EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 9

The fires of revolution burn today. @Troisnyx wrote a petition, and if you're not a Google spider crawling this page for indexing purposes, you owe it to yourself and your Newgrounds account to check this out. Other happenings, 2 slow days with an insanely weird sleep schedule that keeps turning around on me.

While I'm on business though, let me talk about that petition real quick, which I'll be putting on blast any way I can over the coming weeks. I encourage you to do the same: check out @Troisnyx's page, @ any users you know who would want to help, share on social media, and sign that bloody petition like your life depends on it. Your Newgrounds life and the lives of every submission ever to grace the past, present, and future portals do, after all.

Geometry Dash is destroying our site, one cancerous comment, stolen file, and/or multi-account at a time, yet RobTop is doing nothing to stop it. On the contrary, he's profiting from the rampant theft and abuse we suffer, not to mention the hard work of countless content creators who never see a cent in return for their toil; meanwhile we're all at risk of getting sued to oblivion because the idiot farm he's cobbled together thinks "no copyright infringement intended" or "fair use" means they can to steal whatever the fuck they want for their 5 seconds of "Gimme toy, gimme toy!" without us or them both feeling the consequences. It's out of control, and it's clear no one else but Newgrounds is going to watch Newgrounds' back, so let's do that. We owe it to ourselves.

SLICE OF LIFE:
Not much doing except some serious stress and floundering. Was not able to attend Creator's Club on Monday due to my ride having more pressing obligations, and Tuesday I slept virtually all day after having been up for 33 hours of absolute manic episode. I had been unable to sleep between chores, moderating, and writing on a horror movie script about two lesbians who are attacked by a poltergeist over the course of a couple weeks. Said poltergeist has an intense hatred for closet gays, women, and Christian dogma.

I don't really remember much else about Monday and early Tuesday, although I do recall being fed up with my family, especially my very domineering grandmother, who I live with. She constantly nags and berates, and orders me around. I've gotten to where I just ignore her until she realizes that I'm not going to do a damn thing until she asks, not tells. She's also taken to eating near me purposefully, which sounds like a mix of slopping hog and horse-teeth on salt-block, give or take some slurp.

I suffer from misophonia, and at times I have to run out of the room before I flip a damn table or retaliate. I cannot stand the fucking loud, barbaric mouth noises unless I have my own bowl of chow to tune into instead of the constant irritation and anxiety being near these sounds creates, which is 100x worse if the sound is isolated (meaning an entire lunch table is fine but someone eating in front of me is a problem) or I can't get on a pair of headphones to blast white noise until the stimulus is gone. It can wake me up from a dead sleep.

Speaking of sleep, I'm still up from yesterday, so technically this is a same-day post for me. After my 33 hour wake cycle, I passed out on the couch around 1 PM after grudgingly making my grandmother a pot of coffee. She's so lazy, she won't do it herself even if she's less than a foot from the coffee pot and I'm sitting in the living room or downstairs. Same thing if I make food. She expects to have some of it, or me to make her some, or to be able to mess with whatever I put up for myself, which usually results in unwanted shit poured in on top of whatever I might have wanted to eat. Anyway, I went to bed. Uncle tried to wake me up for dinner at six because I was on the couch, and my mom called at 9 to tell me someone else had been trying to reach me, one of her friends from work when I was a wee tot, who now plays PoGo with my group of friends.

So, apparently, that lady had called another lady to come pick me up, and we were gonna go smash down a gym with two other friends. Valor is pretty much the number one team in Meridian. We're Mystic, so it's always great being able to take some buds and bash a gym from 10 to zero in nothing flat. Naturally I accepted, washed the sleep off of my face, and was rearing to go. Was a little sad mom seemed to otherwise ignore me though and shift our conversation to her new terminally ill boyfriend but I'm used to it pretty much by now.

