Orpheus Network (formerly Apollo, Xanax)

Apollo, formerly known as Xanax is a music tracker launched after the fall of What.cd. They released the site on november 19th, 2016. Although official launch wasnt until Nov 25.

NASA's Apollo mission setting foot on the moon on Nov 19, 1969. Coincidence or purpose of the name?

• Site functions with ratio system and no bonus points
• No banned countries so far
• Join method is by invite only. No official word on recruitment via interviews yet
• Users at the moment: 40.000
• Torrents: 647.000

IRC: Server: irc.apollo.rip Port: 6667 or +7000 for SSL

#APOLLO - Main channel for general chat. New users join this channel by default.
#announce - Site announce channel where new uploads are announced.
#help - Help & support.
#disabled - For disabled users seeking to be re-enabled.

http://i.imgur.com/AN4uuyf.jpg
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• Cheat experiences on Apollo here.

Spoiler Invites forum (Elite+):

http://i.imgur.com/sUQm1no.png

Power users and above, receive invites on 8th and 22nd of each month. Ammount deppends on userclass. (As stated in the wiki).

If there's anything missing, or you wanna know more just let me know. :top:

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Originally Posted by FubareD

NASA's Apollo mission setting foot on the moon on Nov 19, 1969. Coincidence or purpose of the name?

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Their name comes from the Greek god of music (and the previous one, from their intent to make the tracker a cure for the anxiety of having lost What.cd). Interesting coincidence nonetheless.

Thanks for the review!

It has interviews, aint it?

My current to-go tracker for music even though i am on Red too (aka pth). Easier to buffer, friendlier community, whatever i request gets uploaded really fast. The Greek god of music indeed :)

They mention an interviews channel on their Wiki, but I couldnt find any other trace of it. If you did, let me know and I'll gladly update the OP.

Yeah, I mostly use Apollo, little times I've found the need of looking for a cd on PTH, as apollo being my first source.

Besides that, due to the fact of ratio economics, the past free leech or some other factor, their top 250 uploaders have a much bigger buffer than the ones on PTH, which means that I have a bigger buffer on apollo as well. :-D

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Originally Posted by latres

It has interviews, aint it?

My current to-go tracker for music even though i am on Red too (aka pth). Easier to buffer, friendlier community, whatever i request gets uploaded really fast. The Greek god of music indeed :)

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You can build a decent buffer on red by using mratio. Download the freeleech torrents and use low upload speeds. Both apl and red have weak anti cheat scripts right now.

Imo as long as you stay out of the TOP10/250, you're fine. High speeds work with WM.

http://i.imgur.com/mWFz9pG.jpg

Right now I wouldnt do more than what these images show.

In result of apollo being my first source.

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Originally Posted by latres

My current to-go tracker for music even though i am on Red too (aka pth). Easier to buffer, friendlier community, whatever i request gets uploaded really fast. The Greek god of music indeed :)

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by FubareD

Yeah, I mostly use Apollo, little times I've found the need of looking for a cd on PTH, as apollo being my first source.

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Redacted has more torrents right now, but I get the feeling that one year from now Apollo is going to be the What.cd to RED's Waffles.

If you increase your paranoia settings then you won't appear in the top 250 list.

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Originally Posted by Codec

If you increase your paranoia settings then you won't appear in the top 250 list.

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Paranoia doesn't hide anything from staff members :gsmile: So yes, it's important not to stand out.

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Originally Posted by anon

Paranoia doesn't hide anything from staff members :gsmile: So yes, it's important not to stand out.

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Yeah, it doesnt apply to staffers, thats true. But if what Codec says (Which I believe him ofc) is true, then.. I can get away with some more and not being shown in the Top list.

The only risk factor would be if someone from the staff for some reason checks my profile. It'd be pure greed, 1tb+ is enough for apollo. But hey :-)

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Originally Posted by FubareD

The only risk factor would be if someone from the staff for some reason checks my profile.

