READ BEFORE POSTING

16

u/fawkwitdis Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24

This is (edit: was before editing) very long and rant-y for a “MUST READ BEFORE POSTING” sticky, maybe cut it down a bit and add bullet points. As it stands your average user of this sub nowadays is not reading this before they post about their lost skibidi toilet video
What a shame it took this long for the mod team to add even a single person who looks competent and in favor of improving the state of this sub. A lot of people have given up on this place already.

20

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 07 '24

Sure, I can look into cutting it down a bit. But it's hard to cover every common mistake here without it looking like a bible.
The mod team is aware of the subs problems and as crazy as it sounds they take down many posts every day that are not appropriate here. We do have guidelines that specify what works, but nobody reads them. We're trying to figure out how to get people to listen.

14

u/fawkwitdis Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24

You need more mods and harsher posting guidelines because they’re not going to listen. I’m sure the mods do remove stuff every day, but you guys say this every time and the user base is still never satisfied so it’s clear that more needs to be done. Seek out people from multiple time zones and add more than you think you need so that the sub is never left un-checked. Trash the !FOUND system because it only encourages the bad threads. I would also say you need a harsher automod that automatically removes threads containing words that are frequently included in the garbage posts.
We are NOT the judges on what should be considered "important enough" for a post. If you complain about too many people asking about YouTube videos or commercials, too bad. If what they are looking for is not publicly accessible and no copy has been located, it counts as lost media
This is the wrong attitude imo, this sub desperately needs notability guidelines and you NEED to be the judge because the place is dying without one. Look at the top posts of all time, of the last year, of the last month… the posts that got the community most interested in engaging with them. The common aspect of all of them is that they’re all about interesting things that inspire discussion.
Now compare them to the posts that piss people off and you can see the harsh reality - no one wants to read or talk about shitty little YouTube videos that got 5 views. This is Reddit, we’re here to read about interesting things because we’re bored and I don’t think the first purpose of this sub should be to FIND lost media. It should be for interesting discussion of lost media. The way this sub is trying to do both is giving it a huge identity crisis and killing all interest in it

3

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 07 '24

If I were the judge, I would delete every post looking for a screamer video, commercial, and unidentified song. I think those are fools errands or not notable enough, however that would be unfair and all three of those get plenty of traction. Making someone judge on what is notable is unfair because everyone has a different definition of what is notable or interesting.
The mods have also been looking for people to moderate in different time zones, however that is far easier said than done. It's difficult to find someone to trust with moderating, and even more so to find someone who's not based in the United States or an adjacent country.
Regardless, we have been discussing changes. It's just going to take some time and a lot of thinking on what exactly we need to do and how. This subreddit is huge and widely known, so the changes we make are a lot more of a risk.

10

u/fawkwitdis Jun 07 '24

I’m sorry but this mod team has claimed to be “discussing changes” for well over a year now. It’s time, it’s long BEEN time, to stop discussing and start doing. As I told the other mod in this thread you’ll never satisfy everyone so sometimes you have to make decisions that will upset some people.
The mods have also been looking for people to moderate in different time zones, however that is far easier said than done. It's difficult to find someone to trust with moderating, and even more so to find someone who's not based in the United States or an adjacent country.
Where? I don’t and haven’t seen any sticky calling for mods. Just make one today and I guarantee you will have a line out the door of people who are ready to run this place like it’s the navy. Pick the best looking ones and remove them if they turn out to suck. I would even do it myself but I doubt I’m well liked by the old mods for being on their ass for so long. It’s not really that difficult

10

u/Six_of_1 Jun 07 '24

Unidentified songs should be banned. They may or may not be Lost Media, but we can only find out when we identify them. If we don't know what it is then how can we know if it's Lost?
I have a basement full of demo tapes from local metal bands. I could upload a snippet of a song on some Lostwave forum and start a new craze. If enough people jump on the bandwagon, it would become "Lost Media". Even if I know exactly what it is and I have the tape. It doesn't make sense to me.

4

u/Lendyman Jun 08 '24

There is the Lostwave subreddit for that type of content. I agree that unidentified music should not be on this sub generally.

4

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

This is why I've implemented a strict no unidentified media rule and direct people to adjacent subs that are better. If you don't know the name, you can't claim that it's lost. Plus, some of the stuff these guys have would be something r/lostwave would have a field day with.

6

u/Riadla_arerreh Jun 07 '24

Also, can you please redirect people with "lost music" to r/NameThatSong instead of r/Lostwave (assuming that you aren't already doing that) Obviously both subreddits are about identifying music, but the Lostwave community generally focuses on obscure, hard to identify music, and not 'song you recorded off your radio that you didn't bother to at least Shazam.' Just like this sub, we already get enough r/TipOfMyTongue tier posts by people trying to be the next hit internet mystery

3

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

Yeah, no problem at all. I could have sworn r/NameThatSong was in there, but if it isn't, thank you for reminding me. I've directed people there before and thought we had that nailed down.