Long story short, went out for about an hour, trolled Valor with some weak sauce 'mons, got an Omanyte and 5 Growlithes, hatched 6 eggs, and levelled up to 24. Was a much needed outing, and I got some social interaction. I still haven't checked all my messages, so that, signal boosting @Troisnyx's petition -- possibly even taking time out to record a YouTube video and podcast "Why Geometry Dash Must Die" -- and penciling in a good dose of moderating today is on the to-do list. I've got my desk set up and I'm good and pissed off. First I'm gonna nap though. I've been utterly wiped for about the past 2 hours and just deposited -- sadly missed yesterday, I think. 31 days til level up.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 50
Copyrighted Source: 4
Total: 54
Bans: 17
Per capita: 3

BREAKDOWN:
Of 50 thefts, 47 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 3 non-descript. The remaining submissions were covers or remixes of copyrighted songs, one including an older rap over Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" instrumental, which really pained me to remove; it was just that good, and it occurs to me that if not for GD, I probably never would have had to -- NG was getting to the point we could have copyrighted samples with the proper attribution, but GD put the nail in the coffin on that debate, and so did the old-school copyright pushing, dough rolling trend setters up in the big 3. The music industry of course is pretty much known for expecting to make bank off of non-profit usage, to paraphrase @TomFulp, so none of this is surprising (dear self, remember to reply to his response in forums today -- thanks). Back on topic, however, this totals 54 infractions from 18 users for a rate of 3 per capita. Outrageous!

CONCLUSION:
Same shit, different day. Most users I encountered had between 4-7 thefts under their belts, the blatant @Rukkus impersonator, @sukkuR, being one of the worst offenders of the bunch. This user brazenly gloated about stealing Rukkus' tracks to get scouted after having several other accounts banned for passing off others' work as their own. Stuff like this is a prime example of why we need @Troisnyx's petition. @Zhenmuron has been reached out to, and reached out to, and reached out to, and still hasn't done much of anything at all to curb the abuse fostered in his cash cow cult of entitled little sheep. Troisnyx is a better wordsmith today than I, so do check out her post and spread the word. This shit has gone on too long.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 8

Steadily improving! Headaches are getting less frequent. Thanks to everyone who has expressed concern. I appreciate knowing people care!

SLICE OF LIFE:
Much less interesting stuff today. Woke up at 8:30 PM after sleeping inordinately long. Rounded off some moderating and deposited. Migraine struck so I went back to bed and took a headache pill. Konked out. Woke up and played some FO4, then went out and played some PoGo. Caught another Magmar and got into some gyms but ended up getting scared of some loose dogs (didn't have a weapon atm and absolutely no one was out because it was a Sunday at approx 11 PM, so there was some serious safety concern for me and @littlemisfortune), so I went home. Went to bed early (for me) and woke up 12:20 next day, fighting sleeping in. Now, 1:40 PM, here I am, typing this message. I really didn't do much yesterday, well, except eat 2 types of nasty canned chicken with 2 equally nasty cans of beans, salt and garlic it, and pretend it was good, hahah.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 32
GD Spam: 1
Total: 33
Bans: 18
Per capita: 1.833

BREAKDOWN:
Of 32 thefts, 30 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 2 non-descript. Additionally, there was a "How To" submission today with the song playing in the background, which is illegal. This totals 33 infractions from 18 users for a rate of 1.833 per capita, slightly above the normal 1.8.

Out of curiosity, I did a quick calculation of 31/33 and determined 93.93% of infractions were Geometry Dash related.

CONCLUSION:
Larger sample size and fewer large catalogs resulted in a mostly normal infraction rate, however, as noted above, 94% of infractions were GD related today. Few others have been people just uploading the songs they like or advertising off-site, and this has been a trend since GD ver 1.9. Virtually every infraction I see is GD related theft or nondescript items commonly stolen by GD thieves, which upon listening turn out to be stuff like KDrew - Circles, Skrillex - Bangarang, Desmeon - Hellcat, etc.

In all cases, 90% of the time, the users seem to be blatantly ignoring the rules rather than not understanding/knowing them at all. I mean, Christ's sake, I've seen people say "I don't own this song, but I'm not uploading it for Geometry Dash. I'm just sharing it because I think it's cool. Please don't remove it. No copyright infringement intended,", in response to that giant blue banner that should be common sense; we ban users for stealing -- not for playing GD -- so don't do what the GD dummies do if you don't want to get treated like one! Fair use does not apply on Newgrounds; we are a user-generated content site.

