Alright guys, I really have to go now... on the brink of ZzZz...

I will look into that mustluvcatz, I was focussing on all the content I shared tonight, I didn't consider other people may have shared content that doesn't belong to them. I'll look into that tomorrow, and if you're right I will remove it from our server, the description etc....

I have no idea who that is....

This account "JustListen14" and Melines account are the only two accounts as far as I am aware of that can speak for S4F.

They might be identical. Or they might not be. For XML tuning, you'd most probably see a difference (if there is one) in the actual XML text, not in the instance numbers (those NEED to be identical for the whole thing to work, if it's an override like your example).

But with most XML mods -- at least with overrides -- the actual edit you make to the file is pretty minimal; it's figuring out which file/s need/s to be edited in exactly which way that is the main part of the work.

One way to deal with this would be to include the creator's name in a comment. Not that that wouldn't be editable (it's just a text file after all), but people who are just copying probably can't even tell an XML comment from actual code.

And going to the trouble of opening every resource just to edit out a credit would be .. a little silly, since every serious creator will post which resources they've edited anyway (to avoid conflicts) and once you know that, it's quite simple to make the same mod yourself. Takes about the same time as removing the credits.

Anyhow, it shouldn't be necessary to "copy-protect" mods that way since anyone who is not a total asshat would ASK FIRST before uploading stuff.

@plasticbox - thanks for the explanation and it's what I figured. Too bad there isn't a way to tell the difference just by looking in s4pe without doing much more than that. (I can recolor, I can mesh but I don't know the first thing about XML tuning.)

Question for JustHappening (if he hasn't been banned): Does the user name KandanceKiss44 mean anything to you? Oh, another question: Do you like socks? (That was a bit tongue in cheek but I won't apologize for my cheekiness.)

If you downloaded that mod and want to know whether it's different from Shimrods, post it here and I can take a look?

Being the mod-crazy nut that I am, I have been around to every sim mod site I can find in fact I probably browse and check about 20 or so on a daily basis. I would like to comment about this Sims4Forum site.

Now I used to play sims 3 years ago and MTS was a place I visited regularly, then I quit playing forgot about all the cool mods sites. Picked up sims4 on release day, then started going mod-wacky again, I started searching in google for mod sites and stumbled upon Sims4Forum along with a few others. At first there wasn't any fee or waiting 5 dam minutes after one download (seriously wtf dude), then as weeks went on I noticed changes, so I said screw this site and started searching for more sites, low and behold I found my way back to MTS (YAY) which is the best sims mod site on the net hands down. Out all of the mod sites I have found Sims4Forum is by far the worst, especially with the greedy owner charging 7 to 10 $ for nude skins? or 5$ a month, lol and the 5 minute wait time, what a load of shit.

The main problem I see here is there are people like me that stumble upon this site (before they ever find great places like MTS) and they figure "Oh I hate this wait time BS, guess 5$ isn't too much" and some of the content they are wanting to download is indeed peoples work from this site, and this is just flat out WRONG. If your going to charge, host your own creators content and do as you wish, leave MTS and other top sim mod sites out of your sleazy money scheme!

end rant/

eagle

@plasticbox - Sorry it took a while. No links were showing for me after dragging/dropping to modyourpanties and no other pages were loading for me (ethernet cable is going bad). So I stopped to make pizzelle ice cream sandwiches.. because who in their right mind wouldn't want ice cream and hot fudge sauce sandwiched between 2 vanilla pizzelles? Then I had to clean myself up thanks to melting ice cream and hot fudge sauce getting everywhere, lol.

Since no links would show for me still, it's on my Box account: (removed link) It's a fairly fresh copy of it because I wanted to see if it was still there in it's original form. I still have the file I downloaded earlier today (about 12 hours ago) if you want that one just to see.

edit: removed link to file, if the file gets taken down at Sims4Forum I still have it if it's needed for any reason.

The XML in those is identical. Regarding the diff between these and the original, what I said above ("the actual edit you make to the file is pretty minimal") does not apply -- there's a boatload of changes (this is a JAZZ file not the XML tuning I was having in mind when I said that), mostly deletions and setting "true" to "false" umpteen bazillion times over almost 2.000 lines of code.

Technically that doesn't prove anything, but in this context it certainly smells funny.


e: attaching a screenshot to give you an idea of what that looks like -- left is the original EA file, right is one of the mods. The pink stuff is what is present in the EA version and removed in the mod, yellow-brownish means lines are changed. I have no idea whether technically one could do this differently to arrive at the same result (not wanting their sims to hop around in CAS is probably something a lot of people want, so just the fact that somebody else makes a mod with the same goal would't be surprising per se).

I hope you don't mind. I got curious and downloaded that file too. I did an MD5/SHA checksum comparison between the two files. For people not familiar with it, this is the method to verify the download/transferred file is exactly the same as the original file. If a single bit/byte was changed/different the checksum would be different. I used a simple online one (you can try it too http://onlinemd5.com/) to compare the Vinyl and Shimrod101 files. They are exactly the same.

I ran a diff in np++, see edit above =)

I dunno, maybe poke that Vinyl person a bit to see whether they understand the code? (My bet: they don't.)