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Oh, just put this screenshot somewhere there and they'll leave you alone.

http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachme...chmentid=17550

#Update ;)

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New Logchecker

It's coming... it's COMING... SOON (TM)... IT'S HERE!

The long awaited, highly anticipated, definitely not amalgamated brand spanking new logchecker has arrived.

The new logchecker contains a lot of new features and improvements compared to the previous one. The most important of these are:
Verifies submitted logs against the EAC/XLD logchecker
No more log boosting
Translates EAC logs in non-English languages to English for viewing on the site with accurate scores
Allows trumping of torrents that are missing or have invalid checksums (primarily affecting EAC 0.99 rips)
EAC 0.95 and earlier versions are given a -30 deduction
Not being able to verify gap handling is -10 points
Gap handling appended to next track is -5 points
Unrecognized logs are given a score of 0 instead of 1
Stores the raw log files (as well as the parsed log) to allow for easier future re-scoring

What happens to all existing logs?


We will make sure all existing logs will be rescored with the new logchecker. This process might take a few weeks. As soon as the rescoring is completed, there will be a graceperiod in which the original uploaders can replace any torrents that do not score 100 anymore in the new logchecker. Once this grace period has ended, anybody is free to trump these torrents!

We will announce when this graceperiod starts and ends.

You can view this forum thread to comment and point out any bugs. As always, your suggestions for improvements are welcome.

The Dearly Departed

Time marches on and with the passing of time some of our staffers realized that time was moving them in another direction. With that being said, we bid adieu to some great people who helped put hammer to nail, drilled the holes to place the screws, cement the bricks, lay the floor tiles and wired the lighting; building and supporting our home and library:

B
D
L
S
Ellipsis
EZLN
Merlin
Mirai
Sea

Each of them served Apollo in their own unique way, making contributions of time, effort and sweat. They will not be forgotten.

The Newly Acquired

Making their way to the stage are Apollo's bright new stars. New people bring new ideas to tackle the old challenges that seem to rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune times. They are up for these tasks. And heeerrre they are!

Forum Moderators
Codec
Eszett
Justaplant
KJuice
Pratt

Moderators
Alpha
Spine
TheGodParticle

Developers
W

Administrators
Athena


Congratulations, salutations, balloons, party hats and noise makers to the outstanding newly minted members of our fabulous FLS squad. FLS are the ones who oil the gears, polish the knobs, delve into the nooks and crannies and do all the tiny tasks which add up to solving those huge problems we can't attend to. They get more done with a roll of handi-wipes than a foreman could with a full industrial strength work crew and git 'er done' in half the time! Our IN-team has formed into a solid unit. The gatekeepers are back in full swing once again.


We are rapidly approaching our one year anniversary. You can only guess what surprises are in store, the future holds many mysteries. We ain't making no grandiose promises of pie in the sky or raining M&Ms, but we think you're going to like what's coming down the alley. And it sure ain't no bowling ball!

TTFN.

With huge, tremendous and very nice amounts of love,
~APL Staff

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APL update

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Happy birthday Apollo!

Today, exactly one year ago, the site today known as Apollo opened it's doors to thousands of heartbroken music lovers, following the loss of What.CD. This day, November 24th, marks the anniversary of our tracker!

We would like to take this moment to thank everyone that helped us become one of the biggest private trackers on the net. Because of the tireless community effort put into uploads, we now have a whopping 677 thousand torrents (322k perfect FLACs) and there is still room for more!! In addition to the music, we also have an amazing community, both on the forums and IRC!

A special thanks goes out to all Charlie team members, Interview team members and First-Line Support team members! These members have sacrificed a lot of their precious time in order to make Apollo a great place.

And last but not least, we want to thank every single donor - we wouldn't have been here without you! Security is not cheap, so every single bit counts! Thank you for your generosity!

'Nuff said, where's my birthday present?