Considering doing a parody of @ThisisTheFatRat's "Unity" aimed at the people who steal his works as commonly as they praise him to his face and pester him to upload his tracks here, then flag them if they can't download them. I've already got the lyrics roughed out.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 7

Catching up more. Migraines seem to be subsiding somewhat, but I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/21/17, frought with tornado warnings all across the south. 4 dead in Hattiesburg, and I think 12 in Georgia. Something like that. I didn't worry much about the storms. I just went and laid down after depositing and running through flags. Short day, but I feel myself opening back up a bit more.

I did record a few clips of some new FO4 mods I got such as below, featuring lots of head-splosions, gore and dismemberment overhauls, etc. -- because, I mean, if you shoot someone's hand off, they don't die instantly, contrary to popular belief, and exploding body parts are just cool. Then I just sort of floffed around, did some settlement building, etc.; FO4 and Skyrim relax me to hell and back, js. I left the embeds small but you can full screen.

Find more of my gameplay videos here, and let me know if you'd like to see more stuff like this. I do certainly enjoy blowing off people's limbs and murdering supermutants! I might also make a compilation of just goresplosions in FO4 and just sneak attacks in Skyrim. Also, pretty sure I have a video of a slow-mo headsplosion if you're into that.

You may also use any of my clips for your videos, provided you credit me with a little text watermark in the corner of the screen or something -- EDM364, ArbitraryWall, idgaf, as long as someone can look me up.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 24
Off-site Advert: 3
Total: 24 Bans: 6
Per capita: 4

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing. Of 24 thefts, 19 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 3 were offsite adverts. No, I'm not going crazy. The adverts were also thefts, and there were 2 I couldn't place left over. This totals 24 infractions from 6 users for a rate of 4 per capita, a 100% increase from yesterday.

CONCLUSION:
Small sample size and a couple wackos uploading a bunch of stuff just about totally invalidates today's infraction rate, however one interesting discovery was a guy uploading other people's music as an advertisement for SoundCloud. That actually made me mad. We face enough bs from legitimate artists using our portal as a SoundCloud advert, but fake assholes hoping we're gullible enough to let them pass? *head wall*

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

@littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 6

Short day. Sleep cycle is getting out of control. Going to see a doctor if it doesn't improve.

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/19/2017 - 1/20/2017, again frought with crippling migraines and trouble with sleep schedule. Woke up very late in the day, too late to really get anything done. The other day I did go out and play PoGo with some of my mom's work friends from the 80's and @littlemisfortune. That seemed to help depression a lot. Mostly I think I just need more company. Texting doesn't really get it, but calling seems to help as well. Called mom.

I'm suffering from migraines, acute irritability, insomnia followed by 18-20 hour sleep cycles that alarms won't cut it. I also notice anything goal oriented gets me in this manic obsessive mode, like songwriting, gaming, PoGo, modding. I haven't had much time for the latter the past couple of days between sleeping and migraines though.

One good thing did happen today. Finally got my mod load order stable for FO4.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 28
Non remixes: 2
Total: 30
Bans: 15
Per capita: 2

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing. Of 28 thefts, 26 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 2 non-remixes. This totals 30 infractions from 15 users for a rate of 2 per capita, a .2 increase from yesterday. I encountered less material today than usual.

CONCLUSION:
Not a very busy day but the infraction rate seems to have jumped up a bit. Most knew they were breaking the rules but naively thought they wouldn't get caught. Got a mail from one MAGIX user who did not know that we could not host MAGIX music despite the rules quite blatantly disallowing duplo music and MAGIX/MMJ due to the licensing. Had to take exerpts from the rules.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 5

Again, another super short day. Doing this one same day as somewhat of a make-up post.

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/17/2017 - 1/18/2017, frought with crippling migraines and trouble with sleep schedule. When I wake up, first thing is to check NG, deposit, and try to manage some mod duty. Lately I've been sleeping about 18 hours, which is not normal. Unsure if I should seek some medical help on that note. I'm gonna get some sleep. I'm going out later today and do some Poke Hunting. I think it may be depression causing my sleep issues, and getting out seems to help with that. Right now, I'm exhausted. I've got one good run of tracking and then I'm out -- and I'll tack that onto tomorrow's count, since it quite literally is tomorrow and I should have gone to bed hours ago.