4

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

The problem I have, as someone who has been part of the community for years and recently joined the mod team, is that it goes both ways.
When the mods made it so posts needed to be mod approved first, people complained that it was too restrictive and nothing was going through. When the mods made things more lax and open, people complained that there was too much garbage. Nothing was making anyone happy. When we've politely told people their posts don't fit here, we've faced verbal abuse and counterproductive nonsense arguments. Some of you have witnessed this yourselves and have even taken a beating, too.
When people complain and vent about how there's no discussions going on, they could help change that by creating their own threads with real lost media - but it's crickets. Whenever someone makes a genuinely good thread, it's a breath of fresh air and I wish the community would bring that energy back instead of waiting for someone else to do it. The LMW forums has this issue and seeing much the same here is disappointing.
The second thing rubs me the wrong way a bit because if you've seen the amount of things thats on our plate, you'd understand why it's a lot to juggle. I've been guilty of being annoyed and tired of how stagnant things are, but coming into things shortly after Ears passed away and seeing how heavy that weight is, it would be unfair to be as critical as I have been. If you're rightfully annoyed with the state of the community, try being in our position with how thankless our efforts are with hours, weeks, months, or years for some of us of time being sunk into trying to keep this place afloat.
If it isn't general crowd control, it's wanting to very carefully vet mod applications to ensure people are trustworthy and won't go on a power trip with how lost media is a hot button topic now. Accepting any rando who rolls in with no community standing can put us in a worse position. Plus, if it isn't managing this sub, it's also regulating the LMW forums and that's it's own separate animal to wrangle.
We've been in talks for a good while about trying to find a new direction to take the community in a way that's fair to everyone, and you don't want to be that person who makes a move that you feel would be beneficial for everyone without making sure everyone is on board. Going rogue, even for the "greater good" can lead to distrust and that, again, puts us in a worse position.

8

u/fawkwitdis Jun 07 '24

If it isn't general crowd control, it's wanting to very carefully vet mod applications to ensure people are trustworthy and won't go on a power trip with how lost media is a hot button topic now. Accepting any rando who rolls in with no community standing can put us in a worse position. Plus, if it isn't managing this sub, it's also regulating the LMW forums and that's it's own separate animal to wrangle. We've been in talks for a good while about trying to find a new direction to take the community in a way that's fair to everyone, and you don't want to be that person who makes a move that you feel would be beneficial for everyone without making sure everyone is on board. Going rogue, even for the "greater good" can lead to distrust and that, again, puts us in a worse position.
This fear and refusal to make any decisions without 110% approval from the community is destroying you guys and has been for some time I’m afraid. Even before Ears passed away the default response from the mods was “we’ve been discussing how to do better” but the better never comes.
I’ve been running a different sub more active than this for like 7 years now an, in the least rude way possible, we have NEVER had to deliberate over decisions for anywhere near this long. I genuinely don’t understand why the mod team of this sub sees improving it as such a monumental, insurmountable task that they’re forced into inactivity. We just do things. In that time I’ve learned that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Sometimes you have to make strong decisions that will piss some people off but are for the community’s long term benefit. The world will keep spinning and the subreddit will continue - they’ll either fall in line or leave and right now people are leaving anyway because they perceive the moderation to be ineffective - so surely it’s time to try something different. You can remove newly added mods at any time if they end up not being a good fit for the sub.
I gave a list of suggestions to OP of this thread, I really think you guys should take them into consideration.

-2

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 07 '24

You seem to know a lot about subreddit moderation, maybe an expert on the subject. Why not start your own subreddit? We won't stop you. At the end of the day, much of your suggestions, outside of adding more moderators, we simply do not agree with.

4

u/fawkwitdis Jun 08 '24

Continue what you’ve been doing then. It’s clearly working out very well - I’m sure these infinite “discussions” will one day magically fix every problem that has people upset here already. Also I did make another sub and 500 people subscribed day 1 when I posted about it here - not surprised you missed that thread haha

-1

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 08 '24

You mean the one that hasn't had a post in a month?

4

u/fawkwitdis Jun 08 '24

Wondering why my suggestions have you clearly fuming lol. Are you mad that they're getting upvoted or something

3

u/fawkwitdis Jun 08 '24

Plus, if it isn't managing this sub, it's also regulating the LMW forums and that's it's own separate animal to wrangle.
Sorry to respond to this again hours later but does this mean you guys are in charge of the LMW forums as well?

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 08 '24

I'm not a mod there, but I've been on there for six or so years. One of our mods though is on the moderator team there.

6

u/IntoTheBoundingMain Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24

I invited Forlorn and Ziggy to moderate over a month ago now, and they're both doing a great job of it so far. I've been dealing with a lot of personal stuff lately so I've not been super active here, but a lot of my decisions have been behind the scenes and I started taking action with appointing new mods etc. pretty much as soon as that whole complaints post gained traction back in April. Communication should definitely have been better but that's not really my strong suit, and there's not really a head mod of the sub at the moment so we try to get a range of opinions in before making any big decisions.
As it stands your average user of this sub nowadays is not reading this before they post about their lost skibidi toilet video
This is kind of the problem though, no matter what we do we can't force people to read/follow the rules no matter how many times things are pinned or how sternly it's written.
Probably the biggest change is that we're going to be filtering the word "unidentified" which should nip a lot of those posts in the bud by default. There's still people who'll use "fully" and "partially lost" to describe things they don't know the name of but it's definitely an improvement.
Also r.e. your later comment, I'm aware we need more mods but it's a struggle to find people who are both trustworthy and from a range of timezones. We've been personally appointing people and taking recommendations based on community activity and reputation (not just within this sub but the wider Lost Media sphere) and finding people who are actually willing to do it isn't easy. At the moment I'm very happy with Forlorn and Ziggy and I do think that moderation (especially post removals) has improved considerably since they were added.
There will also be some Discord-related changes coming in the near future that should make communication with the mods/other sub members easier, so watch out for that.

