Talk:Soulseek/Archive 1

No Spyware?
Any proof that there is no spyware/malware on Soulseek? Suffocation90 02:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * What kind of proof do you want? Recury 13:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * no one has seen anyCckkab 13:09, 26 June2007 (UTC)
 * no one still has never reported any 82.227.245.3 (talk) 06:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I have used Soulseek since 2003 and have never once encountered an issue with spyware or malware. i think that this is the best P2P client out there. Paul Disastro (talk) 21:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I made a new userbox for soulseek
.... and i thought is share it. you can look at it here. This userbox is nicer looking in my opinion and it allows you to share your soulseek username in the box itself. also, it adds your userpage to a category called "soulseek users". if you dont like the box (whatevs) but you want to be in the catergory just add .-(chubbstar) — talk

POV praise
Soulseek rocks. It is simply the best source for unusual live recordings from bands that do not necessarily have live albums. The users are also unusually knowledgable in various genres. --Synthesist

Requst for P2P protocol details
Unofficial (reverse-engineered) partial documentation of the SoulSeek protocolis available, written by the SoleSeekproject team.

http://www.museek-plus.org/wiki/SoulseekProtocol has more details about the current Soulseek protocol, although it isn't 100% compatible with the current protocol. Search limitations have been placed on non-official Soulseek clients.

Article Update needed
Soulseek switched to a decentralized server some time ago.
 * Nope sorry but your wrong... 157 which still is in test STILL uses a centralized server, and thats the latest version. The file sharing itself goes from peer to peer without going through the server... but the chat and searches are all distributed via the central server.  ALKIVAR ™[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 22:45, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * OMG. In case this is true, it is EXTREMELY dangerous, considering the things happening to WinMX!! I do not even DARE think of similar things happening to Slsk too ... -andy 80.129.98.149 03:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I sincerly doubt that this would happen anytime soon considering that the server is located in Germany, and considering that the large portion of music traded on slsk is underground and out of the juridiction of nearly all anti piracy groups. That and the fact that there is only a tiny portion of users on slsk compared to other networks like Edonkey2k & Gnutella, which already more then keep the those groups hand's full. Avador 05:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Imitation Soulseek
Does anyone know anything about the imitation Soulseek that comes up on top of a google search? Some info on it in the article would be nice.--Brentt 10:11, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Rooms & Community
I think that section should be reinserted. Reading about the community might help new-comers in fitting in, god knows regular users would like people to know that information.
 * I'm sure it would be helpful, but this is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not a FAQ or something. Recury 19:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

i think the section is redundant. the article wouldbe better without it. 18:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Issues section
There's no justification for removing this section. I personally am a fan of Soulseek, and have written it in as sympathetic a way to them as I could, but those are real issues which need to be addressed in this article. Both the strengths and weaknesses must be covered so that our readers can make an informed decision about whether or not Soulseek is the right p2p software for them.

