I've noticed over the past week that there are a number of items which have been released but have download figures in their thousands? they look like old items ive seen before but not from one member, Am I going mad???  

hope it's not a site sweep so that old items once downloaded from offsite are now being redone to incorporate onsite downloading and if so is everyone being done?  (hope my imagination hasn't got the better of me cos i can see my theory not being like by a number of people  :/  )

I think it is a site sweep. Indeed I have seen this as well, and not only recognize some of the items, but have some of them.  While there are some older items no longer available for one reason or another I would like to see resurected, I wish they would simply edit the download links, rather than this method that has them show as new.

Curiously I got a site mail today from a distressed member who says, to quote anonymously:

"I saw some of my old freebies had been uploaded to the site and given new thumbnails, and some others are gone, and I'm not the one who did it."

I replied to that and as they said they'd also contacted Admin re: this disturbing issue I suggested patience as it's the week end and Admin is typically 'short staffed' on week ends given the nature of an office environment [the 5 day week]..I'll send Stacey a link to this thread as well.. ...

oh!  :/  so the items this member has now up wasn't uploaded by them, was it "ok'd by the staff?  Could it be hackers?

Maybe someone (at sometpoint) needs to go through the recent uploads and those members should be contacted by sitemail where there are high downloads showing, it maybe that they are not aware of it and isnt that then classed as redistributing by third party?

There is the possibility that, if a member is uploading content not his own, he may be well intentioned in attempting to preserve no longer available freestuff.  Though this is misguided, as permission of the orriginal creator should be sought.  Credit to the orriginal creator should always be given - even if lacking the foresight to contact the author for permission.  It actually brings to mind a long thread regarding copyrights from the spring/summer - I sometimes am saddened by how poorly informed many, even well intentioned, people are about ettiquette, netiquette, and copyright.

Though if download counts are being boosted, there is the possibility of malicious programming, that would be truly unfortunate.  Why some individuals seem to exist to ruin the enjoyment, creation, reputation, and hard work of others is beyond my understanding.

the items were older and had been grandfathered in from before our hosting change over...StaceyG has been notified...either she or I will post here when this gets sorted Lully.. pretty sure it wasn't us as if something like this was in the works I'd have been notified before the Community was which would have happened on the Front Page where important stuff is announced.. ...

Okay something is definitely not right so I've reported to the programmers to look into this.

Thanks for letting us know

Please excuse the paranoid me, but I am now worried those re-ups may have malware or duds.   I have not yet unzipped anything I downloaded recently from freestuff section.

I've been in touch with the member affected and they checked out all their spuriously re uploaded freestuff and it's all as they made it with no hitch hikers[trojans etc.]

Thanks Stacey and Bobby, I did notice there were t least 3 members with old re released uploads, one of which has had quite a few releases (one a day from my memory) hope there isnt anything wrong as ive downloaded the lot and unzipped  :)

This is nothing malicious FYI. It was different staff members that handle freestuff items going through older items that previously had dead links or issues. We are working on the process and communications between the staff of how these are handled as everyone should have been aware of what was going on with these particuliar items.

Sorry for the alarm but we are working through this now.

Thank you

Thanks :)