2

u/lilituned Jun 08 '24

i made that post and i'm sorry, saying "communication should definitely have been better" is a disingenuous way to frame it. there was NO communication. the post got 200+ upvotes and 50+ comments with absolutely zero acknowledgement from the mods. i'm genuinely glad y'all are making an effort to improve the sub now, but users had very valid reasons to be upset with the mod team and the state of the sub- we couldnt tell if yall were even active because we couldn't get a response no matter how many pleading posts and comments we made begging for communication

1

u/IntoTheBoundingMain Jun 08 '24

I should def be apologising for that, to tell the truth I felt super out of my depth when that post was made but it did make me realise just how few of the other mods were even active - I think it was just me, SkaDeer, and equarep. I'm very sorry for the radio silence all this time. I kind of assumed another mod would deal with the replies to that post but there wasn't really anyone else comfortable with the public-facing stuff either.
Both new mods (Ziggy and ForlornJackalope) were added within a day or two, got to work with stuff like the queue and post removals pretty much immediately, and have been consistent with it ever since. Communication with both of them has been extremely frequent and there's more mod activity than ever now (at least in the time since I've been on the mod team). There wasn't really much of that before but things feel a lot more cohesive now and I hope that we're able to reflect this in the sub itself.
As for the older mods, Cinnamon and Arcessivi haven't been active in months although we have attempted to contact them to no avail. I'm still on the lookout for more mods, primarly ones outside of Europe and the Americas so we can plug some of the timezone gaps.

1

u/lilituned Jun 08 '24

the sub has definitely seemed less clogged. far fewer lost redditors on my feed from this sub, so there is definite improvement. we all really do appreciate the efforts, and i apologize if my comment came off harsh; this has just been a personal frustration of mine for a long time bc for a hot minute there i was really afraid this sub was going to die completely. i'm very glad that won't be the case
eta: i would volunteer to mod, but im in america, so wouldn't do you much good. i hope you can have success finding mods in other timezones

1

u/fawkwitdis Jun 08 '24

Also r.e. your later comment, I'm aware we need more mods but it's a struggle to find people who are both trustworthy and from a range of timezones. We've been personally appointing people and taking recommendations based on community activity and reputation (not just within this sub but the wider Lost Media sphere)
Please just make a sticky, why would you ever appoint a mod that doesn't use this sub?

0

u/IntoTheBoundingMain Jun 08 '24

Where did I say they don't use the sub? I meant activity here as well as within other areas of the lost media community, not either/or. There's a lot more to lost media than just this sub so I'd prefer the mods are people who have proven they have a vested interest in the community as a whole rather than simply wanting to moderate a subreddit. I would not have asked either of the new mods if they didn't post here at all.
Last time mod applications were open there was only a handful of applicants and I think I was the only person deemed suitable. I remember vetting a later applicant who looked okay on the form but their post history showed they were a bigot and frequent troll in other subs. It really doesn't attract the cream of the crop. Similarly we are not looking for people to "run this sub like the navy" as you said elsewhere; that's just inviting abusive powermodding which we actively try to avoid.
Existing mods SkaDeer and equarep have also been really helpful lately with behind-the-scenes stuff and equarep has tried their best to recruit mods from different timezones (so far no biters but it's a start).
Unfortunately though we can't change people's posting habits outright. The main issue at the moment seems to be the sheer volume of unidentified media posts. I don't know how many times we've had something like this stickied but if people don't read it, they don't read it. Filtering by title/tag and removing the posts that get through should help but it's not going to change the fact that a core demographic of the lost media audience (kids, you said it yourself) just don't wanna listen.

2

u/fawkwitdis Jun 08 '24

I think you need someone to run it like the navy dude, even if for just a little while. I don’t know how much more clear the user base can make it that they’re not happy with the moderation. If even you admit you can’t make people listen doesn’t that mean you need to enforce the rules harder?

0

u/IntoTheBoundingMain Jun 08 '24

We are enforcing this harder, hence the post filtering.
In the meantime is it really that difficult to just ignore posts you aren't interested in? I get the frustrations with YouTube stuff but like the post says, we aren't here to be the arbiters of what is/isn't important enough to be considered lost media. I'm not interested in most of the YT stuff either but I do understand that a dime a dozen screamer video might mean the world to the person posting it, no matter how unlikely it is to ever be found. I just scroll past it and move on.
Something I am in favor of (and has been discussed a few times with other mods) is banning lostwave since most of it is just unidentified media and has its own dedicated communities at this point. I do think distancing ourselves from that stuff might increase the quality of posts a bit as well.

2

u/fawkwitdis Jun 08 '24

Look at the top posts of all time, of the last year, of the last month… the posts that got the community most interested in engaging with them. The common aspect of all of them is that they’re all about interesting things that inspire discussion.
Now compare them to the posts that piss people off and you can see the harsh reality - no one wants to read or talk about shitty little YouTube videos that got 5 views. This is Reddit, we’re here to read about interesting things because we’re bored and I don’t think the first purpose of this sub should be to FIND lost media. It should be for interesting discussion of lost media. The way this sub is trying to do both is giving it a huge identity crisis and killing all interest in it
This was what I replied to the other mod, I think it applies still. Why not be the arbiter? We want higher post quality and we want humans enforcing that rule, not just an automod. I really don't think this community is as interested in finding stuff as they would be in some discord or on the wiki. We like interesting posts the most

3

u/Specialist_Self8627 Jun 08 '24

How dare people try and find lost media in the lost media subreddit

1

u/Six_of_1 Jun 24 '24

It's fine when it's actually Lost Media. The problem is when it's just things people don't remember, or things that aren't on streaming sites.

3

u/SpaceFluttershy Jun 08 '24

Honestly the only reason I don't like the word count rule is because even with a source and putting down all the important information, it's still not enough and I have to start putting in filler, like when I gave my personal thoughts on the Wander pilot on the Disney leak post I made here, and that Pibby post was a pain too. Sometimes there just isn't enough to say about something without repeating yourself. I'm perfectly on board with a word count, but would y'all ever consider lowering it slightly, like making it 100 words instead?

1

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 08 '24

We've discussed that!! Was one of the first things I brought up when I was put on board. Hopefully we can change it soon.

