Uploader FAQ
Thanks for sharing the groove!
If you are already an ALA/Audio Liberation Activist/Uploader, please read on. If you don't have upload credentials you may be here trying to figure out how to upload at LL. We will gladly adjust your permissions, all you have to do is ask. We often refer to our senior admin team as orange men. If you look in the Who's Online box in the lower left margin of the main page, those guys will have orange colored names. Click a name and send any one of them a pm asking for upload status. If nobody orange is logged in at the time, keep an eye out and one of them will likely be checking in soon. You can also pm goother or email him at losslesslegssignup@gmail.com.
Rules And Stuff
We have some rules and it is imperative that they be followed, as they are enforced strictly.
First off, no silver cd rips/liberated bootlegs. There are many grandfathered here but no new ones please.
The other big thing is that we NEVER allow rips of official releases. NEVER. If what you have came from a source that was not used for the official release, that's fine as long as you can prove it in the source/lineage information. So you can upload a show that has been officially released, just not the source itself, or the source that was used to create the official release.
We need you to really digest the NAB/not allowed list. There are some surprises on there and we cannot and will not jeopardize Lossless Legs' reputation by breaching these rules.
Lossless Legs started in 2005, some of our list goes on very old information. We are certainly open to modifying the policy if it can be proven that an artist now allows digital trading via bit torrent. We have contacted artists in the past and received permission, we have initiated communication with at least one of the big ones below to get an update as to their current stance regarding digital trading in 2020. We would like your help here, so please contact an admin and we are open to amending the NAB list.
https://www.shnflac.net/smf/index.php?topic=7423.0
The big no-no's are Allman Brothers, Hot Tuna, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Rolling Stones and Beatles. Read the list and then read it 3 more times or check it before uploading something. If you have any questions contact an admin before uploading.
Next we need you to do due diligence and make sure none of the material you are going to upload has been officially released. Sometimes stuff falls through the cracks or some expert on a particular band knows if something has been officially released. If we discover later that something is questionable we reserve the right to delete the torrent. Don't take it personally, it's just how we roll. See the above note, it is okay to upload an officially released show as long as it's not a direct rip of said release or using the same source that was used to create the official release.
We also don't delete a few tracks from a show and post the rest. It's all or nothing.
After that we need you to check Lossless Legs to make sure what you are uploading is not already here. Do your best, if we find out later about duplicates we can take corrective action at that time.
Make sure you search through the shows of an artist you're trying to upload, too. It's
best to go to the Torrents Link, load that page, then with the Category drop down menu pick the artist and Search. Scroll through the page/s of shows that are here already. It can be a little tedious, but it prevents overlap. Just searching by year won't always catch everything.
If you need something deleted because you goofed on the upload process or found it to be a duplicate or officially released there is a specific forum thread to ask for a deletion. That thread is here: https://www.shnflac.net/smf/index.php?topic=18244.0
Only orange admins can delete a show, so it may take a little while for one to roll in and have time to delete your torrent. By orange admin we mean the senior level guys whose names appear in orange. Take a look in the Who's Online box located in the lower left margin of the main page.
Let's Do It
Now on to the physical process of uploading.
We prefer the .torrent file to be private and for Lossless Legs only. If you are doing Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Phish or another band that is likely to show up at bt.etree you may uncheck the private box to allow a torrent at LL to be simulataneously shared at etree.org.
Traders Little Helper has a menu choice for Lossless Legs so it's easy to use that. Sadly there is no TLH for Macs so you'll have to use something else if you're a Mac person. I believe as long as the announce line is correct you can use any program you want.
Lossless Legs [http://www.shnflac.net/announce.php]
Once we have adjusted your credentials to be an ALA/audio liberation activist/uploader you will see an Upload link on the navigation bar at the top of the main page. It should be between the LL Lists link and the Forum link.
Click that and you'll see a page with a form. Let's go through the form step by step.
Torrent file: Click Choose file, browse to your .torrent file and upload.
Category: drop down menu, choose artist, if no
available entry pick the closest general category.
We are in process of adding all artists to this menu so hopefully in the future you will be able to pick that specific artist.
Project: This drop down menu generally applies to Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia and Phish yearly projects as well as Jazz Sunday, Blue Monday and Miles Davis. There are a few others, DeadCo, Other Ones, Neil Young, Hendrix, but for the majority of uploads you can skip this menu. If it IS one of the above mentioned, then this MUST be used!
Kind: This is for specific uploaders who have shared so much with LL they have a way to designate their uploads. We have many senior uploaders who do not have one of these so don't feel badly if you don't have one. You can search for these on the Torrents page as well. You will likely leave this blank.
Type: As in Type of media. flac16,flac24,dvd,mkv,mp4,matrix etc. This is VERY IMPORTANT. Please pick something.
File Name: This is the name of the folder where the music is stored. Mandatory.
I usually hit F2 to rename the folder which selects the folder name. Ctrl + C or right click copy and you have your folder name on the clipboard. Paste that into the field. Be careful not to alter the folder name doing this.
