@ファブリス well it's your forum so really, I don't feel I can argue the point too strongly. Suffice it to say that I reckon, based on what I've seen of your general approach on these forums over the last few years, you're being overly aggressive in this case. You've built a strong community here and a huge part of that is sharing resources. Making scripts and tools is one way in which to share resources, but one person doing a lot of hard work to save others time (as buonaparte did here, rising to my earlier challenge) is another way. I really don't think buonaparte was trying to boost his post count - that would be weird and transparent. It seems like he just slightly misunderstood the way we operate here. I mean, who really reads the rules at every forum they join? Please don't hurt me.

@buonaparte you heard the man, let's not all be stubborn about it, please repost the links from this thread now that you've had explicit permission? Going from one extreme (making a new thread for each link) to the other (never posting again) is madness! Surely there's a happy medium where you collect the useful stuff together and post it as one, that way you aren't seen to be flooding the board but lots of people will be grateful for the information and the time you save them.

Peace out y'all

Links removed because of forum guidelines.

Sheesh, someone turn this into a TV drama already.

[ファブリス]

buonaparte (and all): my apologies.

As I mentionned briefly in a previous post, I received a complaint by email. In retrospect, I regret having let this person's email influence my reaction here. This person sent me today a second email thanking me for taking action. This angered me even more. Select quotes from his 1st email (he appears to be a member of some german forum for Japanese learners):

Quote:Some friend of mine, told me a link to you. I checked it, and so can also do the companie, jpod101.
(...)
I will not denounciate you, but I am sure, such things, they are able to find out themselves too.
(...)
Perhaps I will be once a member of yours, but not for the moment.

Way to make a disguised threat. The last quote really is the icing on the cake.

Second email after my intervention here. Mr Policeman somehow felt like translating his email in French... He thanked for taking action, gave me links to some other forum where he posts. It ends with:

Quote:PS. avec cette astuce tu peux voir toi même si jpod101 même a déjà un oeil sur ton site oui ou non.

link: http://kanji.koohii.com/ +jpod101

English: "ps: with this tip you can see yourself if jpod101 already has an eye on your site or no."

Wtf!? I feel I have let myself being bullied by some weirdo with an OCD disorder.

My apologies to you all. There was no need to single out buonaparte like I did.

This does not mean that it's ok to post links to illegal downloads. Just that I should have taken more distance, as I have done in the past, so longs as there is no abuse of the forum rules.

Usually I let people auto-rule the forum, which imho is the best way to do it. But I was taken off guard this time.

As is the case for most forums and online services, I can delete the offending links, if I DO get a complaint from JapanesePod101 themselves.

With all that said, you (and everyone else) should still provide a minimum of contextual information with download links. It's not just for me, it's for you!

You see, if an company/author sends me a complaint; I can tell you from experience they usually just point me to a topic, rarely to a post, if they give me any link at all. And I'm the one who have to single out to them that only this or that link is faulty; or maybe even all the downloads are rightfully obtained and their complaint doesn't stand.

If you don't provide any explanations with your links, I'm sorry I don't have time to download all of that, uncompress and figure out myself what it is and whether it's respectfully obtained or not! So unless you provide a minimum of contextual information, in the advent of a complaint I may have to delete entire posts and/or threads.

Now since I'm going to send a salty response to Mr Policeman, he may actually decide to contact JapanesePod101...

If he does, I will post his username and the forum where he posts in here. (I know he's reading this).

I feel all warm inside, and I'm sure it's not just normal respiration. Don't you just love it when we all get along? <3 ファブリス

I'll start mirroring those links so we can trade them in the underworld if Peter-san disapproves.

Teskal Wrote:The best think would be to ask JPOD101 what they think about putting this material online. In some countries, like Germany, it could be a problem to put such material online for everyone. These Files are only free available for 7 days. Without special Software, you cannot download it without problems and normally not all the material in 7 days.

I found it very interesting that it is possible to get so much data so fast, like buonaparte did it. It would be very interesting to know how he did it. But I have an Premium Account till 2012 (and don't think I will cancel it) and so I can get the one-liner everytime.

A Guy I know from another Forum asked already Peter from JPOD101, what they are thinking about this kind of links. It is possible that I can tell more in a few days.