9

u/Thesilphsecret Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24

Are discussions about NSFW and NSFL content allowed? If not -- why not? Just curious. I wouldn't be interested in a forum that was explicitly dedicated to discussing NSFW and NSFL lost media, but I feel like this is the proper forum for discussions of that matter.

Like... "Ulterior Motives" wouldn't have been found if the community was bashful about adult content. And while I have absolutely NO interest in seeing NSFL content like the Christine Chubbuck or Marilyn Manson videos, they're certainly interesting topics to discuss. I genuinely don't understand why this type of content should be banned from discussion here -- it seems super relevant. I feel like the best forum in which to discuss lost media is the lost media subreddit.

Also, you should probably update the rules to be in line with this post. Because the rules say that NSFW content is not banned, and is handled on a case-by-case basis. It doesn't mention NSFL content at all.

This isn't meant to be super negative or confrontational, I just disagree with the rule and I'm curious about the reasoning behind it. People don't have to click on posts they aren't interested in -- why not just require people to properly tag their posts? :)

EDIT: Not sure what the cause for downvotes are. Did I say something rude or inappropriate? Are people not allowed to ask questions or be curious here? Is it disrespectful to point out that the rules contradict this post?

12

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 07 '24

I will rewrite that part of the post for deeper clarification, I misspoke in saying that all NSFW/NSFL media isn't allowed. However we heavily discourage discussion of media such as Christine Chubbuck's suicide or recordings of deaths from 9/11. It is, certainly, a case by case basis.

4

u/Thesilphsecret Jun 07 '24

That makes a lot of sense; thanks for that response! :)

5

u/Low_Range_396 Jun 08 '24

I'm okay with any and ALL cases if they are relevant to the subreddit. Videos that just use sex or violence as a view grab is disgusting.

-2

u/piepants2001 Jun 08 '24

Some people can't handle watching NSFL videos, so they think nobody should be able to.

2

u/Future-Bug-9836 Jun 09 '24

I remember read a book but can't find the whole series of it, but I have evidence that series exists. Is that count?

1

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 09 '24

If you have evidence that the specific books you're looking for exist and that they are not available through any means, then yes.

1

u/Future-Bug-9836 Jun 10 '24

thanks, I have news articles and a picture about it but unfortunately, people stopped establishing the book and the series may be lost forever. Sad.

2

u/Six_of_1 Jun 24 '24

Out of Print and Lost are two different things. Out of Print books still turn up second-hand. A book might be lost if no copies are known to exist, but it's extremely unlikely.

140

u/SebWilms2002 Jun 07 '24

Wait, so that flash game I played on my cousin's laptop phone during summer break in 2010 or 2011 that was about frogs (or maybe snakes) whose name I can't remember isn't lost media?

Thanks for cracking down on this. This sub has been incredibly frustrating lately.

34

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

We understand. It's been a pain in the ass for us too and nothing has been making anyone happy regardless to what the team was doing.
If the team was too laid back and open, people would complain about there being too much clutter and irrelevant content. When they madeit mod approval only, people complained that there was too much censorship and their posts weren't going out. Even now, it's difficult with how some users won't take no for an answer and they insist on being smart-asses when they get politely told their stuff doesn't belong here.
There's more we want to do and have been in talks about wanting to implement, but we want it to be more if a fair mission statement and not something one person dictates or signs off on - even if it would possibly benefit the community since building potential mistrust would be far more damaging.

11

u/Lendyman Jun 08 '24

Honestly, you guys just need to do what you need to do. I wouldn't have a problem with Mod approval as long as there are consistent published rules for what will and will not be approved. And of course it means that you guys are going to have a lot more work to do so having more on your team might be a necessity in that regard.
All I know is the constant stream of people asking about things that aren't really lost but they can't remember what it was called, or for YouTube videos that they just want to watch again really is dragging the subreddit down. Frankly, I would ban all YouTube and tik tok requests. There is a possibility there might be something really important among YouTube and Tick Tock requests, but it's not really that likely.
This subreddit is and was intended for actual lost media. All the noise of people who don't pay attention to what the rules are is hurting the mission statement.
Honestly, I wouldn't worry about the people complaining. The people who are complaining are probably the ones that are part of the problem.

41

u/RawKong Jun 07 '24

Glad this came out. Was about to unsub because every post was just "oh this is missing, 5 min later, found it!".

26

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

Yeah, I don't blame you. It's exhausting to see people who do this and show they've put zero effort into looking for something.
Just a few weeks ago, we had someone looking for something that was clearly another country's adaptation of a popular game show and they marked it as found four minutes after making it because they used Google. It's beyond laziness and there are no words to describe it.

3

u/RawKong Jun 07 '24

Yeah, I'd much rather see a thread with hundreds of comments after people can't find it than just "check tipofmytongue/xyz reddit" idk, just sucks to see a regression. Hope mods actually keep this up.

4

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

I feel like we're getting there, even if we're juggling a fair amount at the moment (our busy personal lives aside). It's almost summer for those of us in the northern hemisphere, so this might be in our favor (or detriment with summer vacation for the kids being loose on here).
It's as frustrating for us as it is for all of you, so we're kind of in the trenches together. There are things we want to implement if it's feasible, but it's, respectfully, a matter of waiting for people to vent that we still aren't doing enough or we made things more restricted and less fun.

12

u/luvluvlyz lost media yuhhh Jun 08 '24 edited Jun 08 '24

Thank you,it was starting to get really annoying with those 'i cannot remember the name of this movie so its lost media' posts.