If you think it needs to be edited for NPOV, go ahead, but don't remove it! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.161.211.139 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 31 May 2006.
 * Wikipedia is not a software guide and it is not here so that its readers can decide whether Soulseek is for them or not. You can try to use it that way and a lot of the time it will work just fine for that, but it's not called WikiSoftwareGuide. Recury 03:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry Recury, but you are wrong. Critically evaluating any product, issue, or political candidate by highlighting their main strengths and weaknesses is de facto what Wikipedia is all about. I couldn't care less if that's not implicit in its role as an encyclopedia&mdash;that's what we do here. It almost makes one wonder if you are not User:Jersyko, who has removed this section several times. I am completely neutral here because I have never used Soulseek and have no feelings one way or the other about this, but you and your buddies are out of line here. Now I'm going to do what you should have done, and improve the section in question instead of just vandalizing it.
 * [Above was edited by me just now because I had mentioned the wrong user. Fixed. 20:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)]
 * &mdash;Dan 19:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I am far more OK with a registered user who has an edit history and his/her own views about what should be in Wikipedia contradicting me than an IP address who just wandered onto the site (seemingly) to criticize things. If you want to add some negative things about it, I won't revert it but I would ask that you don't just make a criticism section and put everything in there, especially since this article doesn't have any other sections and it would only foster the kinds of edit wars that we were having the other day. It would be preferable to just work those sorts of ideas into the existing article where appropriate. Recury 20:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd like to apologize for jumping down your throat up there. I was a little too extreme. I think I had a different picture of what was going on. Because you reverted it several times, I was afraid you were some kind of Soulseek zealot who was hellbent on squelching any mention of a weakness in it. I'm glad you responded because now I know I was wrong and that you're reasonable. I hope the Strengths and Weaknesses section I just added will satisfy everyone including yourself. Please feel free to modify it or post your thoughts here. I'm happy to revise it again if it's in any way inaccurate. Also, do you have any other major strengths I could mention in the first half? Since I haven't used the app (though now, I might!) I was just going on what I've read in the article and the scrapped section. Let's collaborate! &mdash;Dan 20:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I personally don't think the lack of swarming counts as a weakness. It really depends on the user and what they do - swarming is incredibly hard to get right because of the metadata conflicts with the same files.  Soulseek has a huge bonus in that you are forced to find the invididual users with the music you want to listen to: this opens the system up for trades, easy bannings of users who just download everything etc.  In the sphere of underground music p2p swarming isn't anything I miss, for one.  I don't know why we must judge these so-called strengths and weakness - why not just list the features and be done with it?  You can mention the lack of support for swarmining, but I think calling it a weakness assumes that swarming is always a good thing, which is not the case. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.113.211.221 (talk • contribs) 07:46, 19 July 2006  (UTC)
 * I am not sure in which cases support for swarming would be undesirable. There is nothing about swarming that precludes trades or banning; the difference is that if your download source goes down, you don't have to manually look for new sources but the application does that for you. Things like "metadata conflicts" do not exist, as P2P networks that support swarming use hashes/checksums to identify files. Files which differ by even one bit are not considered the same. I agree that the lack of swarming is a disadvantage. -- intgr [talk] 09:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Ban Issues
Should it be noted that some users ban from downloading, making it hard to find/download files at certain times? I know a group of people who frequently run into similar problems and think it should be noted if enough of you all have the same issue. --Nbmatt 16:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think this would be worth expanding on in the section about the community aspects of Soulseek. There definitely is an elitist minority amongst the overall community and slsk's 'ban' and 'ignore' features play an integral role in how those people interact with the rest of the community. -- Stereoisomer 20:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether there is an elitist minority present in slsk, it would be nearly impossible to source. From personal experience however, people will usually not ban you unless you have no files in your shared directory in return. I would not say the reliability of transfers needs any more coverage in the article than it already has. 3dom 05:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

