ADF.LY - A poor modding practice - PLEASE READ

It's been a while since I've downloaded stuff from here.

The reason why I took a time off going here is basically some mods which are top notch has ads on it before downloading it.

Good to see its going well here now.

Thank you! I was in a little argument with pinoy in his jersey thread. I said I do not trust this adfly stuff and I am rather willing to pay him 1 ct per download (which is basically what he would get through my click on adfly anyway) than disabling my adblock and noscript on this adfly cancer page.

I hope this bullshit is gone real soon. Maybe just forbid adfly (or similar) links on NLSC?

I'm glad this has been brought up. Ad links are becoming an issue, and it's getting to the point where we're going to have to seriously re-evaluate our policies and rules. Obviously that's a drastic measure and it's something that has to be approached fairly - we wouldn't retroactively make it a violation and there'd be a grace period, for example - but it is getting to that point.

There are two main issues at hand here: the dangers presented by specific ad link services themselves, and the overall culture and mentality. I'll address the former first, because it's arguably the more pressing issue, and the easier fix.

Some ad links services, like adf.ly, aren't as safe as they once were. They want to install malware, or otherwise compromise the security and performance of your browser and PC. We shouldn't be putting each other at risk like that. Similarly, a lot of the ads are for adult content. It's not appropriate for us to be linking to that kind of content, even in unintended ad form. We have minors in the community, we're trying to keep things PG, and frankly we don't want to put our hosting and advertising at risk through any kind of links or connections to adult content. When it comes to the viruses/malware and adult content, I don't want links involving those things in our Downloads section, or even just posted in topics in the Forum.

Now, one solution here is to identify problematic ad link providers, prohibit their use, and allow the use of specific approved services that are safe. The problem is that they don't necessarily stay safe for long, and there's also the second problem of the culture and mentality in the modding community these days.

If money is your main motivation for modding, you're modding for the wrong reasons. It's not what our community was built upon, and it's led to a lot of greedy and unfair practices. It's not right to make people have to click through multiple ad links to get to the download, even if they're safe. You should be modding because you enjoy the hobby and enhancing your own gaming experience, and want to share that work with others. Given that there are means of making some spare change (which can add up in some cases), a tip jar/donation link is fine and understandable, and you'll find that if you're doing great work and treating people well, your audience will be appreciate and generous. Also, while there are cases of people making a decent amount of money through ad links, for most people they aren't profitable. It's like YouTube: some people will blow up and make a lot of money, for others it'll always be a hobby that makes them some spare change on the side at best.

There are some disturbing trends in the modding community right now. The overuse of ad links and push to make the hobby all about making money. Holding back releases until you get a certain number of Likes, video views, or comments. Petty sniping back and forth, and unnecessary drama. It's an insult to all the modders who helped establish this community and make it what it is today, as well as the people who are currently trying to maintain the site.

To that end, sticky-fingers has raised a couple of rather pertinent issues.

I'm curious to know if modders using donations and adfly also used to support NLSC with donation/tip

Some people have indeed paid it forward with some generous donations and support here and there when they can afford it, and I'm very grateful for that. However, by and large, the people using ad links aren't donating anything to our hosting fund. All of the services provided here on the NLSC are free, but our hosting is not. It's a tad hypocritical to happily use a free service and platform, while also claiming that you should be compensated for your work, as though you're the only person putting in the hard yards in our community (then or now).

Yes, mods can take a lot of time and effort to create - even if I'm not as involved in that side of things these days, I've been making updates since 1997 so I'm well aware and appreciative of that - and it's nice to receive some appreciation for that in the form of monetary compensation. You know what else requires a lot of time and effort though, as well as money to maintain? The NLSC itself. And even if you want to say "well, I'll just use Facebook instead", you'd still be insisting on using a platform that's completely free, while demanding money of other people. Facebook also has a lot more money than I do, I can assure you. If you're benefiting from the use of a platform that comes with an audience, resources, and a knowledge base that are freely available, while also saying that you should be compensated for your time without having any interest in paying it forward to that platform or even other modders, that's disingenuous and hypocritical.

