FLT - Frequently Locked Topics

[Falcon4]

I'm creating this message to hopefully allow topic-lockers and idiot-pointer-outers to quickly give the noob smack as well as providing those first-timers with a little smart as to why their topic was locked/trashed/whatever.

I'm sure a lot of people whose topics have been locked have been left asking "what the hell did I do to deserve that?". The answer is simple, and not as rude as you might think. The guys on this forum get the same damn questions or topics brought up every 5 minutes (or, at least once a day). They are dumb questions... either people new to BitTorrent that don't understand how BT works, or the tin foil hatters that believe BitTorrent is the gateway to the **AA gods. I'd like to take this moment to explain... how wrong you are.

If all goes as planned and this topic is being read by someone whose topic was locked, great, here you go. Your topic was probably locked for falling under one of the following topics...

The "Why does my download not work" question

This is at the top of every page you view on this forum. This forum is NOT for help with anything you've downloaded! Posting about any illegal sharing of copyrighted content is strictly FORBIDDEN. Yet people, time after time, continue to post these topics about what a RAR is, how to burn your CUE+BIN, how to do this or that... no. We are not here to explain to you how to work with your downloaded files. µTorrent does not index, store, package, manipulate, or otherwise determine the format of, your downloads. It merely transmits and receives data according to the small "torrent" files you download from other sites on the web. You must go to that site and bother the people on that site's forum in order to get your problem solved. The issue here is simple - if we didn't make it, how the hell are we supposed to know what to do with it? Ask them. This also applies to "I need a crack/serial/key for" topics. THIS IS NOT THE SITE FOR THAT.

The "Where can I download this?" question

µTorrent is a great program with lots of possibilities, but it is, again, as stated above, only a way to move data around, not to package it, not to index it, not to create it. This forum is for help with the program itself, not help with figuring out what files to plug into it. Google is your friend, but beware... there are several fraud websites. Find yourself a good forum - that is, other than this one (which is for µTorrent help), and ask there. A good starting point is the built-in search from µTorrent, which has a number of respectable torrent sites in its list. Try there first. But please don't ask here.

The "tin foil hat" topic

These topics are of sheer paranoia and/or stupidity. µTorrent is sending mail because ZoneAlarm said so. µTorrent is spying on us because BitTorrent bought out µTorrent (despite the fact that until about 2 days ago, the latest version was still one untouched by BitTorrent's coders). µTorrent increases your chances of being found by the **AA. Well, here's the answer, plain and simple, to at least the last two issues. Don't download illegal crap. µTorrent does nothing more than what it was designed to. If you get caught, it was because you were asking for it, and because you weren't being careful as to what you were downloading and where you were downloading it from. All this is old news. Idiots get what was coming to them, it's like e-Darwin. As for the first one, ZoneAlarm (along with many other programs - especially Norton/McAfee) is a piece of shit that reports intrusions it "blocked", primarily to keep you using their software. These are all lies; µTorrent does not send mail, access the web, or anything else except what you specifically told it to do. Some users need to use ports commonly used for other services in order to bypass ISP restrictions of their own, and you are just connecting to the port they need you to use. There is no sin in that.

The FAQ topic

These have got to be the dumbest ever. Please, exhaust your available resources FIRST - that is, Google, FAQ, the µTorrent User Manual, and the Forum Search, BEFORE posting a new topic. Posting a new topic announces your ignorance to the world and it is now up to you to prove that you did not just ignore common avenues of help in order to announce your presence (and ignorance) on the forums. Topics like "how do i forward ports", "what speed should i set this to", "how do i get the best speed", so on and so forth... please, just use the above links.

I have no doubts there are more types to add to this list, so please, edit away, or I can edit more in later. This topic is long overdue and I hope it helps newbs understand why their crap was deleted. It's not because we hate you... well.. okay, maybe it is, but don't take it too personally.

A perma-link to this topic (so long as it is used within 60 days of the last access) is http://hostfile.org/flt . Should be easy to remember.

And that's that.

[TheBear]

Seems fair enough.

[Falcon4]

I should also start a list of "good explanations that always get lost in the flood of new posts and I don't feel like rewriting".

(aka, Frequently Posted Replies - http://hostfile.org/fpr )

Why am I uploading when I haven't finished the file?

[Honeyfrog]

The Lazy E-Text Kid, who cannot, for the life of him, write a two-word sentence without it containing a mass of grammatical errors over and above his insistance upon all lower-case, random punctionation (if any), and words condensed to letters.