Someone posted already on JPOD101 few days ago the question if it is ok to use this stuff:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/view...php?t=5515
There is no official answer there in the moment

Quote:English: "ps: with this tip you can see yourself if jpod101 already has an eye on your site or no."

That someone can find this information in the internet, doesn't mean that jpod 101 has already an eye on this site.

[ファブリス]

His example is bad anyway, I think this works better:

Code:

site:japanesepod101.com link:koohii.com

Loads of JPOD101 forum topics linking to this forum (not to mention why would jpod101 discuss any problems they may have with us or anyone else really, in a public forum? Duh).

This post appears to be from a Jpod101 team member, pointing out to our Audiobooks thread.

PS: Oh, and as I pointed out to Mr Policeman, this site actually brings sales to JapanesePod101, since I am an affiliate. You can see the ad if you log off or load the page in a private window. It's not many sales (I wish!), but I can tell you there are always sales every month.

Oh, Phi Stazek is here?! Welcome to RtK forums.

It's been a while since the last time I saw you. ひさしぶり!

***

For thoe who don't know: buonaparte, (a.k.a. siomotteikiru, atamagii, aya, turaisiawae, umauma, etc.) is a very nice Polish girl who is famous for her controversial ideas. For example she is the person behind the idea of L-R (or to be accurate, the one behind the spread of this method in the language-learning internet communities.)

She is very kind and generous with her goldmine of Japanese materials, but she is also a little bit sensitive!

oh my
psst Fabrice, perhaps end with "So unless you provide a minimum of contextual information, in the advent of a complaint I may have to delete entire posts and/or threads"? .... then take a deep restorative breath ...and let it all disappear... :-)

It seems fair to me that minimizing hassle to Fabrice should also be considered when trying to minimize the effort required by others to acquire material. Is there not some other absolute "right" that you guys could be out there defending heroically ? ;-)

[ファブリス]

Again, I apologize.

Actually I am quite sensible as well which is what happened here: I let a very negative person catch me off guard. And by email, of all things. This should teach me a lesson.

I spent way too much time on the forum last week. Since I work from home now, I really need more discipline to separate my work time, and "off" time.

Here's more drivel from the same guy:

random_negative_dude Wrote:I think it is very pity, if a good forum like yours could disappear from the Internet.
(...)
I appology, having made trouble to you.
But furtherwards, I will not denounciate you in any way.
As Teskal said, he knows somebody who will do it.
But it is not me.

Maybe he doesn't even mean it. His english is really awkward.

[ファブリス]

Well I was meaning to send an apology to buonaparte; but he/she changed his email address. Anyway I did what I could. And the Admin is entitled to make mistakes from time to time.

But... wait. As I was checking buonaparte's profile I remembered something from Mr Policeman's last email:

PoliceDude Wrote:You think that I am a policeman. How wrong you are. I am someone like Bonaparte. Nothing more nothing less.

Bonaparte.. buonaparte... Edit: I guess he read her username here and made some kind of lapsus. Maybe I should just go to bed lol.

"You think that I am a policeman"

Hahaha, this made me laugh.

Perhaps vigilante is more his style then?

I'm really sorry, I know 2 guys in another forum. I knew they have a membership to this jpod101, so I thought they could need the data. So I told them about the links. (Personally I would not give such data to people, who has no premium membership, but this is my opinion.)

5 days ago someone made already a post in the jpod101-forum to get a permission (if I see it correct), I think after it, this request was made here. Ok, there is no official ok, but they still could do it and the links could be removed. Thats the reason why I posted it in the thread.

The "Policeman" ist not the one who contacted Peter directly.
I don't think that the other one, who told me yesterday he knows Peter, contacted him to damage you or this forum. It was only a request, what they think about such links. If they think it is ok or not.

I really like jpod101, I'm little sad that they didn't posted an answer in the jpod101-forum yet. It would have made so much less trouble. After 5 days I would expect that an admin would read this post and answer. But this could be more a German think, because in Germany the GOD of the forum could get lot of trouble, if he don't check what was posted.

[ファブリス]

Wait wait, I should have spent time to read the topic carefully before reacting.

NOV 21 : Topic starter "nalcomis" wanted to invite people in a collaborative effort , using material from Jpod.

