Torrents and torrents..

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by ahi

Here's the root of the disagreement: the rest of us are not on 14.4 K dial-up.

[Sparrow]

There are also the complete lists of all the books, downloadable from the Upload section in txt or html format. I use those to search/browse.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It is unreasonable, IMHO, to demand that volunteers that uploaded books to make an extreme extra effort

Where did anybody demand anything?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Yes, anyone can add such pages and entries into the wiki. It is unreasonable, IMHO, to demand that volunteers that uploaded books to make an extreme extra effort to produce bulk downloading choices because the users are too lazy to pick and choose.

I was actually hinting at interested users (not necessarily the original uploaders) to create such pages

Note that the Wiki pages are not really bulk downloads, but rather collected links to the pertinent forum threads, so they would affect the download counts too.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Jellby

I was actually hinting at interested users (not necessarily the original uploaders) to create such pages

I get the impression that bulk downloads via the wiki would not be permitted, regardless of who creates them.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by ahi

How about demanding that Mobileread staff make the almost certainly minimal effort of downloading all public domain tagged attachments in the eBook forums, and start a torrent with them?

Is that unreasonable too? If not, what does that other thing you mentioned have to do with anything?

Asking mobileread to do something simple that some users/readers would see as a benefit is really no different than wanting Sony or Amazon to do the same. Neither are obliged, but both should probably care about the people they supposedly mean to serve.

Exactly.

Also many people here assume a sharing or open source culture (I do at least). And in such a culture you contribute sometimes by suggesting enhancements. There is also a great value in having everything as open as possible because that will lead to new things that could not be predicted.

Concerning depending on feedback it would be much better to implement a real feedback system were people could tell if they had read the book and how much they liked it. And for this it would be an advantage to have torrents so people stopped depending on the current very limited feedback and implemented some new and better system.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

<rant>
there is an old adage that beggars can't be choosy but I guess, in this modern, age this is no longer the case. Beggars are not only choosy but demanding.
</rant>

Most of us never once even asked, much less begged, for any of the uploaded eBooks.

- Ahi

[demoric]

Two additional factors I'd like to throw in for support of torrents, is that in all of the client software I have used to download you can select and de-select as you see fit.

As for waste of bandwidth I pay for my bandwidth and choose to use it to the fullest amount I can. Torrents alleviate bandwidth cost from the host and instead distribute the bandwidth through those downloading and seeding. I cut my bandwidth in half when I was running servers by requesting people use torrents over zips.

I would love to see a genre based torrents at mobile read, but I'm not upset that they aren't available. I appreciate all the efforts made for the mobile read free books.

Also many people here assume a sharing or open source culture

I too support open source and sharing. I use opensource and have contributed thousands of lines of code to various projects, and have written many pieces of software and released it as GPL. I have spent many hours supporting projects I love. Share, discuss, and improve. Those three things make for better communities. That seems to be the spirit at mobileread also.

[Superlucky]

Originally Posted by ahi

Most of us never once even asked, much less begged, for any of the uploaded eBooks.

Taking the adage literally is to miss the point. Asking something of volunteers who upload books here is not at all like asking something of Sony or Amazon. Going to a friend's house for dinner is different than going to a restaurant; it's only okay to bitch about the service at the latter.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Superlucky

Taking the adage literally is to miss the point. Asking something of volunteers who upload books here is not at all like asking something of Sony or Amazon. Going to a friend's house for dinner is different than going to a restaurant; it's only okay to bitch about the service at the latter.

No. It's not missing the point, but rather recognizing the unwarranted insult.

The uploaders are not doing us favours that in any way oblige us to any repayment or even gratitude. They are uploading because they wish to share. It might be incorrect to assume that they therefore care about what their potential readership wants... but it is certainly not ungrateful, and the potential readership is certainly not in the position of being "beggars" in any sense.

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by demoric

I would love to see a genre based torrents at mobile read, but I'm not upset that they aren't available. I appreciate all the efforts made for the mobile read free books.