Bonus Points have arrived!

To celebrate our birthday, we've launched our brand-spanking new Bonus Point (BP) system will be active as of today! To start off with a bang, everyone has been gifted 10 000 BP, to spend on anything you like in our Bonus Points Shop!

What are Bonus Points?
Bonus Points (BP) are an extra reward for seeding and uploading torrents on Apollo. Instead of just getting upload credit for sending data to another user, you will get BP for uploading a torrent to the site, or for seeding a torrent.

Bonus Points Shop
You can view the amount of BP you have earned on the top of every Apollo page, although the exact location will differ for the different stylesheets. Clicking it will bring you to the Bonus Points shop, where you can exchange all your hard-earned BP for something nice!

Currently it's possible to buy and give away FL tokens and to buy custom titles. However, there will be lots of cool options in the future! If you think you have more good ideas for items in the BP Store, make sure to drop them in the suggestions forum.

How can you earn Bonus Points?
There are currently two ways to gain BP on Apollo: by uploading new torrents and by seeding torrents you have downloaded or uploaded. Apart from these two regular ways to earn BP.

Seeding
BP will be given out for seeding according to the following formula:

Attachment 18441


The amount of hourly BP will be calculated with this formula for each torrent, and the total amount of BP (for all the torrents you are seeding) will be added to your profile hourly. It is important to know that the seedtime mentioned in this formula is the total seedtime. For example: if you seed a torrent for 12 hours a day for 50 days, your seedtime on that torrent would be 25 days.

Notice that with this BP formula, torrents that have a just a few seeders will give a lot more BP than torrents with a lot of seeders. Also, the longer you are seeding a torrent, the more BP you will get. As long as you are seeding them, you will get BP for both uploaded and snatched torrents!

For an overview of all the torrents you are currently seeding, and the BP you are earning with that, have a look at this page!

Uploading
You will also be awarded Bonus Points for uploading torrents, the amount of given BP depends on the kind of torrent that you upload:
Uploading a perfect FLAC (both 16- and 24 bit count) - 200 BP
Uploading an MP3 320, V0, or V2 or non-perfect FLAC - 30 BP
Uploading a lossy audio torrent that is not one of the 'perfect' MP3 formats. (e.g. MP3 256 or AAC) - 10 BP

This means if you upload a perfect FLAC, and all 3 'perfect' MP3 formats for a given release, you will receive 290 Bonus Points!

Did you find any bugs?
We did our best to make this feature as bug-free as possible. However, since it is a big implementation, there might still be a bug or two. If you managed to find one, please report it in this thread and we will resolve it ASAP!

Donor system changes

In response to our announcement 10 days ago, we received a lot of good suggestions from the userbase, on how to make donating more attractive and easier. We have decided to implement many of these suggestions, in no special order:

Donations will be rewarded with Bonus Points. For every dollar you donate, you will be awarded 100 BP. For example: a 10 USD donation will give you 1000 BP.


Option for donating in other cryptocurrencies. You are now able to donate via BitCoin, Ethereum, Monero, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Dash as well.


Option for donating with Credit/Debit Card are now also possible. Your donation will automatically be converted to Ethereum and sent to us. (Min. 50 USD donation required)


Staff changes

We have recruited a new developer, Bifrost! Bifrost has been a great help during the development of the new IRC bot and we are sure will be a great help in the future as well! Give Bifrost a warm welcome!

itismadness has been promoted to Lead Developer! Very well deserved, as iim has spent countless of hours developing most (if not all!!) of the APL infrastructure and features, including the new logchecker and BP system!

Happy first birthday Apolloians, and as always:


Love,
~APL Staff

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The unfortunate fact is that while music trackers are hard to seed on, a bonus system could kill retention (and in turn, the tracker itself) if not implemented correctly. It'd be like printing more money to solve a crisis. They will never let you exchange points for upload, obviously, but handing freeleech like candy is also detrimental.

