Oh course as I put it, as that is the way it is. Excellent. Yes. Did I say something wrong there?
Let go of it. Set yourself free and collaborate and rebuild a better resource. LET GO OF HIFI ENGINE.
It is time to move on and do better things.
You all keep pounding dirt at this man's feet in his Colosseum.
He looks down at us all like an overlord and toys with our desire.
Do none of you see this?
At this stage in the game it has become perverted.
I say, let go.
The sooner, the better.
Besides, the resource is gone and half the content is already accessible elsewhere.
I KNOW MODS here have massive archives of documents. I know it to be fact.
So not to insult anybody here or have the DIYAUDIO cops on my tail, I believe you folks are the people that can build a new resource.
It is not an insult my words bring but a compliment. If you could only see it that way.
That is my last comment on this subject until you start a new team to build a new resource. When you do that, count me in for support and resources.
Just saw this to maybe reduce scraping. https://xeiaso.net/talks/2025/bsdcan-anubis Essentially it forces the browser to do some math in javascript as a gateway. Interesting idea. /. has a post about it. https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/...ware-saving-the-internet-from-ai-bot-scrapers
You said nothing wrong, the assumptions you made though needed clarifying.
We (mods or the site) have no real influence over anyone in the industry. Any mod posting in any thread is really posting as a regular member unless use of the
symbol come into play to make a response 'official' and on behalf of the site as a whole.I hope I haven't been pounding dirt 🙂 Please use the forum search feature and search this particular thread and look at my posts here. What others say and do is up to them. I'm sorry on a personal level to have lost access to HiFi engine but I will not lose any sleep over that. Having said that I hope the situation resolves in time as it would be a loss to many to lose such a resource.
That's the conclusion I came to, which is one of the reasons I discounted donations.
Thanks for the tip, it's the first time I've heard of it. Unfortunately it's only open to people with a US bank account, and for internal transfers within the US.
Last thought since I'm not web design savvy....just went to a different download site which, when you click download does some verification process, obviously to check and see if you're a bot. That should certainly help with future scraping I would think. But I know that one time I went on Mouser to try and research a transistor sub for someone, and mouser wouldn't let me on, basically saying I was a bot and/or had made too many attempts. So, obviously systems can have bad algorithms to determine who's real or not.
If you use something like noscript or many other addons that prevent javascript from running, you may get identified as a bot. Things really are much more complicated than they appear.
It's not really a matter of having a bad algorithm, it's just that there's no foolproof way to identify whether a visitor is a bot or a human, so the occasional false positive is expected.
If you have a serious problem with people registering multiple accounts to bypass account limits, it definitely helps if you block VPN and TOR traffic from login forms etc. If I was just running a forum I wouldn't bother as there are other ways to prevent spam.
That's why I asked if you had a corporation.
Incorporate and hold the site, and all financials, under the corporation.
I'm no attorney, and I'm in the US, not EU, so take my advice as a suggestion, not a fact. Over here, a corporation has the potential to shield the owners from liability as well.
It used to be that way Tony. Around 1980 that all changed with personal liability on behalf of the officers and directors. Even the shareholders were called to account. Immunity was forever dissolved. The original purpose of corporate immunity no longer exists.
As I wrote... "the potential".
In the USA, I have no clue about Canada, generally a corporation will shield the owner from lawsuits (personal liability)... that's why wealthy people tend to hold "stuff" under a LLC. You are right however that the protection is not absolute and you have to be very careful how to handle the corporation.
Things being as they are in the US nowadays... our tax person and retirement advisor have told us to take a long look at putting most of our assets, including the house, into an LLC. Heck, we're not wealthy, but all it would take is one accident and one greedy lawyer and we could lose everything.
As I wrote, I'm no lawyer, I just pay for one ( by the hour, I must say ).
I have no clue about Canada's legal system...
How would go at doing this in Canada? Are you stuck with personal liability in your businesses ( yes, this of course means that hifiengine.com would become a business... ).
In the USA, I have no clue about Canada, generally a corporation will shield the owner from lawsuits (personal liability)... that's why wealthy people tend to hold "stuff" under a LLC. You are right however that the protection is not absolute and you have to be very careful how to handle the corporation.
Things being as they are in the US nowadays... our tax person and retirement advisor have told us to take a long look at putting most of our assets, including the house, into an LLC. Heck, we're not wealthy, but all it would take is one accident and one greedy lawyer and we could lose everything.
As I wrote, I'm no lawyer, I just pay for one ( by the hour, I must say ).
I have no clue about Canada's legal system...
How would go at doing this in Canada? Are you stuck with personal liability in your businesses ( yes, this of course means that hifiengine.com would become a business... ).
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They don't really have that here. I suppose the closest thing would be a limited company, but it's not an answer to privacy as the directors details (full name, address, date of birth, nationality etc) are forever in the public domain. Accounting rules are strict too. It would be overkill for a small business, yet alone a free website.
I agree. Being a director of a limited company comes with onerous responsibilities, and lots of hidden costs - like keeping accounts and having them audited annually. And offsetting against that valid operating costs - heating, lighting, IT costs, office, stationary etc etc.
'Nuff said.
I don't think you'd want a S-Corp or LLC. I have one for my biz, for liability shielding purposes. It comes with much extra paperwork, everything from state/fed unemployment reporting to filing your tax docs for the corp with state/fed/social security admin. I can't imagine doing it unless you need it. And yes, you actually become less anonymous as the state wants your officers listed and I think open to public records laws. Funny story, I did some reporting incorrectly to the IRS on the corp and one day a guy knocks on the door from the IRS. It was no big deal as I'd just made a typo on the form, but still an unannounced agent was a surprise. I've also been audited by the state for unemployment tax purposes. They had the courtesy to arrange the time the agent showed up at my door. This for a one man company, me.
The State.... I had a sole proprietorship.... made an error on one of the forms and got a notice from the state... two days before my wedding.
Thankfully my tax guy took care of it for me.
@canbol... you can hide the ownership of the website from the Internet by paying a little bit more to the registrar of your domain, but you can't hide it from the State. That's a given.
What a corporation, or limited company... will do is help you shield your liability. In the USA it does come with paperwork... but that's why we have accountants.
@mikeAtx I was advised to go the LLC way. I suppose another way would be to flee the country... but did you know that Pago Pago is a US protectorate, hence under the reach of the IRS? So there went my dream of retiring on a nice house upwind from the fish cannery.
Thankfully my tax guy took care of it for me.
@canbol... you can hide the ownership of the website from the Internet by paying a little bit more to the registrar of your domain, but you can't hide it from the State. That's a given.
What a corporation, or limited company... will do is help you shield your liability. In the USA it does come with paperwork... but that's why we have accountants.
@mikeAtx I was advised to go the LLC way. I suppose another way would be to flee the country... but did you know that Pago Pago is a US protectorate, hence under the reach of the IRS? So there went my dream of retiring on a nice house upwind from the fish cannery.
The idea of running a public-facing service while remaining completely anonymous isn’t realistic. Hosting a website, managing users, and especially accepting donations all leave digital footprints -whether through payment processors, hosting providers, or domain registrars.
In fact, if someone did manage to operate a fully anonymous online service at scale, it would likely raise serious concerns. Systems that allow full anonymity without accountability can easily be misused for malicious purposes.
It’s hard not to suspect that the push for full anonymity is just a convenient excuse..
In fact, if someone did manage to operate a fully anonymous online service at scale, it would likely raise serious concerns. Systems that allow full anonymity without accountability can easily be misused for malicious purposes.
It’s hard not to suspect that the push for full anonymity is just a convenient excuse..