I'm not saying that everyone must donate, because that would be unfair given everyone's individual financial situations, and my goal is to provide the NLSC's facilities free of charge as long as it's financially viable for me to keep the site up and running. However, it does take a lot of time and effort on my part, just as modding does, and I'm doing it for free. Just keep that in mind when we're talking about what's fair as far as being compensated on a free platform. For that matter, simply supporting the NLSC by sharing our articles and original content on social media, talking about them in the Forum and having a conversation about the topic in the comments section, and simply being involved in more than just releasing your own mods, goes a long way in supporting the site.

Speaking of efforts to maintain things around here...

another issue is the availability of the mods.
after few months, they disappear for ever for mediafire and co...
So you want recognition of your work, but you dont care about that.

This is becoming more of a problem. One of the reasons that we're hosted on a dedicated server is so that we can help out with permanent (and again, free) file hosting, though I understand why people may prefer to use other services and add external links. That's fine, we're set up for that as well. Since the use of adf.ly took off however, we've had more and more broken links in the Downloads section, which isn't a good look. Frankly I'm fed up trying to track them down or bug people to fix their links, so if I get a report about a broken link and it's not easily fixed, I've decided I'm just going to remove it. I've already got enough on my plate without having to chase that up as well, and so often ad links are involved when links go down.

I could go on and on about the culture and mentality, but I'd be repeating what I've already laid out in a couple of articles I wrote for Monday Tip-Off:

Why We Don’t Charge For Mods
Are You Modding For The Right Reasons?

So, where does that all leave us?

We're going to have to work out a few things as a community, but as far as the problematic practices are concerned, it is getting to the point where rules are going to have to be changed. If we don't outright ban ad links, the rules are at least going to have to change as far as a safe service that can be used. Things like running people through multiple ad links, or holding back releases until a set goal of donations, Likes, views, or replies, are going to be outlawed if they continue because that's just plain toxic. With Patreon being a thing, we have to decide what's fair as far as early access releases and so forth, because otherwise it just becomes creatively charging for mods and we're not going to allow that here (or for that matter, Patreon exclusive releases to be promoted here).

As this important conversation continues, I would urge people to consider using donation links/tip jars instead of ad links. You'll find that people are quite generous, and for most people, it'll be a higher earning than they'll make with all the ad link clicks, without putting the community through the hassle. As others have noted, the use of ad links has also actively discouraged people from downloading mods, which means you don't get the traffic and the revenue anyway. And of course, it's a shame when downloads go missing because the focus has been on an ad link rather than making sure they're permanently available.

Anyway, this is something we need to continue discussing because it is a problem, and it's forcing us to consider far more serious rules regarding modding practices. I'll probably end up making this a global topic at some point so that it continues to get attention as we work this out, and the whole modding community can see it.

Long and great post

I really think NLSC is at a crossroad and sooner or later, you should have to put an end to this, because on the legal side.
Never forget that modding is tolerated but if NBA/2K/EA decide to stop this drift, NLSC is the one who's risking the most.

About mods falling in oblivion, like some of you i suppose, i spent lot of time to retrieve mods, specially for 2k10 and 2K11.
Believe me, the most "hilarious" part is when some authors contacted me because they used megaupload/rapidshare/another RIP service for the release, and ask me if i still have their mod and to share it with them.
And it happened a couple of time.
So please, use NLSC's facility when you can, use tip jar (ps : Andrew, for big file, facility is too limited).

I don't even understand why some people want to use Mediafire in the first place. You have everything here. A free possibility to host uploads permanently. What's the positive of using other sites?

... adlinks ... and it avoids to shrink bigger files

I might be able to increase the max size a little, but our resources aren't infinite with the hosting we can afford, so in terms of space and bandwidth, we do have some limitations.

I might be able to increase the max size a little, but our resources aren't infinite with the hosting we can afford, so in terms of space and bandwidth, we do have some limitations.

What kind of costs would it take to increase the download size dramatically? I’m willing to help out the site in a major way if it means my bigger projects can be hosted here. I’m sure other long standing members would join in.