License specs seem OK to me. Soulseek is freeware, but NOT free software.
If Slsk was "free software," its source code would be available to the public. But Slsk is the not-so-common case of both freeware AND closed source. -andy 80.129.105.170 12:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You should be more clear about what you're talking about... Did it say free software in the "License" field at the time? However, the categorization is probably wrong, as Soulseek is in the cathegory "Free file sharing software". That cathegory is for Free software according to the cathegory page, and Soulseek doesn't live up to that. --Unsound 12:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Soulseek legal status?
It's not clear to me what the legal status of Soulseek is... Why is it allowed to continue its operation with the copyright laws, the DMCA in effect, the U.S. pushing other countries to implement laws that prohibit file sharing etc. I mean, it's a central server based network, and there's even Napster people working there. Is there no illegal music there? (unlikely...) Do they have special agreements with the record companies? If somebody could write something about this, I think it would be very informative. --Unsound 13:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the article covers most of this. One, the Soulseek servers are in Germany, so U.S. Copyright laws don't apply as readily.  Two, there is "illegal" music there, but in my experience it's a very small portion -- as mentioned, Soulseek is full of underground music, new artists, and genres of music (like electronica) that may be largely ouside of most copyright laws.  I would speculate that the record companies just don't care too much about slsk, as it doesn't move a lot of copyrighted material (compared to gnutella and pals).  /Blaxthos 14:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Where in the article can I find that information? Really, if you're saying the article covers my questions, I must be unable to read properly. (: Even when doing a search of the word "Germany", I get nothing (there's nothing in the article that says the servers are in germany, that is). Anyway, even though there's much underground music (which seems to imply to you that the ones who made the music won't claim copyright for it... I'm a little bit sceptical to that assumption) there probably is some copyrighted material as well. Thus this service must be incredibly vulnerable to any big record company that feels offended by it. Now, I don't know about german laws, but I really feel that there's something about this that I don't understand. --Unsound 12:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
 * hmmm, now I'm really at a loss. I swear I just read the information I quoted to you like a week ago, and I could have sworn it was in the article itself (specifically the info about server in germany and relative content levels of undergtround vs. copyrighted material).  I apologize for pointing you to the wrong place, and I'll see if I can dig through browser history and find the source (though I wouldn't hold my breath) :).  I have been using slsk since the death of napster and I'll try my best to find reliable sources for that info.  Sorry again!  Cheers! /Blaxthos 18:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree with Blaxthos' statements about the quantities of illegal music on Soulseek. There is an enormous amount of copyrighted music being shared on the network -- far more than was available on Napster at its peak. It's routine to come across people with over 50,000 copyrighted songs in their shares. I obviously wish I had the figures to back this up (I'm going off of my own personal experience here), but I imagine that illegal music outnumbers legal music about 20-to-1 on Soulseek as of 2007. And, no, Soulseek has no special agreements with the record industry and it appears to be just dumb luck that they've gone unnoticed (or at least unapproached) by the RIAA's lawyers. -- Stereoisomer 20:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps so -- undoubtedly there are those with large copyrighted song collections -- but including such without citing reliable sources would be a mistake.  I also think the original content to copyrighted material ratio is higher on soulseek than many other p2p services -- part of its popularity is that a large number of indie artists and DJ's use soulseek as a distribution network.  /Blaxthos 05:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That's why I mentioned it here instead of editing the article. On the other hand, I don't think anyone can prove it one way or another as the only people capable of generating these statistics about the network as a whole are the Soulseek admins themselves. And they aren't about to spend time researching how much illegal content is shared versus legal when they already spend countless hours developing the software itself. -- Stereoisomer 21:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't put it down to dumb luck. While undoubtedly copyrighted music is traded over slsk all the time, its relatively small userbase and passion for underground music means it is not such a viable target for the likes of the RIAA. While I'm sure many of the underground musicians whose work is traded over this network probably don't enjoy it - the larger record companies simply arent interested in defending them. Like Blaxthos said above, the record companies simply have better options for lawsuits against other peer-to-peer applications. 