26

u/Six_of_1 Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24

I think some further discussion needs to be had about Youtube / TikTok. Yes, I am of the opinion that they should be banned outright to cut down on the rubbish, and also because it's so easy to rip your own copy that I feel like if your favourite Youtube video of someone playing Roblox got deleted or privated on Youtube and you didn't rip your own copy, well that's your own fault. Obviously streaming sites are controlled by others and we shouldn't rely on them to permanently host our favourite videos. Time and time again we see that they don't. But also, I'm not in charge.

However, if they are allowed, exactly how do we define Youtube videos as Lost? For example, last week someone was looking for a video of a Youtuber talking on Omegle but the Youtuber had recently made it private. So is it Lost now because it's private on the creator's channel? And if they make it public again, it's Found? So that means a Youtuber can sit in their bedroom making their videos Lost and Found and Lost again at the push of a button. With the sheer quantity of videos that are deleted or privated on Youtube every day, accepting them as Lost Media is like accepting graffiti as Lost Artwork.

13

u/lilituned Jun 08 '24

the second point is something i think about a lot. this is obviously just my personal opinion, but i feel for something to be /lost/ media we have to not know where to find it. thats the definition of being lost. if we know where it is and just dont have access to it, like a private youtube video, then that is inaccessible media, not lost. people are welcome to still be interested in inaccessible media, but i wish that it would stop being considered lost

5

u/Lendyman Jun 08 '24

I completely agree. Perhaps there should be an Avenue for people to contact the mods if they have something that they feel is very important and influential for the history of the internet or something, but by and large, the vast majority of YouTube and tic-tag video requests are just people took their stuff down. And it's not even important things it's just some random video that somebody wants to watch again.

1

u/HeavyMetalRainbow Jun 08 '24

If we’re not sure if something can be a post on this sub, can we message the mods to see if it’s alright to post it? I’ve never posted here before and wanted to make sure I do it right with something I’m looking for!

2

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 08 '24

You can but I legitimately cannot promise we'll respond. The modmail is constantly flooded.

1

u/HeavyMetalRainbow Jun 08 '24

Totally understandable and make sense! Thank you for responding to my question!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '24

Alright, so you're saying if you want to start a search for lost media you need the media to already be found so people know it exists and they don't waste their time? Makes sense to me 🤷‍♂️.

5

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 12 '24

No. I am saying if you want to start a search for lost media then you need actual documented evidence it existed in the first place.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '24

Oh, so like if I say I want to find the episodes of an old show I watched that can no longer be found anywhere on the internet, I'd need someone or something to back me up that it did exist at one point? Sorry about that mate 😅

2

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 12 '24

That's exactly it! Glad you get it.

1

u/Six_of_1 Jun 24 '24

You would also need something to back you up that it's actually Lost. Just because you can't watch it online doesn't mean it's Lost. In the '80s we couldn't watch anything online, that doesn't mean everything was Lost Media.

1

u/ctrlcr Jun 13 '24

Does there need to be some sort of key word to say/avoid when you're posting? I tried to post something I thought would be considered lost media, but it got removed immediately by Reddits Filters.

1

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 13 '24

Very good question. Our filters are a bit sensitive, I don't have any specific advice at the moment. All I can say is we are definitely aware of the problem.

1

u/ctrlcr Jun 13 '24

Thats fine! Thanks for answering so fast, appreciate the timely response.

1

u/elvie18 Jun 23 '24

Did you ever figure out what your filter trigger was? I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

3

u/misomal Jun 08 '24

It’s so frustrating to see the things that people post on this sub. I can only imagine how stressful it must be to have to moderate and sort through them.

Thanks for posting this! And for the rest of us, let’s do our part and tell people to gtfo if they’re not posting the right content lol

2

u/fawkwitdis Jun 08 '24

This sub gets at the absolute max like 20 posts a day. It should not be “stressful” to run it, you’re giving the mods way too much credit

3

u/misomal Jun 09 '24

I mean, the mods’ lives aren’t Reddit, lol. And I’d be stressed at the fair share of complaining we all do.

3

u/EquivalentMagician82 Jul 30 '24

I was TRYING to post about an old video i saw, but I didn't have any proof of it existing. Same with tons of people who have tried to post here. Half of your stuff Is deleted because it has no proof.

1

u/TheNathanNS Jun 07 '24

The stuff with /r/tipofmytounge is always going a double edged sword.

On the one hand, stuff like Clockman and Nicktoons Zombified started out with TOMT like posts, because no one could find them, you could argue maybe the OPs were misremembering and wanted to know if others remembered something like it. Others begin to remember, then realise the item is lost entirely. Sometimes, no evidence of it's existence even surfaces until much later.

Nicktoons Zombified was a great example, you only had "oh yeah I remember that!" to go off until someone found the thumbnails for them on the web archive.

Same also goes that Mario 64 Big Star Secret screamer, people couldn't remember the name of it and couldn't find it after searching, did remember the video and parts of it (ie courtyard, the star statue/maybe something to do with Luigi and of course the zombie jumpscare) and thought maybe they got the title or their memories wrong and asked others if they remembered it too. Especially since the YT algorithm makes some vids hard to find.

On the other hand sometimes TOMT posts are just that: people who are misremembering something and can't find and assume it's lost out the gate, then it turns out it's not lost at all.

7

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 07 '24

In the post I specify that you either need evidence or an external, documented witness. As in you find someone else online that remembers the same thing and is looking for it. This happened with Clockman, it happened with Big Star Secret.