I'd have to check what additional storage drives in the server would cost, as well as the feasibility of speed/bandwidth. We got a pretty good deal for hosting that meets our needs, but there was a special on at the time and by the terms of the special, we get that price for life. It would definitely be significantly more to drastically increase the hosting capacity, but I'll look into it.

Well if you’ve got a good deal locked in for life I completely understand not wanting to change it. Donations and what not can be fickle, so the last thing you need to to change the plan then donations dry up to where it’s no longer feasible financially to maintain the site.

I suppose there’s still the option to link external sites, so the traffic would still funnel through the NLSC to a certain extent. Either way, thanks for all your hard work Andrew.

Appreciate the kind words. I wouldn't do it if I wasn't passionate about it.

That's basically what it comes down to, yeah. At the current price we should be viable for a long while yet, and getting some extra storage space I believe is just a small add-on cost each month, but the other upgrades would probably push the site into more expensive terrain and that would be more financially precarious. i'll check into it though, and make some inquiries the next time our host has some similar deals going. Doesn't hurt to get quotes, after all.

This is a much needed thread, alot of times adfly leads to malware and lately ive been noticing alot of the links dont redirect anywhere.

This is a much needed thread, alot of times adfly leads to malware and lately ive been noticing alot of the links dont redirect anywhere.

Thank you.

And yeah, it's not an innocent practice (even though its painted that way at times by people who use it). Hopefully this thread will make some people think twice about using adfly and other related services, or stop using them if they currently are.

I don't even play 2k and a couple weeks ago I clicked on a screenshot of a release that looked cool but after two ad fly clicks I still hadn't made any progress towards a damn screenshot

As far as I'm concerned these guys can go somewhere else and waste other people's time

Thank you for this thread. Damn man, I literally stopped checking out a few modders' content because of ad.fly. So something that they thought would help them, just might be hindering their exposure instead. Don't get me wrong I'm all for supporting creators as much as I possibly can but there has to be some other way.

i use universal bypass to instantly redirect to the download page

i use universal bypass to instantly redirect to the download page

Sadly that does not work all of the times. Sometimes I have to try 5-10 times until it works successfully.

BTW about storage resources, mode unavailability and modders hm... reward. why not use torrent protocol for mods sharing and some new features like BTFS. there will be decentralized storage of mods and with the new token system there will be some little reward for now for all seeders but who knows how much BTT will cost a few years later and modders can hide their torrent tickets behind the adf.ly links (if they want) or store at NLSC download facility. or store both file and torrent link, at least for the first period. modders can even disable DHT if they don't want their mods can be available w/o tickets. this will allow lowering the amount of storage space @ NLSC's download section

That doesn't sound permanent enough. Also, the point is that monetary motivation is becoming quite toxic in the community, and torrents obviously have links to piracy as well, even though the tech can be used to share files legitimately. I don't think that's the answer.

i use universal bypass to instantly redirect to the download page

Sadly that does not work all of the times. Sometimes I have to try 5-10 times until it works successfully.

On top of that, not everyone is tech savvy enough to do that. And if we're encouraging getting around ad links, we might as well prohibit their use.

Just saw this over a former contributor here, (if I may not be mistaken)

Team Rakker releases his works over his private Facebook group. I just passed by at this page and this was somehow pinned:

Matagal-tagal na din ako nagbibigay ng free roster, court, at jersey mods para sa 2k natin. Pero yung support ang konti. Yung iba eh gusto ng short way para makuha ang mod. Libre na nga eh ayaw pa sumuporta sa konting ads lng. FYI lang ah sobrang liit lng ng balik non samin sa isang buwan nga dika ka man lang makabuo ng $1 pero ang dami mo na nabigay na libreng mod. Mahigit 4hrs minsan araw pa tinatagal ng pag gawa ng mod para sainyo. Dami pa reklamo kesyo dami ads. Yon na nga lang gagawin eh. Download lang gagawin niyo.

So, his post was in the Philippine native language but if I were to translate it:

"It's been a while that I've released free rosters, courts, and jersey mods, but the support wasn't that great since most downloaders have been neglecting going through ads. I've been giving out 4 hrs just to create a mod and you guys have been ranting about ads. That's all of you guys have to do."