3dom 05:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I should have been clearer in my original comment, but no, I'm not talking about small-time copyrighted artists here. Not only is more underground music traded via Soulseek than any other network, but more mainstream copyrighted music is traded as well. Albums by major label bands such as Metallica, Britney Spears, 50 Cent, and the White Stripes appear in greater quantities than on Kazaa and other networks recently targeted by the RIAA. And this is precisely the point I'm trying to make: Soulseek is more than a viable target for the RIAA. In fact, it is arguably currently the most viable target on the Internet. Therefore saying the record companies have better options for lawsuits is quite incorrect. -- Stereoisomer 21:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I would have to disagree with you there. Soulseek has one of the smallest userbases for modern file-sharing applications. Kazaa is not a good example as it is practically extinct right now. Bittorrent, limewire and emule transfer way more mainstream music per day. The numbers will support me on this. 3dom 05:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I think you really need to produce these numbers because simply searching the Soulseek, Bittorent and eDonkey networks for mainstream music will yield at least comparable results from Soulseek. And that says something right there about Soulseek's userbase -- it's not small by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I would guess that this small userbase myth exists specifically to keep the RIAA's attention focused elsewhere (and on that note I feel bad about the things I've been saying here b/c it could eventually bring the RIAA crashing down on Soulseek). Furthermore, the Gnutella network is as bad an example as the FastTrack network since the Gnutella network is as "extinct" as FastTrack (though I personally would call neither "extinct", but well past their peak and fading.) The fact remains that if you want to find music -- *any* music -- and you want to find it in quantity and quickly, you go to Soulseek. Now, granted, nothing said here is sourceable, however, for the purposes of this argument here on this Talk page (which hopefully will lead to appropriate changes in the article itself), I'm pointing out that by running identical searches on multiple networks you will find all the proof you need that Soulseek provides as good (if not better) results as the other big networks. -- Stereoisomer 18:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Not only is more underground music traded via Soulseek than any other network, but more mainstream copyrighted music is traded as well. Where do you get justification for saying this, Stereoisomer? /Blaxthos 02:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Where do you get justification to imply that the above statement isn't 100% true? It's hard to prove that Soulseek is or isn't the premier P2P program for sharing music without getting the creators to extract those statistics from the network, but a quick search of the network will reveal almost endless amounts of mainstream music. For example, try searching for the new albums such as the White Stripes' Icky Thump or Marilyn Manson's Eat Me, Drink Me and you'll find that the search results are so numerous that they may crash your Soulseek client. Of course personal experience isn't a usable source, but it should be enough to put an end to this pointless argument. Soulseek is in no way a client for sharing strictly indie music and unsigned bands nor has it been for quite some time now. -- Stereoisomer 01:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to clarify that unless a work is released into the public domain it is copyrighted. Almost everything available on the internet is copyrighted, even Wikipedia.  It's infringement of somebody else's copyright that is illegal, and that in turn depends on the jurisdiction, and whether it's uploading or downloading or "making available".  Chris Pickett 22:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * My two cents: I think SoulSeek is not being targeted since it has managed to avoid mainstream attention. While the average Joe also occasionally leeches music, what actually matters for him these days is movies, computer games and other content &mdash; music has long ago lost the spotlight it had in the Napster days.
 * The implication is that the average Joe generally uses one tool that can handle multiple functions. SoulSeek, on the other hand, is mainly known and used by music enthusiasts and collectors; the average SoulSeek user probably shares magnitudes more music than the average user of the other networks. From my personal experience, users sharing less than 1500 files are a relatively rare find (and I'll admit that this is possibly a biased figure). While Stereoisomer's observation that "searching the Soulseek, Bittorent and eDonkey networks for mainstream music will yield at least comparable results from Soulseek" is believable (and meets my personal expectations), it is a fallacy to conclude that this means that the networks' user bases are comparable.
 * Having established that, the relatively low and self-selecting population of SoulSeek users means that it simply does not attract attention of mainstream population. RIAA knows that they cannot simply shut down all file sharing, it's even not what they are trying to do; their actual goal is to spread FUD by making headlines in newspapers, and thus make the mainstream population feel guilty/afraid of lawsuits. The fact that SoulSeek's servers are located in Germany probably also helps the case. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of SoulSeek users are Europeans who are relatively dispassionate to anything happening in the U.S. music industry. But I have no statistics or anecdotal evidence to back this up. -- intgr #%@! 09:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Good points. Another factor may be Soulseek's emphasis of community.  Remember that it is perfectly legal to reproduce, share and distributemusic for your friends.  Mix tapes are not copywrite violation.  Soulseek and its users could plausibly defend their music sharing as legal transers among friends, rather than widespread piracy.  Not saying that it's definitely legal, but the relative anonymity of users of other file sharing clients ought to make them better targets for law enforcement action. (69.180.193.129 (talk) 05:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC))

