Callout post: asset-archive.myaddr.io

Ellie

Sooo...

I've been sitting on this topic for a few hours now and I feel like it needs to be talked about.

FIRST OF ALL:

There is nothing wrong with sharing things, creating collections and forwarding them.
If you got the content for free you have no right to charge for it, or lock it behind a coins system.

you also have to credit people. I mean everyone on ripperstore manages to do it by linking back to the original post

Now to get to the meat of this situation, this site seems to have popped up somewhat recently, around a week ago, and features many assets and files shared here on ripperstore (VRChat and Live2D things and some STL/3D Printing stuff)

The premise seems similar to assetopia just a bit wider. But it differs greatly from ripperstore or assetopia because it includes a coin system.

There is no way to buy coins per se, but you seem to be able to earn coins by "contributing" shown as asset coins, I am assuming this is from user contribution or other.

Which is where I see the issue, you are encouraging people to take donations shared by users here, to post them to your site to get access to things. You get 10 free coins when signing up so I guess that's the hook.

Where is the credit to the ripperstore users things have been just taken from and reposted?

I encourage the site owner to actually think about ethically sharing assets, there's nothing wrong with saying "asset found here credit to: ..." and adding a backlink.

Please add your thoughts to the comments I'd love to hear what other ripperstore users have to think about this stuff as well!

I'd like to also point out that very coincidentally to my post, i cannot login either of my accounts on that site. It's not a password issue it says authentication required so I've probably been banned. figured as much. call out the scam site and get banned LOL

milkimayu

This system is really stupid. If I can just log in and do it with coins, I might as well go buy them myself from the booth.

People here buy and share things to help each other out; if there are going to be extras like coins, everyone can just go buy them from the regular site.

Ellie

@milkimayu The problem is also the "asset coins" which im assuming are earned by contributing to that site... so its encouraging people to scrape ripperstore and just repost to get coins with no credit to the person who spent their hard earned money and shared it out of their kindness :((

milkimayu

@Ellie said:

The problem is also the "asset coins" which im assuming are earned by contributing to that site... so its encouraging people to scrape ripperstore and just repost to get coins with no credit to the person who spent their hard earned money and shared it out of their kindness :((

Yeah, that’s why I really didn’t like the site at all—if we’re going to share stolen stuff, and if that content is already here, then there’s no point in even checking out the site.

I’d rather get help here or get it myself.

Ellie

@milkimayu Funnily enough, the test account i made to investigate the site and the other one i had, got banned. Coincidence that it happens after i make this post I guess LOL

bugboy

They're also (at least partially) the reason for all the new users joining out of nowhere. They have a discord where they invite each other from a bunch of different emails so people can scrape assets for their site

Ellie

@bugboy Holy shit thats insane. this may be something to bring up with mods potentially?

I've made a mod help post for it, cuz thats genuinely insane
https://forum.ripper.store/post/1947549

milkimayu

@Ellie Lol, you’ve probably been banned by some of the people who follow this site

If they’d made the site more user-friendly, it wouldn’t have been criticised, they should have the criticism

ZyroFox

@Ellie Im in the discord and didnt know about this. Several of us joined because we just wanted invites into ripperstore as the link was from a reddit post that wasnt mentioning asset archive(just thought that was the server name)

I can say some of us are blind to what theyre doing

Wenhe Wang

@ellie

the owner here

the website is not that new, it's actually over 7 months old

getting to the big elephant in the room

yes the "coin system" is not great design. i do not argue with that. it's what i came up with back then, but it's also not what you think.
i have explained it a lot in Discord because people got confused.

The wording of it is also inaccurate because "free coin" would mean you only have 10 downloads and then you're out of them, but it's actually just a daily limit.
if I had used daily instead of free it would be a bit less confusing. (YES the whole thing is still dumb, I just use it as a limiter right now.) i do not have the bandwidth for that right now.
i currently wait until i got better bandwidth and time to remove that "coin system" and have another limiter in place if needed or not. (NO I DO NOT CHARGE MONEY FOR THE ASSETS ITS ALL FREE)

also your statement about it being "99% Ripper Store content" is also false. The scraped content you're referring to is from Assetopia, and they probably also have content from Ripper Store, like most other websites. (do you see them link back to ripperstore??)
also a lot of people upload stuff that is not on ripperstore at all. also reviewing all uploads takes a lot of time to check if the tagging is correct and all, and I do not go through ripperstore each time someone uploads something to check if it is truly from there. this is not going to happen, sorry.

also addressing your alleged ban on the website, I can ensure you I did not ban you.
i checked the database for your account and it, for some reason, just does not exist there.

i have issues that the website loses connection to the database for some reason, but i never noticed that it caused any real issues until now.
so what really happened with your account I can't tell you, but that's the only connection I can make to what may have happened to your account.