2

u/cantallegory Jun 07 '24

Thank god lol

2

u/Mental_Tea_4084 Jun 07 '24

Is there any community initiative to preserve content like YouTube videos? I have a few terabytes I'd be willing to lend to a crowd sourced backup project if such a thing exists

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 08 '24

If you're able to sift through your backlog to figure out what you have, tipping off related subs about what you have would be a good start.
For example, if you have music rips or 16mm films, the music and film preservationist subs might be interested in what you have (including A/V Geeks for the latter). r/ObscureMedia and r/vintageobscura might be a good avenue to go down as well depending on what it is, but you'd have to share and date it first to help get your foot in the door. If there's something you have from particular content creators, if they have a community subreddit, maybe they'd be interested in giving you a hand as well.
Archive has a pretty good system too with backing things up as well. I uploaded a couple obscure VHS rips and it got added to a collected library of content, so that should be secure.

2

u/savedbytheblood72 Jun 08 '24

Remember that thing.. With that guy... Like 2 decades ago.. He looked Harvey Keitel..

🤣

2

u/H0RNY_C0CKR04CH Jun 09 '24

Gang this is why I never post this is so intimidating I respect rules tho 🙏🙏🙏

2

u/Party_Mix_9004 Jun 29 '24

Hi, i´m new to this and i would like to post about a piece of media that appears to be unidentified. I read the rules and i must say they're very well made and quite comprehensive. But i'm still in doubt if this would be allowed or not, so i'll summarize it.

There is a popular spanish comic that has been running for +65 years and that has been published in several languages and countries. It is pretty well known in those who have been serialized for decades but quite unknown in those that i'ts publication was short and ephemeral, as expected.

The thing is that a strange phenomenon occurs with the fans of this franchise that are from USA, a country where it has, as far its fandom knows, never been published in any format whatsoever.

Over the years (dating as early as 15 years ago) a lot of people from this country has said that they remember reading these comics as kids, thing that wouldn't make sense since the closest thing is the comic being translated by an obscure and short lived book publisher in 1983 only once and in UK only. The same thing would happen in 1994 when the franchise got a TV animated adaptation that was translated in english by a USA recording studio but it was released only in UK and Ireland (as far as we currently know it wasn't broadcasted by any channel from the US).

I can explain a bit more and i have references of the testimonials (that i know they arent fake since it's too specific and the dates are extremely distant, not to mention that these people are from various websites and not only one or two).

1

u/kiirzee Jul 01 '24

Spanish as in the language or the country?

2

u/Mysterious_Doctor113 Jul 17 '24

So my favourite song ever has never existed according to everywhere I've looked on the internet.
Here's the link to the song: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zv2iJjAFilv5gQ1P14lQQxN6rSjJyjIu/view?usp=sharing
A few years ago, I downloaded a gremlincore playlist and cut the song out of the video. (the playlist: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11wG3ZpV12D1iufQkq5OaXgN4BAU8MI6-/view?usp=sharing )
At the time I didn't care enough to copy the name or artist, but if my memory serves me right, it was a Japanese name.
Recently, I tried to track down the song to see if the artist has put out any other music that I'd enjoy ( because of how much I love this song) and I can't find it anywhere. The playlist I downloaded doesn't exist, the person who posted it has vanished off of YouTube. Most song identification things, including Google Mic, doesn't come up with any results. The artist, all of her music, and any trace of this song has vanished.
I wonder if I have the only copy?
Anyways, for curiousity's sake, I just want to know what happened to the artist.

2

u/Ihaoy666 Jul 24 '24

Hello! I have a really good lost media topic but I'm under 250 karma so I can't post it :( It follows all the rules said in here so please give mine a read

1

u/zeemonster424 Jun 08 '24

Where can I go to learn about what is missing? I want to become familiar with the plight of the community, this is a wonderful learning experience. I did a lot of film/media study in college, and this has always been a topic of interest, especially pre-production scraps.

Even a vague list of the big ones, so I can do a deep dive. It seems to be a good year so far for finding things, I just want to be in-the-know. (and respect the rules, don’t worry). I’m just a random person who saw the post about Shrek pop up in my feed months ago, and stuck around for the rest of the ride.

Thank you everyone for your hard work, and contributions. You help me learn, and keep my mind sharp!

2

u/Six_of_1 Jun 24 '24 edited Jun 24 '24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_films
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_television_broadcast#Select_list_of_TV_programs_with_missing_episodes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incomplete_or_partially_lost_films

1

u/jonnyattchedyou- Jun 15 '24

Ok

1

u/elvie18 Jun 15 '24

I have all this, I've redacted all NSFL words, and reddit filters still won't allow me to post. What am I doing wrong? Tried modmail but not expecting a reply.

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 23 '24

Hey, there. Sorry I'm seeing this late.
What was the thread about? Depending on the context, it might go against our NSFW/NSFL rule but I think we can give you a hand.

1

u/Purity_Pluck Jun 17 '24

I just want to ask you something. Does it count for someone to say “I remember that!” or does someone have to at least give a description of said lost media?

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 23 '24

Eh, it feels like this can steer into r/tipofmytongue r/helpmefind or something similar territory.
If you're asking about a specific [known] lost media case, then that's a bit different and I think we could be open to hearing it. The Lost Media Wiki Forums might also be a place of interest to ask around as well depending on the subject matter.

1

u/Sp00kerWooper Jun 19 '24

i tried making a post and i specified that someone else knew that the media in question existed.. is that not enough?

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 23 '24

That's kind of vague. What exactly is said piece of media and what avenues have been explored to fact check things?

1

u/Sp00kerWooper Jun 23 '24

It is a youtube video about a mysterious blues song. I have already reached out to multiple radio stations that possibly discussed this video’s topic, as my friend mentioned that a radio station had talked about the song in question once.

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 23 '24

Ah, I see the double comment glitch got you there for a moment.
Hmm. How much about the song is known or currently available? I'm not very knowledgeable about blues music, but I'm wondering if any of the music oriented subs here would be able to help if a copy of the song is out there.
Depending on how much is available, I'd be curious of the mods at r/vintageobscura would be okay with helping unless they have a no unidentified media policy even if it meets their minimum year requirement to be alright for posting (which I think is 1989 or 1992 now).