Oh, dear! That's a serious misconception according to wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixtape#Legal_issues_in_the_U.S. and, of course, the RIAA, which claims (as usual) that "money does not have to be involved for copying to be illegal." I look forward to seeing a test case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.151.194.252 (talk) 18:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The answer is here, people: http://slsknet.org/rules.html

"Soulseek® does not endorse nor condone the sharing of copyrighted materials. You should only share and download files which you are legally allowed to or have otherwise received permission to share. Soulseek®. was created to encourage the sharing of public domain music from unsigned, independent artists willing to share their work and communicate with a large audience in an efficient way."

...and lastly here: http://slsknet.org/tos.html

So stop detouring, please.Synesthetize (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I too am/was curious how Soulseek is still thriving....I wonder if it's their "ToS" and "Rules" that are keeping the record companies off their back.....being a "centralized" server, all they gotta do is take down that one service (which aides users in the distribution of copyprotected files....similar to that of bittorrent "trackers" that they are attacking lately). I gotta say though, back when I used it they didn't quite "police" their rules....you could find loads of mainstream music on Slsk all day, but it's a totally differenct environment, it's similar to DC Hubs, where you directly connect to the host that has the file you want to download, there's no "multi sourced downloads" like bittorrent for example (and perhaps this could be added to the article, regarding the network infrastructure). really, slsk has got to be the closest "Napster clone" of the 90s that is still thriving today. And whatever they are doing is working, cause no legal actions are on their back....but like others pointed out, now a days seems it's all about movies and dvds....and not so much about music (no good music out lately, except Miley Cyrus). --72.188.76.225 (talk) 04:45, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of "swarming"
When I read the article, I read "swarming" a lot, but I got no idea what it means in connection with P2P-programs. The Swarm (disambiguation) page doesnt help either, dont know which of them it should be. Perhaps a link to the right definition at the first mentioning of "swarming" might help. --Janzomaster 14:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Could be explained by the fact that there's no page on it, closest you get it "Swarm, a group of peers connected to one another via the BitTorrent file distribution protocol," which isn't that accurate really. Anyway, said sentence should give you an idea. --80.217.189.106 06:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This article does not cite any references or sources.
This heading at the very top of the page seems silly to me. The soulseek web page is of course the key source. Otherwise where the hell would you expect to find knowledgeable unbiased references??!!The top page warning only wards off content writers. Of course if we can get more sources that is great. However I moved it towards the bottom. What is shocking about this article is that it has so little to say about Soulseek, and yet there is much to say! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cckkab (talk • contribs)


 * You should first read Attribution which summarizes Wikipedia's most important policies: No original research and Verifiability. Official sources such as the SoulSeek website should only be cited when nobody doubts their validity. -- intgr #%@! 09:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * nobody doubts their validity.... I think that is firmly the case. cckkab (talk) 20:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

still kicking?
I notice the statistics are from 2004. Soulseek hasn't had a new version since then, I just logged on and I think the userbase has declined. Anyone have any evidence "yay"ing or "nay"ing my thesis?


 * Development progress aside, I still use it (and seem to get plenty of search returns for whatever I'm hunting). Even so, mentioning a decline (or not) or anything else would need to be sourced in the article. /Blaxthos 07:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes there is a decline in my experience... but how do you want to prove that, or find a legit source that will validate that these for you??!! Finding sources for just about every statement - or indeed any statement - is  well nigh impossible. However regular SS users will know what is true and what isn't. I would have faith in their collective judgement. Silly to keep the banner asking for sources. /cckkab 8 September 2007


 * Build 157 version 11 came out recently. They added private chat rooms. They've been updating recently. I don't see how you can say they haven't had a new version in three years when they've made two or three different versions of 157 in a few months. I can't back this up with stats, but I know from experience, having updated it each time. --70.240.176.214 04:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Developments since 2005 have been trivial. Trivial... the software is dying. Moreover, users are increasingly disaggregated between two servers that don't talk to each other. This is suicidal. cckkab (talk) 14:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

From my personal experience, I'd say there has been a sharp decline in the number of users over the last 2 years. Before that, the busiest chat room was usually "indie", with more than a thousand users. If you log in now, you're lucky if there are 200 users in the room. Even thought it's difficult to correlate this to the number of overall users, I think it's fair to say that many people (probably those not interested in the community aspect of Soulseek) have moved on to multi-source download systems like torrents. 84.198.246.199 (talk) 17:14, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Server location
Is the Soulseek server actually located in Germany? From what I can gather the IP for server.slsknet.org is 38.115.131.131 and is allocated to the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.99.158 (talk)

No one is going to put the damn IP server on wiki, you must work for the RIAA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.42.211.4 (talk) 21:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Good point, I've put a dubious on it. -- intgr [talk] 23:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * ip lookups are trivially available to anyone with a passing knowledge of tcp tools, it's not supersecret info —Preceding unsigned comment added by A plague of rainbows (talk • contribs)
 * For the record, I said "good point" about the server residing in the U.S. -- intgr [talk] 08:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)