❗New folks: ❗How to easily get likes and the benefits of doing so

Discussion in 'Lounge' started by curiousdude, 4 Nov 2025.

  1. curiousdude

    curiousdude Master

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    Over my time here and seeing the periodic comings and goings of new members, I've noticed a couple trends that I thought I'd address for the benefit of all members, but especially new members who get frustrated and flame out of the group quickly.

    This group only works to its ability when everyone has a mindset of "contributing what you can." Some of us seem to have a never-ending supply of interesting courses or products available and money to purchase them, so it may seem at first that those are the only people who have anything of value to add to this group, but there is a whole other cohort that has value to add: those who can't afford all these purchases but can still do their part to keep the group healthy with just a little bit of time. Your reward for contributing your time is likes, and it may not be obvious why that matters. The likes system has a dual purpose: it provides a reasonable amount of protection from people whose goal is to abuse the group, and it provides incentive to contribute. I enjoy this group and appreciate the admins, but the onboarding leaves a bit to be desired, and some things may not be very obvious unless you really take the time to dive in.

    Why should I care about likes?
    First, you may have noticed that, apart from spending money on a gold membership, the like system is a type of alternate "currency" in this group. Likes are not a vanity metric, collecting them affords you with certain privileges. If being part of a thriving community is not enough reason to want to contribute to the group, here are some additional incentives ;) :

    • First, collecting 100 likes removes your daily limitation for liking other people's posts to gain access to download links. This means that you're no longer "stuck" at 25 likes per day. It can be very frustrating to go through old posts and use up all your 25 likes only to find those old links have expired. The easiest and quickest way to address this is to get 100 likes yourself. Don't complain about this system. We've all been through it, and it helps keep some of the worst spammers at bay. You'll see the "No Limit" label added to your avatar once you've achieved this.
    • Secondly, earning likes allows you to earn trophy points. Trophy points can be spent on a Gold membership so you can access Gold content without spending any money. The rate is currently 10 Trophy Points per 100 likes and periodically - usually twice per year for a month at a time - admins will "discount" the gold membership so it costs less trophy points.
    • Thirdly, earning 1,000 likes gets you something special. That's all I can say about it, as we've been asked not to discuss it, but suffice it to say that you'll enjoy your reward for collecting 1,000 likes.
    • And lastly, earning 10,000 likes means you never have to pay for Gold again - you become a "lifetime" Gold access member. You'll see the "Lifetime Gold" label added to your avatar once you've achieved this.
    But... getting likes is so HARD!
    It isn't, not really. And it doesn't even take a long time to reach the first major threshold (1k likes). When I first started in this group I figured out something that's not explicitly stated anywhere and which that allowed me to gain my first 1,000 likes in just a few months: providing quality mirrors is an easy way to quickly get likes.

    Even if you don't have a pile of fresh content of your own to contribute, you need to realize that, for the prolific sharers in this group, keeping up with all the various threads and keeping links alive is an impossible job. It's just the nature of the type of content that's being shared here. By the time members reach 10,000 likes or so, they've probably shared hundreds, if not thousands of links and there's no way to keep track of it all. Not to mention all the takedowns that various file hosting platforms will do. This is why I ask people in my signature to @mention me if one of my links has died - it sends me a notification of an issue I would never have been aware of otherwise.

    The easy way to get likes, even if you can't afford to purchase courses.
    If you've downloaded something from a thread, make sure you follow that thread (either by clicking the follow button or by making a comment), and when someone inevitably asks for a refresh on the link, you can jump in with a mirror. You can also use the search function for terms like "refresh" to identify comments from people in threads that need mirrors. Decorum dictates that you should wait a little bit (maybe a day or two) to see if the OP can address the issue, but if they're unavailable, provide your own mirror. This will keep the thread alive, people will be appreciative, and you can rack up likes, and most importantly, it vastly distributes the burden of keeping thousands and thousands of product offerings available for people to download. Make sure you follow the rules, of course (for instance, make a mirror Gold if the original post was Gold), but you can do this over and over ad nauseum with free, reputable file hosters (also mentioned in the rules section) without ever having purchased a course of your own - contributing new, purchased content will get you more likes, of course, but not having the money to spend on courses isn't an excuse to not participate.

    Even if you only post one or two mirrors a day, you'll reach your first 1,000 likes in a matter of months instead of the years that it takes some members.

    Anyway, if you stick around this group long enough, all of the above is probably something you would have figured out on your own. I just thought I'd save you the time and the trouble ;) Enjoy all the free content and don't forget to contribute in your own way back to the group!
     
    Last edited: 4 Nov 2025
    semre, thebuck, Nikon4life and 8 others like this.
  2. Snook

    Snook Master

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    Great information, and there are many already doing the mirror "trick". I can add some more insight.
    Just make sure you don't do it when someone else has also mirrored it or you will get warning strikes and then be banned for a couple of months from downloading.
    I have shared so much here and mostly stuff I purchased or even found first then someone else posted updates to my shares and then when I posted what I thought was an update I got a warning bc someone else had already shared it.
    Which makes me less likely to share as often unfortunately for the community or very hesitant now.
    I would also suggested you use the search function really well, bc I also had problems with the search function and posted many times something that did not show up in the search function. Many people either name there titles wrongly or do not put if it is for WIN or MAC which also makes it rather confusing in the search function.
    Another search function advice is try any of the pirated or other names from you file and search just for the main thing you are searching without any extra add ons. For example I share a lot of XXXX. TNT Mac files which TNT is the group that "fixes" them and that text needs to be taken out from the search information.
    Hope that makes sense and happy sharing, reposting, mirroring and getting as many likes as you can. :cool:
     
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  3. curiousdude

    curiousdude Master

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    Good point about redundant mirrors. People should not be randomly ejaculating mirrors all over every thread lol.

    That said, I have posted mirrors before to threads that already had a mirror, but only when people were really struggling with a particularly janky/spammy file hoster and needed an alternative. I've never had admins penalize me for that - in fact, in some cases I've seen them remove the other low-quality mirror. That's why I tried to stress that mirrors should be high quality and on good file hosters in my post.
     
    Vitamina and Snook like this.
  4. marksuprova

    marksuprova Apprentice IV

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    Thirdly, earning 1,000 likes gets you something special. That's all I can say about it, as we've been asked not to discuss it, but suffice it to say that you'll enjoy your reward for collecting 1,000 likes. :)
     
  5. Nikon4life

    Nikon4life Elite

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    This is an excellent summation surrounding the structure of the 'like' system on this forum! The only element perhaps worth mentioning - is to search the Archive section for providing mirrors - if one opts for such strategy. There are a myriad of free sites that "share" material beside this one - very oftentimes originating from this forum. [This potentially serves to answer that question of how can I mirror if I don't have the file to begin with?]. Please don't ask which sites specifically - Google et al is your friend . . .

    Another potential low-cost method is to subscribe to any specific resource site similar to those having sounds, video files, or other image libraries (search for "tell me what you want" [within this forum] for various names of resource libraries). You basically serve as proxy to fulfill the requests for the duration of your subscription to the chosen resource site; a pretty good return-on-investment for acquiring "likes." [Please do keep in mind that your daily posts are limited if you're below a 100-like threshold limit - as outlined above - therefore I'd probably use this strategy once meeting that goal first].
     
    Last edited: 4 Feb 2026 at 11:31
  6. Aurélien

    Aurélien New Member

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    Oh, that’s great! Thank you for sharing this information. Now I have a better understanding of how it works. Thanks again to everyone for your contributions and insights over the past while.
     
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