Editing The Cutting Room Floor

{{Irrelevant
{{InfoboxProductLine
| Title = {{PAGENAME}}
| Release Year =2002 (Blog) - 2010 (Wiki) 
| Product Type =Website, Video Game Archiving 
| In Production =Yes 
| Official Website =https://tcrf.net 
| Logo =TCRFLogo.png 
}}'''''The Cutting Room Floor''''' ('''TCRF''') is a website founded in 2002 (then relaunched in 2010) by user Xkeeper. dedicated to the cataloguing of unused content and leftover debugging material in video games.<ref>{{Cite web |date=16 Dec 2013 |title=The Explorers: The gaming archaeologists digging through the code you were never meant to see |url=http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-explorers-inside-the-underground-world-of-the-archaeologists-who-dig-through-the-code-game-developers-never-wanted-you-to-see/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140218131752/http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-explorers-inside-the-underground-world-of-the-archaeologists-who-dig-through-the-code-game-developers-never-wanted-you-to-see/ |archive-date=18 Feb 2014 |access-date=28 March 2018 |website=Edge}}</ref> Originally a blog, it was then relaunched as a wiki. It is considered by many to be the best source for documenting unused video game content.

==Consumer impact summary==
The main concern for consumers accessing this site stems from the fact that, since March 30<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=30 Mar 2025 |title=TCRF has been getting DDoSed |url=https://blog.xkeeper.net/uncategorized/tcrf-has-been-getting-ddosed/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250531222753/https://blog.xkeeper.net/uncategorized/tcrf-has-been-getting-ddosed/ |archive-date=31 May 2025 |access-date=8 Jun 2025 |website=Xkeeper's blog}}</ref>, they are going out of their way to block users utilizing a VPN (Virtual Private Networks) to access the website.

On top of this, they are also blocking users from utilizing the Tor networks to access material on their site.

Both of these actions together hamper the user's freedom to access the site in a way that makes them feel comfortable.

Users would probably not feel the need to access this site with either a VPN or via Tor if there weren't also stringent privacy violations occurring on the site as well. Since it is all but confirmed that the administrators of the site are not just keeping IP addresses of visitors in ways that open it to security risks.

The administration have also been online to flaunt various threats such as their suggestion to send "gzip Bombs" to various offending users.

The privacy and freedom issues are also amplified with the administrators banning users coming via URLs hosted on specific sites that do not align with their ideals. Users who wish to consume the information on the site have to be careful that their political views and ideology align with that of the team of administrators or otherwise end up banned and considered an "offensive user".<ref name=":0" />

==Incidents==
This is a list of all consumer protection incidents related to this website.

===Harassment on their user base===
On June 1st, the website administration celebrated Pride month with an assortment of LGBTQ+ logo variants.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=1 Jun 2025 |title=This Isn't Why I Came Here |url=https://tcrf.net/Talk:The_Cutting_Room_Floor#Happy_pride_month |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/69vhE |archive-date=6 Jun 2025 |access-date=8 Jun 2025 |website=The Cutting Room Floor}}</ref> A few long-time contributors voiced their concerns on this subject, one instance was from Jo Li on the main talk page of the site<ref name=":0" />. However, instead of civilly discussing over it, they received derogatory comments making fun of their opinions, finishing off with a permanent ban.<ref name=":0" />     

This is in contrast to their at least two of their rules of conduct:
<blockquote>
*Be polite.
*Assume good faith.
</blockquote>
Other users have been permanently banned on Discord after voicing their concerns. They have since locked down any invites to their server.

The administrators have been actively monitoring incoming connections. As of June 8th, they have done the following:

====Ban of Tor and VPN users====
Users connecting from Tor or a VPN are greeted with a message asking to disable their VPN, with the pretext being for combating an ongoing DDoS attack.<ref>{{Cite web |date=8 Jun 2025 |title=403 Forbidden |url=https://tcrf.net/ |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250607002303/https://tcrf.net/ |archive-date=7 Jun 2025 |access-date=8 Jun 2025 |website=The Cutting Room Floor}}</ref><ref name=":1" />

====Ban of users with specific referral ID====
As of June 6th, users have also been  who have a referral ID coming from https://kiwifarms.st and https://www.4chan.org<ref>{{Cite web |date=6 Jun 2025 |title=Video Game Archival Autism / TCRF / Jul / Sonic Retro / And More |url=https://kiwifarms.st/threads/video-game-archival-autism-tcrf-jul-sonic-retro-and-more.124559/page-13#post-21628413 |url-status=live |access-date=9 Jun 2025 |website=Kiwi Farms}}</ref>. In addition, users banned from this also receives a cookie without their express consent. This is potentially in violation of the GDPR<ref>{{Cite web |date=18 Nov 2019 |title=Cookies, the GDPR, and the ePrivacy Directive |url=https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250530151113/https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ |archive-date=30 May 2025 |access-date=8 Jun 2025 |website=gdpr.eu}}</ref>, stating:
<blockquote>
*Strictly necessary cookies — These cookies are essential for you to browse the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the site. Cookies that allow web shops to hold your items in your cart while you are shopping online are an example of strictly necessary cookies. These cookies will generally be first-party session cookies. While it is not required to obtain consent for these cookies, <u>what they do and why they are necessary should be explained to the user.</u>
*Statistics cookies — Also known as “performance cookies,” these cookies collect information about how you use a website, like which pages you visited and which links you clicked on. <u>None of this information can be used to identify you.</u> It is all aggregated and, therefore, anonymized. <u>Their sole purpose is to improve website functions</u>. This includes cookies from third-party analytics services as long as the cookies are for the exclusive use of the owner of the website visited.
</blockquote>

====Openly sharing IP addresses====
The owner of the website posted on a now deleted Mastodon (that has been since archived on https://kiwifarms.st)  the idea of sending "gzip bombs" to offending users. However, he didn't hide any IP addresses from the logs. It is fair to assume that, considering the blocking of Tor and VPNs, the owner keeps logs of normal IPs and could potentially use these for unethical purposes.


==References==
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