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.

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