NOV 21 : Same day he posted a similar invitation on Jpod's own forums.

In both cases, he clearly stated that "this isn't a deck that will be publicly shared in Anki. It will only be for folks who contribute and have Premium JPOD101 accounts... Only fair, right?".

Until then, as far as I am concerned (as a forum admin), I have no problem with it. I think the OP proposition was responsible, and no materials were meant to be shared on this forum directly. In other words, it was not my responsibility.

NOV 27 : Blahah appears to have posted instructions, but no data.
NOV 27 : buonaparte posted links, with a relatively carefree attitude (ie. "if it is not prohibited, you can do it"), which is what buzzed the wrong buttons for me.

Still, until then, if I had known the OP didn't mean to share the material directly in the forum, I would have been more diplomatic and less aggressive with buonaparte. I could have deleted the posts (which I did), and asked politely to take such links to a private discussion, or a private Yahoo group, and such.

NOV 28 : I received a PM from a concerned member, and then an email from (I presume) a German person who is member of a German forum about learning Japanese. The email, in particular, was rather negative and somewhat paranoid.

Now what I should have done there is read the topic carefully from start to end, before reacting to complaints.

I didn't do that, and for that I apologize.

As for buonaparte, there was no need for her to post the links in the forum, considering the OP's request. She is responsible for derailing this topic. I didn't like what I perceived as carefree attitude (ie. "if it is not prohibited, then you can do it"). Like others before, she can read the forum rules, and she's welcome to stay.

As for my Profile I will remove the "G.O.D." title. It was meant to be an inside joke, but I understand some people may take it the wrong way.

Teskal Wrote:But this could be more a German think, because in Germany the GOD of the forum could get lot of trouble, if he don't check what was posted.

We're talking about paedophilia, hacking, that sort of thing, right? You're telling me in Germany a website owner is in trouble before he even gets a chance to remove suspicious links? I don't believe it. I don't know the laws there, I understand the website owners can be made responsible for the content (it happened in France too actually, and with blogs as well). As far as I understand, those cases I heard about each time the website owners contested the laws, and did NOT want to remove incriminated materials.

I'm not sure why japanesepod is being discussed like it's something special in any way shape or form. Seems like an irrelevant and outmoded learning resource to me, not worth the effort. I'm disappointed in you, Blahah. You don't have time for this!! Get to work on that plugin plzkthxbye.

[ファブリス]

Practical conclusion:

I do not check all links. I don't have to. I believe I can trust most of you here to be reasonable, and so far it has been the case. I know there have been occasional dubious links. I sometimes ignore them, because I can take them down if I receive any complaints from the copyright holders. This, of course, only because of the forum rules and the direction I set for this forum/community. I know those links are occasional, and are not the meat of the forum.

forum guidelines Wrote:I believe that in the same way that you should respect other's creations and opinions on these boards; you should respect works that are available commercially. To put it another way, this community is about learning Japanese (primarily), sharing one's insights and experiences with languages, encouragement and growth. This is not the place for sharing illegal downloads, there are other places for that.

This forum topic did not break the forum guidelines as far as I'm concerned, because the exchange of materials was not meant to happen on the forum.

Have you listened to it a lot nest0r? There is so much good dialog in there, hundreds and hundreds of hours with gradually increasing complexity, all read by native speakers. Grammar points and nuances explained. OK, Peter tends to get annoyingly distracted but in general it's good stuff. I can listen to it whilst driving, and I learn faster than listening to an audiobook or music. The best thing is that it takes no time or effort - it's just there already to download. I can unsuspend vocab/grammar from it in my big anki deck, and it kinda holds in my memory better than when I just learn vocab for the sake of it. The context of the dialogs and explanation helps retention.

See, doing two things at once takes no extra time, so I can listen to jpod101 whilst setting up experiments, taking results, driving, crapping, etc. I can't plan and write a program like that! (well, maybe whilst crapping, but that would taint the program). Now what I could do is spend less time on the forum and more time coding, but since I have estranged all my real friends by being a Japan loving weirdo, I need the companionship fix.

＠ファブリス sorry that you had to go to all this length to explain, we really should all have just behaved ourselves from the beginning.