On positive notes, I've been having some very interesting and entertaining dreams, at least, most of which involve my Dad at varying ages and stages of life. I look forward to these. It's the only way I get to see him anymore. I wrote a poem in the middle of the night upon waking, which I do intend to turn into a full song... Actually, that goes for all my poetry, lol. If I can't hear it sung, it doesn't make the cut. I can't write good free verse, just novels. Anyway, here, have a shitty somewhat folk-styled chanty poem that I haven't quite hit Quality Assurance on yet.

The sun and the rain
Blot the sky, not your face
What's haunting my mem'ry
Each eternal day

My soul is rapt with entropy
breath is trapped between heartbeats
captivated by dreams
I sleep only to see

The sun and the rain
My mind can't erase
age passing in mem'ry
ephemeral scenes

How the lightest breeze
whips at your long shadow
You follow me as if
you could bring me home

But yours is the darkness
and that's all that I know
yet I can't glimpse the heavens
for fear of the unknown

So I sleep...
And I dream
that we meet
In a realm only I can reach where

The sun and the rain
Blot the sky, not your face
What's haunting my mem'ry
each eternal day

My soul is wracked with entropy
mind is rapt with what I see
captivated by dreams
Death by sleep

I walk this lonely road
With no light but my own
And wish you were here
though that's impossible

Resigned to life all alone
I still hold onto hope
that when my time pass
I see you at last

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 24
Non remixes: 3
Total: 27
Bans: 15
Per capita: 1.8

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing. Of 24 thefts, 22 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 3 non-remixes. A couple of which were minecraft songs mashed up or stitched together. This totals 27 infractions from 15 users for a rate of 1.8 per capita, same as yesterday. I encountered less alts today than usual, also.

CONCLUSION:
The infraction rate seems stable across samples over the past 3 days, despite small sample sizes. Worst offender today was someone uploading parts of CoD Zombies' OST. Most knew they were breaking the rules but naively thought they wouldn't get caught. One or two seemed just not to have a clue about the rules.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 4

Super short day today because I got up at 8 PM yesterday and then had writer's club today, so I had to go back to bed and be up in time for club. However I did get some work in, and may have interesting stuff tomorrow. No slice of life for yesterday because I literally did nothing yesterday except play Skyrim and mod while I was awake -- oh, and get distracted by my phone and write some half-serious folk-style poetry about Xena, as well as future songs.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 42
Ear-rape: 2
Copyrighted Remix: 1
Total: 45
Bans: 25
Per capita: 1.8

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing today. Of 42 thefts, 41 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and there were two ear-rapes that were one "How To" and one NCS song turned up to 11. I was half tempted to just lump them into thefts. The remaining infraction was a remix of a copyrighted song by a user who was warned not to post it due to new policies. This totals 45 infractions from 25 users for a rate of 1.8 per capita. I encountered less alts today than usual.

CONCLUSION:
The bulk of the submissions came from about 5 users with catalogs between 5 and 10 stolen songs, however, the infraction rate remained about the same from yesterday, despite a small sample size. This is largely due to catalogs remaining undiscovered by users/modship from the 1.9 update or so. Hoping to actually get shit done tomorrow.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's MOD DIARY, PAGE 3

Subscribers' section is now added to the formatting. If you'd like to subscribe to this series of posts, let me know in the comments and I'll add you to the list!

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/15/17 was somewhat of a long day in terms of actually being awake, but I didn't have as much time for NG as I had hoped for. I got up at 10:30 because I had plans with my mom, took a shower, and waited for her to come over. She was supposed to be at my house by 11, but her elderly boyfriend was sick with an ear infection, so she didn't show up for another hour and a half. This set my plans way back, because I only intended to be out a couple hours to run errands, play some PoGo, etc.

Well, we went to Walmart first thing. While she shopped groceries and whatnot, I scored 2 pairs of pants to work out in with some fancy stellar looking designs on them, and a $25 dollar Google Play card to feed my PoGo addiction. Will add pics later if someone wants to see.