Perhaps if somebody did one genre, others would take on others.

Such an effort could start by requesting people, via a newly created thread, to recommend public domain books for inclusions (beyond the obvious choices readily found via clever advanced searches on here) in that genre, and for uploaders to state their objections, if any, against inclusion in the genre torrent.

While, as stated by Harry and others, such objections would have no legal basis... I imagine the genre torrent's compiler would rather not want risk even the most hopeless lawsuit against themselves by a disgruntled uploader.

- Ahi

[Superlucky]

Originally Posted by ahi

The uploaders are not doing us favours that in any way oblige us to any repayment or even gratitude.

I have to disagree. When someone gives me something I feel obliged to be grateful. My mother wants to give me a birthday gift, but it would still be rude if I didn't thank her for it.

To each his own - the attitude just seems a little foreign to me.

[orion2001]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Here is the thing, bulk downloading is generally an inefficient use of bandwidth. If I download 50 books and only read 5 of them then I have roughly used 10 times more bandwidth than I actually needed. All that wasted bandwidth does in fact have a cost. The more torrents that are running, the more bandwidth being occupied, which means the ISPs have to upgrade their infrastructure; you know we are paying for those upgrades. Granted the cost, when we are talking books, is pretty small compared to audio and video files, but that doesn't mean its not wasteful of bandwidth.

I am frankly dubious of the claims that anyone saves any significant (if any) time by using torrents. Sure you don't have to spend as much time browsing through books online, but if you plan on reading some of them, you will need to on your own computer. No one has yet actually really demonstrated that it really saves them time (Saying it saves them time is not the same as demonstrating it).

--
Bill

Firstly, Torrenting is actually an extremely efficient distribution of bandwidth, which is why most Linux distros are distributed via torrents. It removes the bandwidth demands on the host server and efficiently distributes it amongst all clients. If anything, it would save MR a bunch in hosting fees due to lower bandwidth usage on their servers.

Secondly, You don't have to "waste" bandwidth. When you download a torrent, you get a list of all files and directories in the torrent (unless it is zipped/RARed). You can easily and quickly check the requisite boxes to download all the books that you are interested in. Usually, if the torrent is well compiled (as is the case many times) then everything is arranged alphabetically by author name. It is much much faster than searching on MR for specific books. You wanted proof, and I will be glad to stand by the fact that it is far easier and faster to access books you want to read via torrents.

Thirdly, Comparing bandwidth use to rising costs for ISPs is a bit silly. Watching two streaming Netflix movies will use up far more bandwidth than the entire Gutenberg collection. ISPs would hardly even register any extra bandwidth even if we assumed that everyone downloaded every single Gutenberg ebook (even though most would download a smaller subset, something that is easy enough to do via torrents)

Obviously no-one here is saying that MR and all the uploaders here HAVE to or SHOULD provide it in torrent form. It is their prerogative, but it is certainly more easily accessible and useful (at least for quite a few folks).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Superlucky

I have to disagree. When someone gives me something I feel obliged to be grateful. My mother wants to give me a birthday gift, but it would still be rude if I didn't thank her for it.

To each his own - the attitude just seems a little foreign to me.

This is different. If a person upload a file that you do not download. Why should you feel thankful just because you have the potential to download it? What if you do not want the book?

And even if you download it I feel that it is wrong to base these kind of interaction on being thankful. Being thankful is passive. A better thing is to contribute something back to the shared project of making PD books available in good editions. And you do that because you feel this makes the world a better place and not because you are thankful.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by tompe

This is different. If a person upload a file that you do not download. Why should you feel thankful just because you have the potential to download it? What if you do not want the book?

And even if you download it I feel that it is wrong to base these kind of interaction on being thankful. Being thankful is passive. A better thing is to contribute something back to the shared project of making PD books available in good editions. And you do that because you feel this makes the world a better place and not because you are thankful.

You can show thanks in ways other than simply saying it. I've known a lot of people who give thanks by giving back.