Of course, I don't doubt they've thought all of this out beforehand :wwink: Waffles is an example of this concept done right, let's see what happens here...

this tracker now has bonus points, it should be added on review

Sadly no invites on the bonus shop.

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Originally Posted by axanon1

this tracker now has bonus points, it should be added on review

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I'll be pleased to add it if someone can upload a screenshot.

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Originally Posted by alpacino

Sadly no invites on the bonus shop.

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Yes, it's only freeleech tokens and a custom title so far, but freeleech alone can already go a long way =]

Apollo's been down for a while now. Last things I heard were "the sysop is missing and there is no backup", then "wait, there is someone saying they have a backup". Doesn't exactly inspire confidence... not to mention all the downtimes they had prior to this one really did a lot of damage.

that shit happens when you don't pay the server bill.
still, the other admins could maybe contact the supplier and pay the bill O (sysop) hasn't.

EDIT

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Originally Posted by My wife

But then, why pay the bill on a site you don't control...

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Originally Posted by molosse

that shit happens when you don't pay the server bill.
still, the other admins could maybe contact the supplier and pay the bill O (sysop) hasn't.

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I'm sure they would have done so if possible, but I get the impression the problem here was relying on O too much. A tracker this big needs to have redundancy and an emergency plan in case the sysop is compromised, missing or somehow unable to perform his duties, otherwise stuff like this will eventually happen. Not to mention sometimes dangers can come from within, like when pham thought he was the only person allowed to run PTP, and this resulted in the loss of their .org domain as well as a hefty chunk of donations when staff voiced their disapproval...

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But then, why pay the bill on a site you don't control...

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Mrs. Molosse must not know about the 1999 passport.com renewal incident =]

copy pasted from https://www.orpheus.network/ - APL will return as Orpheus

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There is a way forward! (Update at 24-09)
Although we never had access to any of the main Apollo servers or the domain, one of our staff had access to the IRC server. While browsing this server out of curiosity (Athena was bored), we stumbled upon a full site backup that was taken in June 2017. That is a long time ago, but we estimate that this backup still contains about 70% of all current torrents, and about 80% of all current users. We have secured this backup, and have confirmed that it is intact.

With this backup, it will be possible to revive a large part of the site with relative ease. Our current plan is to start from scratch, and to use this old database to regain the userbase and torrents. If you were a member of Apollo as of mid-june 2017, you will be able to receive an invite to Orpheus on the email address you used for Apollo. We will publish the details when the site launches. Stats (buffer, amount of uploads, notifications, ...) will be transferred to Orpheus as well.

Many people acquired huge amounts of buffer during the initial global freeleech and this created serious distortion in the economy. This will be redressed after we have crunched the numbers. While some people will lose varying amounts of buffer, they will still be in a comfortable position to participate in the economy.

If you signed up to Orpheus later, we will provide other options which to allow you to receive an account. You will need your original invitation email (if the email server was working at the time) or a screen shot of your profile page.

There will be no open signups.

The new site will start without any torrents, but as soon as you begin to seed your Apollo torrents on the new tracker, torrents that appear in the 2017 database will automatically be added to the site. This way, there will no dead torrents from the old site. We are developing a GUI tool that will work on all operating systems and with most popular clients, to mass-change all Apollo tracker URLs to Orpheus tracker URLs. A CLI tool for seedboxes and servers will also be provided.

We still hope that the original sysops will make the final database dump available to us. If that happens, we will replace the 2017 database with the newer one, allowing more members to join easily and more torrents to be rescued.

The ETA for getting the site up from this point is 2 weeks. We realize that this is a week longer than originally planned, but a lot of code needs to be written and tested in order to ensure a smooth transition.

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Long, repeated downtimes, then restoring from a 1 year old backup... well, maybe things will be better this time.

I renamed the thread to reflect their latest name. Anyone wants to do an updated review?