otherwise, in any feature or content contained in the Game or associated with the Account.
nor does it necessarily say anything about personal stake in the replay. i think it's fair to say that each 'upload' of a replay should be valued equal to others, regardless of the time it is uploaded.
i suspect the current replay removal policy was a compromise between culling the removal requests to a manageable size and providing a service that seems reasonable to provide to users in a reasonable way.
the way to make a good policy would be a policy that serves the community as a whole and the uploaders, while not straining drop.sc beyond what they find is reasonable. maybe this will entail too much work for drop.sc, but here are two different changes to the policy:
remove the request removal feature entirely.
on a community level i think it is best to remove the feature entirely, rather than to keep it in. the number of cases where a replay is removed and it gains more 'undefined something that serves the community' than it takes is if not outnumbered, but at least close to equal to the opposite. that combined with the time saved by drop.sc, it seems like a reasonable choice.
this might be a faulty assumption skewed by my personal interest in not having to store replays locally.
any logged-in uploader can remove his 'version' of the replay, when all logged-in uploaders has removed their 'version', the replay is removed.
this would be the most fair policy for the actual uploaders. each upload would be equally valued, which is better than having the original upload take precedence, since as earlier mentioned, time of upload does not say anything about ownership or personal stake.
codecrafting it does not seem like this would be that hard to implement, but codecrafting is codecrafting. one could keep a count of how many logged-in users have uploaded the same replay, for each removal request it is decremented, and when it reaches zero it's safe to replay.
this codecrafting is useless, but meant to demonstrate that it might not be very hard to implement for drop.sc. it could really wrong
lesson to be learneth
on a personal level, i noted that with the current replay removal policy i should always keep a local backup of the files i upload to drop.sc, since if somebody has uploaded the replay before me, they seem to have the rights to remove it. maybe you want to as well.
 
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well, the point was that it didn't matter if i had re-uploaded or re-linked the replay. i don't know why you'd want to imply that i'm lying on such a trifle, not only is it irrelevant, but also rather inappropriate.
i tried to show in the second proposal that it would not be of great difficulty to keep tabs on how many 'original uploaders' there were, grossly simplified and horribly inaccurate, but still.
edit: you bastard.
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drop.sc sucks and it doesn't surprise me that they'd do something like this. A few months ago, they basically performed the major dick move of disabling much of the functionality of their site (such as browsing and searching for replays, replay packs, streams etc) for ages and held said features hostage to a typical Paypal donation drive. During this stage all this site would let you do is upload replays and download replays from a link you already have. It basically had the same functionality as ReplayFu, a predating competitor site.
Now, they FINALLY monetise the site but they make searching their replay archive and uploading replays in a Replay Pack require a Pro subscription. Yes, you can browse replays but if you want to filter results, you have to pay up.
The way they monetised the site was really bad, and it seemed sucky they'd do this after holding major site functions hostage to a donation drive. It'd be fine if they just ran more ads.
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On January 02 2013 02:50 Clbull wrote:
drop.sc sucks and it doesn't surprise me that they'd do something like this. A few months ago, they basically performed the major dick move of disabling much of the functionality of their site (such as browsing and searching for replays, replay packs, streams etc) for ages and held said features hostage to a typical Paypal donation drive. During this stage all this site would let you do is upload replays and download replays from a link you already have. It basically had the same functionality as ReplayFu, a predating competitor site.
Now, they FINALLY monetise the site but they make searching their replay archive and uploading replays in a Replay Pack require a Pro subscription. Yes, you can browse replays but if you want to filter results, you have to pay up.
The way they monetised the site was really bad, and it seemed sucky they'd do this after holding major site functions hostage to a donation drive. It'd be fine if they just ran more ads.
If they could just go back to how the site was 1 year ago. They really did have the most streamlined replay uploader.
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On January 02 2013 02:50 Clbull wrote:
drop.sc sucks and it doesn't surprise me that they'd do something like this. A few months ago, they basically performed the major dick move of disabling much of the functionality of their site (such as browsing and searching for replays, replay packs, streams etc) for ages and held said features hostage to a typical Paypal donation drive. During this stage all this site would let you do is upload replays and download replays from a link you already have. It basically had the same functionality as ReplayFu, a predating competitor site.
Now, they FINALLY monetise the site but they make searching their replay archive and uploading replays in a Replay Pack require a Pro subscription. Yes, you can browse replays but if you want to filter results, you have to pay up.
The way they monetised the site was really bad, and it seemed sucky they'd do this after holding major site functions hostage to a donation drive. It'd be fine if they just ran more ads.
Yeah it really is terrible. Their replay collection was pretty good for a while, but if you limit the amount of replays coming in all of a sudden through pay requirement, then a lot of people will stop using the site... Meaning you have a lot less replays coming in, meaning if you pay to use the site you'll have a worse future selection than when the site was free.
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On January 02 2013 02:46 nunez wrote:
well, the point was that it didn't matter if i had re-uploaded or re-linked the replay. i don't know why you'd want to imply that i'm lying on such a trifle, not only is it irrelevant, but also rather inappropriate.
i tried to show in the second proposal that it would not be of great difficulty to keep tabs on how many 'original uploaders' there were, grossly simplified and horribly inaccurate, but still.
edit: you bastard.