@TamiraA - thank you for mentioning that. I know a little more about MD5 checksum than I do XML (which I know nothing about)- I know enough to be pretty sure that 2 files that are exactly the same should have the same MD5 checksum.

That said: @plasticbox - thank you for that screenshot. Now I know about notepad++. Just to see what would happen, I opened one of the packages and made a simple edit. Then I replaced the file in s4pe. Checking via the site TamiraA linked to, this is the result of my new, edited package: C1D317D1CF36BAAD1EF6DCCB392B86C8. Both Shimrod's package and Vinyl's: 0B87FBA1D77B100D6E9668DDF410FF1A So it looks like it's safe to say that those 2 files are the same file.

Why am I so interested in this one file out of all those on Sims4Forum? Because the "creator" did what seems to be a simple name change and, by doing so, is claiming to have made the mod. Then, like I said earlier, the post is almost the same.. just a few words are left out. Copy/pasting a post like Chris did is one thing. Claiming to have made something that you DIDN'T make is stealing- no doubt about it- and yes, that pisses me off. Especially since Shimrod has made it clear that he doesn't want anything of his on that forum ever. (Not that other creators haven't! This is a bit different in my opinion because it's not a straight up copy/paste of a download post here. The "creator" in this case actually made the effort to try to deceive others into thinking they did create the file.)

edit: turns out I didn't even need to export/make a change/import/save. All that was needed was to export and import the same file back into the package. Result: D04CE8C1FB8B8E47F7B34CE8163321E1 (exported file is: S4_02D5DF13_00000000_D8D5C1186BA97FDC%%+JAZZ.jazz)
edit 2: And let's not forget the fact that the download there says "This resource has been removed and is no longer available for download." Obviously it's still there.

Getting annoyed now.

No I'm not happy with it, thanks for letting me know.

Upon first visiting that link I recieved a logged in error so decided it was time to register, after registering I recieved a permissions error which led me to the conclusion that the content is hidden behind the subscription.

I've emailed the host again:



Will let you know of any response.

You are awesome.

Oh dear...his payment processor is PayPal.

Well they've just had an email fired at them about this now as well

When talking to Paypal, it might make sense to include these as well

sims4forum.com/custom-content/categories/the-sims-4.1/
sims4forum.com/custom-content/categories/adult-sims-4-mods.16/

because



https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/...&locale.x=en_US


Same goes for EA, as far as I know. Not sure who to contact there (their legal department only takes care of their own sites, for all I can tell) but I've already asked for pointers.

Good point. I'll add those to the conversation when they reply. Thanks

That is great, can I join that one? ... I didn't find my lot back up again last night though, but I might not be checking the right place.

Thankfully we LITERALLY have our buttcracks unspeakables covered when it comes to that ..

Some screenshots just in case .. I'm attaching them all unedited, so the file creation dates will hopefully stay intact. Sorry about the backasswards sort order .. they're numbered. =P

- FifthAce, taken yesterday when I saw this post (had been removed and was back up)
- Helianthea, taken 28/09 21:05 CET
- Shimrod/Townies, taken 29/09 01:04 (1-3) and 19:10 (4-5) (had been removed upon my inquiry (because uncredited/outdated) and then restored, still uncredited/outdated, see here/here/here -- permission from the actual creator was only sought (and declined) *after* that)

So even though right now it LOOKS LIKE a bunch of "external uploads" are finanally gone, creators may want to be wary.

Thanks, that will come in handy as I can't get to that page now, I just get the permissions error page.

Site seems to have been taken offline/deleted

It says they are updating the forum software; XenForo released a security update on the 16th September; it is probably that.

PS - In some circles they call me the Snipefish

Ahh ok. Will check back later then. At the moment the index.html page just lists the content of the public folder for that domain, which usually means the index.html page is missing.

If they are updating could be why...although most forums still function just redirect to a message...

"We are upgrading the forum software. Please bear with us!"

If they were shut down, would there be a different sort of error page?

Of course...seems an odd coincidence that his entire site is down without any notice whatsoever...
Wouldn't someone running a community site give his members a heads-up so they'd know it was coming?

eta: I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he's had a major spike in traffic in the last few hours.
Personally, in the last 2 hours, I've probably checked 7 or 8 times to see if he's shut down.
Multiply that by the number of creators he's stolen from, etc, etc...

I hope that the creators he stole from still file their formal complaints.
I wouldn't put it past him to temporarily shut himself down for upgrades just to give folks the impression
that his behavior has already been dealt with.


btw, I've only seen the one page with the message that they're upgrading.
I haven't seen any of the other messages mentioned this morning.

If he were a responsible siteowner: absolutely.
However, since he stated himself that he had been too lazy to inform his members that the time limit between downloads had been removed for days (see page 4), this would be typical for him imo

edit: regarding the below - getting the same.
Site's been switching between blank forums & database error for a while, I think twice or thrice, and for about the past hour, it's been database error only.

See I'm not getting that. Initially I was getting an empty server "index of" display but now I am getting a database error:

An unexpected database error occurred. Please try again later.