Source i.d.: Tied to https://etreedb.org/ this is for the shn/source i.d. It can be filled in later by an admin. If you don't know what the source i.d. is, leave blank. If you have applied for a source i.d. and it is pending please enter it now. Many bands don't get a
source or show i.d. If in doubt, leave it blank.
Note: All Jerry Garcia solo projects MUST be applied for under Garcia if you want to get a source/shn i.d. Not JGB or LOM etc, just Garcia. So it goes jg19xx-xx-yy.shn.id. then use abbreviations for legion of mary/LOM, jgb,garcia/grisman,garcia/kahn etc.
Show i.d.: See above. If you inserted a pending i.d. above, then please add the etreedb.org show i.d. now as well. You can find the show i.d. by going to etreedb.org. Click an artist, click a year, click a show. Look in the url box at the top of your browser and at the end you will see a number. That's the show i.d. Here is an example. 831 is the show i.d.
https://etreedb.org/lookup_show.php?shows_key=831
Admins can add this later but it is very helpful if you just do it now.
Description: This is mandatory and the minimum requirement is to copy and paste the text file and md5 string into this field. Open your text file, select all, copy, then paste into the field. Right click md5, open with notepad or a text editor, select all, copy, then paste under the text file data in the field. I usually do the same and do the text file, then ffp string then md5 string.
Staff Comment: Optional. Write whatever you like, but keep it short. New to circulation, Thanks to all involved, notes of fixes or other details. Use common sense.
IMPORTANT: Please do not use special characters in your folder or .torrent file names. Especially ampersand &, that one really wreaks havoc on Windows machines. Keep folder and file names as short as possible with as few spaces as possible. You have a text file for the specific details.
Preferred naming convention:
Artist, 4 digit year mandatory,2 digit month, 2 digit day. Dates separated by dashes please. Source/shn i.d. next with all additional info separated using dots. Add venue or city if desired, source, as in aud, sbd, fm etc. Recordists, mics, uploader all optional. Actually everything after the Artist and date is optional. Here are a couple examples.
gd1979-09-02.149508.nak300.fob.flac16
jg1985-08-18.149864.jgjk.nak700.mow.miller.sirmick.flac24
When done with the form, click Submit.
If aLL goes weLL you will submit and then be taken to a page with a big Download link on it.
If you get rejected it's likely because of special characters in your text file. Stay away from the degree symbol, ya know, the little circle thingy.
Disclaimer about computer settings: I use Windows7 with Chrome and uTorrent 2.2.1. I do not allow my browser or OS or client to save to any pre-set folders. The OS, browser and uTorrent all ask me every time where I want to save things, browser does not auto-run anything, I have to click specifically on the .torrent file to run, which then opens my client. I like this better as I have full control over what happens. If you have different settings you will see different behavior than described. Any further discussion of this is beyond the scope of this FAQ.
This is IMPORTANT. Click the download link and download the new .torrent file. The new file is your original file with our hash and a PID. Your torrent will not work unless you start it from this new file.
The general procedure is to just save the new file over your original. Replace/overwrite however you want to look at it. So when the Operating System asks you "Do you want to replace/overwrite the existing file with the same name?" SAY YES!!
You can save the new file to a different folder to avoid the confusion, but then make sure you are using the right .torrent file to kick things off at LL.
Now you have the correct file to kick off the torrent. For some reason this next step trips many people up the first few times they upload here.
Run the new .torrent file. Depending upon your OS and browser settings it may run automatically, or you may have to click or double click it to run it, or pick Open With etc. So however you're set, run the new .torrent file and your torrent client program will open. From here it's just like a reseed, you use the browse feature of your client to tell it where the folder with the goodies is. We call this "point your client" to the right folder. Or aim or browse so it knows where the goods are. If you aim it correctly it will check (just like a reseed) and then start running. You will show as the only seeder with 100% on the seed/leech page of the torrent. You'll see an entry on the main page in the correct block (GD family/Phil/NonGDfamily/bumps), click that, hit the details page, then at the bottom there are seed/leech numbers. Click those. Or you can click the numbers on the main page too and see the same information.
The kicker here is that some clients/programs like to be told about the actual folder with the goodies. Some clients want to be pointed to, or aimed at the parent folder, or the folder above the one with the tunes.
So please for everyone's benefit so we don't waste each other's time with mistakes and asking for deletions and of course people will jump on your show right away, so those folks will have to redownload if you need a delete.
Please, please, please practice reseeding at least a couple shows before uploading. Make sure you really know how to browse to the correct folder.
Some of this hinges on how you have your client set. If you have configured your torrent program to always save stuff to a specific place that may trip you up if your upload isn't already in that folder.
Don't worry if you mess up, we sort of expect it, chances are better than 50/50 that you will not get it right the first time. Or even the second, or third time. If you're still messing up after 10 then we will have to flog you with a wet noodle jam.
Thanks again for wanting share, LL is member driven and we appreciate your help.
If you get stuck or have any questions there are many experienced uploaders who are friendly and will happily help, do not hesitate to ask. Please mention what Operating System and torrent program you use to save time.
Here are some screen shots done by gems that may help clarify, it's always nice to have visuals.
http://www.gizard.org/goother/LosslessLegs/UploaderFAQ/uploader-screenshots/