I edited my post out well before you replied, as I figured there wasn't any point getting involved. Still, since unfortunately you saw it first.
Of course it matters. If you relink, that's copying an url - the replay has nothing to do with you at all, so there's no reason not to honour a request to delete it by the person who uploaded it. As I said it seems pretty sketchy to evade this point and pretend like it's a "trifle". It's more or less the basis for the entire rest of your post, but you somehow "can't remember".
But there's only one original uploader, so it's also perfectly sensible policy to do what they do at the moment. Also, It won't ever affect personal replays, since you're always going to be the first person to upload your own replay and hence considered the owner. It doesn't really seem like much of an issue at all.
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On January 02 2013 05:38 netherh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2013 02:46 nunez wrote:
well, the point was that it didn't matter if i had re-uploaded or re-linked the replay. i don't know why you'd want to imply that i'm lying on such a trifle, not only is it irrelevant, but also rather inappropriate.
i tried to show in the second proposal that it would not be of great difficulty to keep tabs on how many 'original uploaders' there were, grossly simplified and horribly inaccurate, but still.
edit: you bastard. I edited my post out well before you replied, as I figured there wasn't any point getting involved. Still, since unfortunately you saw it first. Of course it matters. If you relink, that's copying an url - the replay has nothing to do with you at all, so there's no reason not to honour a request to delete it by the person who uploaded it. As I said it seems pretty sketchy to evade this point and pretend like it's a "trifle". It's more or less the basis for the entire rest of your post, but you somehow "can't remember". But there's only one original uploader, so it's also perfectly sensible policy to do what they do at the moment. Also, It won't ever affect personal replays, since you're always going to be the first person to upload your own replay and hence considered the owner. It doesn't really seem like much of an issue at all.
it's a trifle because this blog isn't about that single incident, that single incident was just the preface that led to me realizing what the drop.sc replay removal policy was, which this blog actually is about. so it's insignificant, like i already stated in the blog. i thought this was easily understood, but i am glad we cleared it up nevertheless.
for the record i edited the op, the analysis post of the hacker in the replay had a note stating that i had to reupload the replay, so i guess i did. so much for your malicious insinuations.
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On January 02 2013 05:56 nunez wrote:
it's a trifle because this blog isn't about that single incident, that single incident was just the preface that led to me realizing what the drop.sc replay removal policy was, which this blog actually is about. so it's insignificant, like i already stated in the blog. i thought this was easily understood, but i am glad we cleared it up nevertheless.
for the record i edited the op, the analysis post of the hacker in the replay had a note stating that i had to reupload the replay, so i guess i did. so much for your malicious insinuations.
Um no. Nothing is "cleared up". The timeline seems thus:
1. Yeohong uploads replay.
2. Yeohong removes replay link.
3. You repost replay link.
4. Yeohong requests replay removal -> replay is removed.
5. You whine at drop.sc for removing the replay, and re-upload it.
6. Re-uploaded replay is not removed, and remains viewable today (note last edit on your post was back in December): http://drop.sc/284277
Drop.sc removed a replay that Yeohong uploaded, at Yeohong's request. Your re-upload of the replay remains untouched.
Your post explicitly states that drop.sc removed your own upload of a replay at the request of another user. I can't help but point out that they have done no such thing.
The evidence still suggests that you're lying.
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On January 02 2013 08:01 netherh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2013 05:56 nunez wrote:
it's a trifle because this blog isn't about that single incident, that single incident was just the preface that led to me realizing what the drop.sc replay removal policy was, which this blog actually is about. so it's insignificant, like i already stated in the blog. i thought this was easily understood, but i am glad we cleared it up nevertheless.
for the record i edited the op, the analysis post of the hacker in the replay had a note stating that i had to reupload the replay, so i guess i did. so much for your malicious insinuations.
Um no. Nothing is "cleared up". The timeline seems thus: 1. Yeohong uploads replay. 2. Yeohong removes replay link. 3. You repost replay link. 4. Yeohong requests replay removal -> replay is removed. 5. You whine at drop.sc for removing the replay, and re-upload it. 6. Re-uploaded replay is not removed, and remains viewable today (note last edit on your post was back in December): http://drop.sc/284277Drop.sc removed a replay that Yeohong uploaded, at Yeohong's request. Your re-upload of the replay remains untouched. Your post explicitly states that drop.sc removed your own upload of a replay at the request of another user. I can't help but point out that they have done no such thing. The evidence still suggests that you're lying.
i reuploaded the replay earlier today after it was sent to me from drop.sc after emailing them about the issue.
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On January 02 2013 08:15 nunez wrote:
i reuploaded the replay earlier today after it was sent to me from drop.sc after emailing them about the issue.
But your note saying you re-uploaded the replay is in a post with last edit on 14th December - and that replay is still accessible.
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On January 02 2013 08:19 netherh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2013 08:15 nunez wrote:
i reuploaded the replay earlier today after it was sent to me from drop.sc after emailing them about the issue. But your note saying you re-uploaded the replay is in a post with last edit on 14th December - and that replay is still accessible.
that replay was the one that went missing, that i reuploaded earlier today. it had the same url.
or was it all just an elaborate ruse many weeks in the making...
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EPT