also YES there was a discord bot that invited people (i removed it now)
makes it you happy now? because it makes 0 difference, the bot wasn’t even used that much at all, and most invites happen in the other channel. also other websites/forums do that too, for a long time. nothing new.
and no, there is no automatic ripperstore content scraper.

also you may notice that the domain is not reachable thanks to you posting my website publicly on Ripper directly, which will probably draw attention from the booth owners. I have to change the domain now. (the only reason I changed domain is you're posting it publicly and I do not want to draw too much attention, not because it's a scam)

tldr: no, the website is not a scam, and no, it does not have the best design choices either. if I have better bandwidth and time, the website will get an overhaul.

if you have other complaints or feedback you want to give me that bother you about the website, let me know. I may consider it in the overhaul.

Also the statement from Bugboy is wrong that I invite people so they can upload the content from ripperstore to the website.
i mean it happens for sure but i never said anything in the way like "here is your invite get the content for the website"

People just want an invite so they can get their stuff from it that they’re looking for.

Ellie

@Wenhe-Wang

Let me dissect this piece by piece.

It honestly doesn't matter how old the website is. I was taking the data from some of the dates on the site and when it was first mention on ripperstore by another user. Contrary to your accusation I wasn't the first person to post your domain on here.

If its not a great design, because it encourages said scraping by users with no backlink, and its also a constant struggle for having to explain it. Why not remove it?

I go by the wording that was presented to me as a user of the site, could add a link to the button that explains the coins that its just a daily limit. But the way it was presented at the time of my writing (clearly seen by my screenshots), gives off the impression that the first 10 are free and then the rest is earned by uploading.

If you're encouraging users to upload content, where i'm assuming there is no field for "credit to source" (that's so easy to add and I'm a first year network IT student), you are taking "payment" in form of content.

It's not money per se but for all intents and purposes it acts the same.

"you grab content = you get another content from me".

People in the medieval times used to trade fruits and other goods, that was money back then was it not? This is the same concept. It's called bartering.

Read about it here

Assetopia has no Live2D content. Also it was just an example.

Because one site does bad doesn't mean that you can do it either and I won't complain.

I have my problems with assetopia as well but I am closer to the Live2D community and that's why I cared. the VRChat stuff is just the cherry on this very horrible cake.

Add a form field with credit if available. It's that simple. Would you like help with it instead of complaining that people want credit for stuff they paid for?

I made an account and coincidentally after my post could no longer login. Here is the verification email. Don't call me a liar thank you very kindly.

Ripperstore has the invite system for a very clear reason. So it's obvious who invited who and then bans go down from there. There are open registrations occasionally (just recently) and otherwise it's closed for a reason. Just look at creators like "GMsbox", actively hunting the forum for links and taking everything down.

I have nothing to do with your site going down.
I have a right to complain and point out things I find unfair and not okay.

Your issues with being able to design buttons, add proper form fields for credit, keep a database in check, explaining a system properly on the site etc... are none of mine.

I simply care if people get their credit and if things are fair. It's not rocket science.

It all boils down to, take criticism, don't blame your site being public on me and also... just because another site does things without credit doesn't mean that people find it okay or fun. Just add a form field and properly clarify the coins and the problem literally is over???

Wenhe Wang

@ellie I keep the website down for now until I fix it. I currently do not have time for it right now. Maybe next week.
The coin system will be gone and the credit field will be added. And hopefully the database issue gets fixed as well.

Would this be enough for now?

Ellie

@Wenhe-Wang That addresses the concerns yup Question is also, if there's no coin system do you even need an account system? If takedowns are a concern could have weekly access codes or something similar shared on your discord etc.. (I would like an invite if possible )

Wenhe Wang

@ellie the account requirement i would keep for now so i can limit the amount of downloads a user can do within a day, so that not someone comes and starts downloading a lot and drags the service down and nothing is left for the others, until i have better bandwidth. later an account should only be needed if you want to upload something or edit something but not for downloading.

also i really like the idea with the weekly access codes on discord

discord invite sent via dm

tsumugi300

I know I'm intruding and going off-topic, but could I get an invitation too? I really liked your new concept for the site and would love to stay updated on it.
I don't have enough reputation to send DMs.

Kittzzz

This post is deleted!

Eisa

@Wenhe-Wang Hello, if possible, I’d love to receive an invitation too. Would that be okay?

firstprinciple

This post is deleted!

firstprinciple

@Wenhe-Wang Hello buddy! I just read the post over at asset-archive.myaddr.io and found out you’re the site owner. Could I grab an invite from you? Really appreciate it!

ssxly

@Wenhe-Wang Hello, if possible, I’d love to receive an invitation too. Would that be okay?