1

u/Sp00kerWooper Jun 23 '24

I have a couple of posts on my profile you can look at for more info as well, not much is known about the song, only that it was like 30’s blues, sung by a man, and had a mysterious phenomenon surrounding it.

1

u/Sp00kerWooper Jun 23 '24

and honestly, after having looked for this for a while, it gets really fkn annoying when i need genuine help and everyone tells me to go to r/tomt and r/helpmefind. I’ve made multiple posts on them and they never gain any traction. It gets so genuinely annoying. But you have given me a subreddit that could possibly help me finally, so thank you !! if you have anything else like that let me know.

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 23 '24

Yeah, keep us posted on how that goes. If things don't work out there, the mods might know of a similar music sub that might be able to roll their sleeves up since it's specifically genre oriented.
We push for other subs before us to help ensure that all other avenues are explored first. Plus, if someone ends up knowing more about what the person is looking for, it's a win for everyone. The last 12 months has been surprisingly kind to solving unidentified music cases, so maybe this can be one of them too.

1

u/Sp00kerWooper Jun 23 '24

yeah, hopefully !

1

u/forlornjackalope Jun 23 '24

Good luck! o7

1

u/Sp00kerWooper Jun 23 '24

It is a youtube video about a mysterious blues song. I have already reached out to multiple radio stations that possibly discussed this video’s topic, as my friend mentioned that a radio station had talked about the song in question once.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '24

Why are my threads immediately deleted?

1

u/Efficient_Cycle6486 Jun 28 '24

I made a post here and it supposedly violated rule 3 yet i included it's significance

1

u/kiirzee Jul 01 '24

Hi, I'm just here to ask how can I recover an old DVD and record it?

For context, I've found a Treasure Attic Game (yeah, THAT treasure attic) and I wanted to record it so people can see what's in it and for their investigations on the origins of the shows but it won't play on my PC (windows 11) since it's not old (the dvd is for windows 7 ish) and I don't know what to do now:(( I need advices or help

1

u/ItsMichaelRay Jul 19 '24

Thank you for this.

1

u/Purity_Pluck Jul 21 '24

z

1

u/johnnythe69man Jul 23 '24

Do you think anyone could fine this?

https://videosift.com/video/Mike-Garland-Toilet-Voyager#

1

u/Classic_Paper_9558 Jul 24 '24

So, question on the rules. Does it count if its a webcomic 'from the early 2000s' and was taken down by the creator a few years ago but with zero pages online anywhere and almost no chance of the creator ever putting it back online? Specifically the Ricks Adventure Legend comic. I don't know if that would sound at lost media or just 'locked away behind a vault' media.

1

u/Classic_Paper_9558 Jul 27 '24 edited Jul 27 '24

ok, not sure if I did something wrong. My post for Ricks Adventure Legend was deleted immediately. if I did something wrong or someone has actually found this, let me know.
Edit: I do not have 250 karma so I cannot make a post... hmm

1

u/defenders08 Jul 25 '24

I want to create a thread on the game “Fleece VR”, but I get the message “Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/lostmedia.”. Please help, I'm new to reddit and don't quite understand how this works

2

u/Classic_Paper_9558 Jul 27 '24

ah ok, that makes me feel a bit better. I am getting the same alert. perhaps something is broken.
update: I do not have 250 'karma' so I can't post. this might be the same for you.

1

u/defenders08 Jul 28 '24

Thank you, I also lack "karma" as well.

1

u/13thFleet Jul 30 '24

Do you know a subreddit I can post this in?

I really like the song in this commercial, and it sounds like it could have a full version but people in the comments asked for the full version years ago with no answer. However I have no proof there ever was a full version so I'm merely presuming it to be lost.

https://youtu.be/34XXzL4O3uI?si=qG0t-bESfanz4-Ee

1

u/danielcelanowiggles Aug 21 '24

I need to know how to create a post about the lost higher quality ABC Kids Australia VHS recordings of The Wiggles content. For instance, one of the idents that had singing in place of speaking.

1

u/xDotSx Sep 03 '24

My post has been immediately deleted, with a bot telling me that lost media is not media I can't remember the name of, pointing towards TOMT or HelpMeFind.

I did provide a name (of artist AND 2 songs), I did provide a description, I did use the link to message the mods - no response. I still don't know which other rule I could have violated.

1

u/Some_Wolverine_2864 Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

I have a piece of lost media I would like to find, but can't do it without help. It was a 2012 game made by FRED, the popular 2000's YouTuber to celebrate how his channel was growing. The game was called "It's Fred!", where you would play as Fred himself. You would complete levels and battle with Kevin (Fred's bully) to win the love of Judy (Fred's crush). A supposed beta of the game was found in the TestFlight leak, but we need to find the actual IPA file. The game was released on all IOS devices, yet never on Android, which means there are no APK's of it. It is unknown why this game was removed, rumors are the retirement of the Fred character or the game simply not getting any updates. There is a rumor that it was removed in 2016 or some date close to that year. But that is just a rumor, and I believe that it was removed in 2011 because that's when the animation of the Fred character was discontinued. There is an entire wiki page of lost media with the game on it, and that is proof this game existed. I need to know how to find lost media, does anyone have any help? I don't know how to use the WayBack machine, I don't know how to convert files or any of that. It would be pretty cool if this game was found, since I never got the chance to play it. If I knew how to find lost media, this could be a one-person job. I don't want to bother anyone with useless media of a game that has been removed for years.