[ファブリス]

ahibba Wrote:She is very kind and generous with her goldmine of Japanese materials, but she is also a little bit sensitive!

I'm sorry if I chased her away. However, everyone has to take some responsibility for their actions. She is aware of the forum rules by now, and is welcome to stay. She is not banned, that I can see.

Blahah Wrote:Have you listened to it a lot nest0r? There is so much good dialog in there, hundreds and hundreds of hours with gradually increasing complexity, all read by native speakers. Grammar points and nuances explained. OK, Peter tends to get annoyingly distracted but in general it's good stuff. I can listen to it whilst driving, and I learn faster than listening to an audiobook or music. The best thing is that it takes no time or effort - it's just there already to download. I can unsuspend vocab/grammar from it in my big anki deck, and it kinda holds in my memory better than when I just learn vocab for the sake of it. The context of the dialogs and explanation helps retention.

See, doing two things at once takes no extra time, so I can listen to jpod101 whilst setting up experiments, taking results, driving, crapping, etc. I can't plan and write a program like that! (well, maybe whilst crapping, but that would taint the program). Now what I could do is spend less time on the forum and more time coding, but since I have estranged all my real friends by being a Japan loving weirdo, I need the companionship fix.

＠ファブリス sorry that you had to go to all this length to explain, we really should all have just behaved ourselves from the beginning.

Seems too one-sidedly audio-focused and passive to me, there's so many tools and resources for active, multisensory, focused/minimal study of grammar, I guess I think of Japanesepod as being part of the Pimsleur era. ;p

I guess according to your example of lots of driving and finding native material during these drives too slow, it can't hurt (though I'd recommend just using that native material as supplementary to non-driving study), but doesn't seem worthy of all these comments either. ;p

Dear G.O.D.,
You shouldn't have apologised, I did not feel offended in any way.
In fact, posting the links was a bother for me, too. I had to upload everything, etc, and waste my time.
I am not sensitive at all - it makes me laugh!

As to Japanesepod - I am not a great fan. I prefer audiobooks and parallel texts. I don't like short dialogues about nothing.

buonaparte Wrote:Dear G.O.D.,
You shouldn't have apologised, I did not feel offended in any way.
In fact, posting the links was a bother for me, too. I had to upload everything, etc, and waste my time.
I am not sensitive at all - it makes me laugh!

Like Fabrice said, it's not an all or nothing equation. Take the time to present your resources properly if you're going to invest effort in sharing them, or it really is a waste of time. I don't know about other people, but I don't generally comb through 10 sudden new threads and download random links based on ローマ字 titles and single-sentence descriptors.

Wow I'm grouchy, need to get back to studying. ;p

I agree it isn't worthy of all these comments (he said, adding to the pile of comments). It's just another tool in the box, and ultimately the major appeal is that they've gone to the trouble of sorting out native audio so we can turn it into our own learning method (anki, or whatever). I still value the podcasts though; whilst it may be related to pimsleur it surpasses it by a long way. The intermediate and advanced level podcasts go way higher than pimsleur did, and they give it away for free.

Also, I can't be doing with all this subs2srs malarky, way too mechanical for me.

nest0r,
lengthy descriptions are my weak point, I agree. Sorry to have caused so much trouble for everyone.

As to Japanesepod again. I only listened here and there, but Miki's audioblog was very good.
To compare it with Pimplseur is not fair.

If I had to choose between anki and Miki I'd go for Miki. I would go crazy if I had to use anki or similar tools.

I just signed up for jpod101, and it seems like a pretty good resource for beginner/intermediate stages. Especially as a native-speaking supplement for people who are taking classes.

I've only listened to 2 of the really short podcasts by miki, but it doesn't seem to interesting, or necessarily useful, to me. I've found podcasts on the lists here that I liked much better, and sounded much more natural... Maybe it gets better in the longer ones, but the ones I heard seemed pretty contrived.

Their grammar database looks really awesome. Kind of like kanzen master meets the core series. I just wish they had more advanced grammar...

What they lack - I mean Japanesepod - is a good pronunciation course.
By the way, strange how people differ! I liked Miki very much. Maybe because of her voice.

In general, I don't think there are any good resources for learners of Japanese. And I've seen thousands of them in many languages. The best ones seem to be in Russian.