I have respect due to his works are also top notch but he also stated that from now on, he'll only release works from those who will pay him.

Just saw this over a former contributor here, (if I may not be mistaken)

Team Rakker releases his works over his private Facebook group. I just passed by at this page and this was somehow pinned:

Matagal-tagal na din ako nagbibigay ng free roster, court, at jersey mods para sa 2k natin. Pero yung support ang konti. Yung iba eh gusto ng short way para makuha ang mod. Libre na nga eh ayaw pa sumuporta sa konting ads lng. FYI lang ah sobrang liit lng ng balik non samin sa isang buwan nga dika ka man lang makabuo ng $1 pero ang dami mo na nabigay na libreng mod. Mahigit 4hrs minsan araw pa tinatagal ng pag gawa ng mod para sainyo. Dami pa reklamo kesyo dami ads. Yon na nga lang gagawin eh. Download lang gagawin niyo.

So, his post was in the Philippine native language but if I were to translate it:

"It's been a while that I've released free rosters, courts, and jersey mods, but the support wasn't that great since most downloaders have been neglecting going through ads. I've been giving out 4 hrs just to create a mod and you guys have been ranting about ads. That's all of you guys have to do."

I have respect due to his works are also top notch but he also stated that from now on, he'll only release works from those who will pay him.

Yes, another Facebook user and modder is charging $15 PER CYBERFACE, and stated "no more free mods", just like Team Rakker.

People are upset with the ads. So to try and curve that, some will remove the ads but go to a strictly "you must pay for a mod to get a mod" format.

It's just terrible overall for the modding community (also technically illegal)

Just saw this over a former contributor here, (if I may not be mistaken)

Team Rakker releases his works over his private Facebook group. I just passed by at this page and this was somehow pinned:

Matagal-tagal na din ako nagbibigay ng free roster, court, at jersey mods para sa 2k natin. Pero yung support ang konti. Yung iba eh gusto ng short way para makuha ang mod. Libre na nga eh ayaw pa sumuporta sa konting ads lng. FYI lang ah sobrang liit lng ng balik non samin sa isang buwan nga dika ka man lang makabuo ng $1 pero ang dami mo na nabigay na libreng mod. Mahigit 4hrs minsan araw pa tinatagal ng pag gawa ng mod para sainyo. Dami pa reklamo kesyo dami ads. Yon na nga lang gagawin eh. Download lang gagawin niyo.

So, his post was in the Philippine native language but if I were to translate it:

"It's been a while that I've released free rosters, courts, and jersey mods, but the support wasn't that great since most downloaders have been neglecting going through ads. I've been giving out 4 hrs just to create a mod and you guys have been ranting about ads. That's all of you guys have to do."

I have respect due to his works are also top notch but he also stated that from now on, he'll only release works from those who will pay him.

Yes, another Facebook user and modder is charging $15 PER CYBERFACE, and stated "no more free mods", just like Team Rakker.

People are upset with the ads. So to try and curve that, some will remove the ads but go to a strictly "you must pay for a mod to get a mod" format.

It's just terrible overall for the modding community (also technically illegal)

He's one of the main ones. He puts out quality work, but it should be MY choice, if I want to pay. Not going thru 10 web sites, to get his mods. Some of these guys take capitalism, to a whole other level.

I think it’s one thing if you approach someone and say “Hey can you make such and such face”, knowing full well they charge. To me, as a user, you know what you’re getting into and the modder is going out of his way to create something he wouldn’t have without your request.

Where I draw the line is previewing something and then saying it’s a “paid mod”. The modder already has it made and is willingly charging multiple users for access. They’re creating the demand themselves and profiting off of it. Idk there’s a distinction in my mind between the two.

People are going to do what they're going to do, in places where they can get away with it. They'll either get paid, or find that no one wants to pay for it, as great as their work may be. As I said before though, they'll charge for their work while happily using tutorials, tools, and platforms to reach their audience that are all free of charge, and not see the hypocrisy.

...they'll charge for their work while happily using tutorials, tools, and platforms to reach their audience that are all free of charge, and not see the hypocrisy.

and I'm almost sure that they are using pirated PhotoShop, windows etc.