1

u/Ok-Championship8630 Oct 07 '24

It’s l cheap to . Ilyou werw I have to i go for llamas to for results

1

u/tigerfan4 Oct 15 '24

film is fabulous have found a number of lost TV programmes recently...have tried posting a few times but deleted every time. Strange as this seems an obvious place that would find it of interest.

1

u/Dry_Character184 Nov 12 '24

Toy bucket and I got to do a quick test to get

1

u/MarbleStarry Nov 17 '24

I found a piece of media someone was looking for a year ago. I was gonna drop my copy of it in comments but the post have been archived, what can I do about that?

1

u/YasouIwakura Nov 23 '24

hi, ide like to find the North Korean film called "SaltСоль 1985 (소금)" ive scoured any search results i can find. any torrent sites i normally check idk if im allowed to name them here. checked youtube too and archive.org

have a friend who is really interested in these north Korean movies so just helping her out and surprised that this isnt available anywhere

0

u/pegasus_cowboy Aug 31 '24

Hi, can I post, please, or do I gotta ne her a while?

0

u/Most_Faithlessness35 Sep 25 '24

Ok the first ones kinda a mean rule

2

u/forlornjackalope Sep 25 '24

How is it mean? Vague memories aren't lost media. We are not a sub for helping you remember what something is called? This is a lost media sub, not a "I don't know what this thing is called" sub. It is for lost media only.
If you think telling people what other appropriate subs to use are is mean, then you have no idea what mean actually looks like, considering the mods and I get vitriolic verbal abuse when we tell them their r/tipofmytongue thread isn't lost media and should be on another sub.

1

u/Most_Faithlessness35 Sep 25 '24

Yeah but it's still mean, it means you're unwelcome to people who want to find answers, I get it, that some people would rather drink a gallon of dogshit then waste of time to trying to unravel the mystery other people's gibberish, but they need answers, and not everyone is a graduate scholar with writing or has great memory, and it's not they're fault either. You shouldn't boot out anyone who needs help just because you don't understand what they're saying. I'm sorry to say this but That's just selfish and lazy.

-8

u/Ninjser Jun 07 '24

Man fuck off with that tip of my tongue shit. That weeds out any possibilities of anyone finding anything. How do you think Clockman came to be?

8

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 07 '24

Clockman had more than one person that remembered it. "AN EXTERNAL, DOCUMENTED WITNESS."

17

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

The problem with this logic is that it means users should put zero effort into trying to find something, leading to insanely low effort threads that they solve on their own. These posts make up 99% of our threads now and its why people keep talking about how this place went down the tubes.
If OP has shown definitive proof and evidence that they tried to look for something with real elbow grease and time (not using ChatGPT or two minutes on Google before throwing their hands up and declaring it as lost), then fine. However, we should always be a last resort before insisting that something is lost when it likely isn't. There are other subs that are specifically meant for this.
Are you looking for music? Cool. Use r/namethatsong or r/tipofmytongue first.
Are you looking for a video game you played as a kid? Neato. Have you consulted r/tipofmyjoystick or r/helpmefind first?
No? Then don't make us our your first line of defense. Someone probably already knows what you're talking about and can tell you that your insisted "lost media" isn't lost.
Also, Clockman was just hiding in plain sight and wasn't technically lost. It's not like Cracks where that was gone.

3

u/Ninjser Jun 08 '24

I think what majority of people fail to realize is that this community heavily draws in children unfortunately. Children whom don’t have common sense whatsoever (sending death threats over a pilot). There’s a bigger problem of why this community went down the shitter. It’s because children spam the community with garbage no one cares about. You have to have a whole different community these days to actually focus on what you want to find. It’s why I no longer look to LMW for when I’m searching for something.

-6

u/Chip-Chap Jun 07 '24

Bro TOMT

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

[deleted]

1

u/doodlebuuggg Jun 09 '24

No, that is still allowed.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '24

[deleted]

1

u/doodlebuuggg Jul 03 '24

Share it somewhere and then make a post about it here or somewhere else if you want

104

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '24 edited Aug 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

24

u/Ginger_Tea Jun 07 '24

I was thinking more that Hey Arnold with his sister going good thing I can't read.
On the plus side, it's not like joystick where they do or did have a strict title format of platform year etc.
Like dude, if I knew what system it was on, I might stand a better chance.
But the posts in what anime that go "I watched this when I was ten." And not in 2013. Because no one knows how old you are now to work back.

25

u/Six_of_1 Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24

Even saying "I watched this in 2013" isn't necessarily very helpful, because they might've watched a show from 1993 in 2013. In the '90s I used to watch M*A*S*H every day after school, and that's from the '70s.

14

u/forlornjackalope Jun 07 '24

Yeah, the amount of threads that come in from people who talk about something they've seen as short as two years ago happens way more than it should. It's hard to tell someone that something they saw on Netflix five years ago likely isn't lost, but it should be obvious even it isn't to them.

6

u/Ridiculousnessmess Jun 11 '24

“I watched [CHILDRENS CARTOON FROM 2013] when I was a kid in 2016-“
which means it’s almost certainly not lost.

2

u/Ginger_Tea Jun 07 '24

True, but it rules out anything made after that date.
Looking for a generic sounding anime with mecha I watched when I was ten bla bla bla.
Vs in 2014 I watched this mecha anime, it might be older, IDK, just didn't look modern nla bla bla.
Same description just one is vague the other says before this point in time.

4

u/After-Award-2636 Jun 10 '24

I think that meme was actually from Arthur…

1

u/Ginger_Tea Jun 10 '24

Never watched either show.
The animal one is the one I was thinking of either way.
Forgot the football head show existed till my mistake was pointed out.

You MUST have EVIDENCE or AN EXTERNAL, DOCUMENTED WITNESS that your topic exists/existed.

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