Also got some hanging out with my best friends' mom in and ran like hell from my high school principal's daughter, who mysteriously blocked me on FB now that she goes to Uni. If you know the story behind this one, you probably know why. Her mom works for a bank and actually helped solve my mom's boyfriend's fraud issue -- his neighbor knocked him in the head (he's blind) got all his information, and then showed up some months later like he was going to "help" him. Ended up taking advantage of him for several months and defrauding him tens of thousands of dollars on all his credit and debit cards. My mom helped get him arrested, but he's out on bond. Funny how much of a small world it is these days though, and I was interested to see all these people still stuck in the same town.

Back to me and mom, we actually got some time to hang out for the first time in a few months and didn't fight. Talked about how the grandmother and uncle I'm stuck here living with have been conspiring to leave us high and dry because they're not going to inherit the house they've trashed for over a decade when mom passes, and how she finally realizes that they've been mooching off of her since she was a teenager -- even though it's half the reason she always ran from them anyway.

We went out walking so I could get some egg hatching done, and Mom seems to have either a bulging vein in her foot with a faulty valve in it, or a cyst; it gets bigger the more she stands on it, so I think it's a vein. I remember we used to walk for miles, but yesterday we only managed a few blocks before she was in excruciating pain, as much as she tried to hide it. I caught a vileplume (one more off the pokedex!) and bought enough incubators to get all my eggs in at the same time, so we didn't have to walk as much, and she drove me around a bit downtown to get all the stops. Team Valor, of course, had all the gyms sky high, and I didn't have my stronger Mystic buddies near, so fighting them down would have been a ball of ass. I didn't bother past about 30 minutes of battling to help get rid of excess revives and potions. I hate wasting them.

Had some Taco Bell when I got home, the $5 cravings box, and finally got around to moderating by 5 PM, where I stayed on spottily for about 6 hours until the idea to write a song popped up. I worked on a demo on and off for a while and did rough out a WIP. You can listen to it here but I'll also slap a preview in.

Lyrics provided in the full descrip. I'd like to know everyone's thoughts; don't be afraid to be harsh. Go nuts. I actually uploaded it because I figured it'd be inconvenient to write a mail or leave thoughts in a comment.

Other than that, not much doing. Got over 100 songs backlog in AP cleanup while I was writing that because some people don't flag what they report and it's just messy, so I need to go through those. By the time I got back to modding around 5 AM, I was just too tired to do much good. I'm sure I would have found more stolen and illegitimate content were it not for that. I was so bombed, I just got in 20 songs and hit the sack, then slept until 8 PM or so.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Stolen submissions: 60
No. Disallowed DAW Uses: 3
Non-remix: 2
Ear-rape: 2
Total Unpublished: 67
Users Banned: 37
Infractions per Capita: 1.811

BREAKDOWN:
Out of 67 illegitimate submissions, all but 8 were stolen for Geometry Dash. The one remaining theft was someone uploading a song they liked. 3 submissions were made in Music Maker Jam. 2 were cut or flanged versions of common Geometry Dash thefts such as NCS music or Skrillex. 2 were ear-rape, people screaming in the microphone, or turning up input as loud as it would go to create the most distortion possible, also for GD. Some submitters had stolen song catalogs of 15 songs or more, however the vast majority was from fire-and-forget accounts or new users. Still, I did find more users today that had more than one infraction. Of today's round-up, most were uploaded 1/15/17, however about 25 spanned 2015 and 2016, for a total infraction rate of 1.811.

CONCLUSION:
Again, I'd have loved to get a better sample size, as I feel 1.811 is a gross understatement of infraction rate; though to be fair this is counting alts and main accounts as two people, rather than a singular user. The actual rate per capita is probably higher. User @MonsterBoyGD pointed out that these thefts started when Geometry Dash v1.9 came out, which makes sense, given that this is where we see thefts start to creep in. Facepalm.

Additionally I would not have discovered some of these earlier thefts were it not for checking the account of each submitter with a flagged submission, so big thanks go out to those of you blowing that whistle! Looking forward to going through backlog today and slamming into unscouted again. I will be writing a guide on how to properly flag submissions, to add to my masterpost, so looking forward to that. :)

Alright, that about wraps it up. See ya tomorrow!

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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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!

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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.

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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!