Pirate Bay has new, decentralized system - trackers abolished

[LMNO]

Ok, with that in mind, do you have to "choose" to seed a file?  I figured it was "opt out" more than "opt in".  I wasn't I had to choose to seed a particular file, and there isn't an obvious button to allow that, which makes a typical user unaware of the courtesy.

[bds]

Well. I suppose it is an opt out system, in that, in most clients, by default a torrent will simply continue seeding once it is finished downloading, and to stop it seeding you have to stop it from doing so. But, being as you have to preserve the original file in its entirety (no file name changes, no id3 tag cleaning up) for it to continue seeding, it can sometimes be kind of a bitch. Of the 356 albums I'm currently seeding to what.cd, I have two copies of each one. One is in my music folder, in a sensible folder structure, full id3 tags and mostly with album art, and the other is the original downloaded mp3 files.

That said, it's rare that downloads from what.cd require any cleaning up, I just found it easier to chuck all the originals on my external drive and have a properly indexable folder with my entire library in.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that, despite it being physically an opt-out thing, a lot of people see it as being opt-in, i.e. they get the choice whether to continue seeding or not.

[Requia ☣]

Question: I prefer obscure/unpopular/non-popular things.  Torrent seeds are based upon the amount of people who like a piece of content, and help host it, right?  So, it's a popularity contest, just like everything else.  Any tips on people looking for hard-to-find content?

Get  Demonoid invite.  It is *perfect* for this kind of thing.

[Captain Utopia]

Question: I prefer obscure/unpopular/non-popular things.  Torrent seeds are based upon the amount of people who like a piece of content, and help host it, right?  So, it's a popularity contest, just like everything else.  Any tips on people looking for hard-to-find content?

Get  Demonoid invite.  It is *perfect* for this kind of thing.

How does one get one? Are they scarce?

[Z³]

Question: I prefer obscure/unpopular/non-popular things.  Torrent seeds are based upon the amount of people who like a piece of content, and help host it, right?  So, it's a popularity contest, just like everything else.  Any tips on people looking for hard-to-find content?

Get  Demonoid invite.  It is *perfect* for this kind of thing.

How does one get one? Are they scarce?

I'm wondering about this myself.

[bds]

Users that are already on there get given a set number of invites per month, and according to their ratio, IIRC. Sign-ups are sometimes open though, it might be worth checking the site to see.

I've always regarded Demonoid as a sort of halfway house, better than public trackers, but not as good as real privates. It's awesome if your connection would be too crap to keep a good ratio on privates, though.

[Requia ☣]

Out of curiosity, define 'good ratio' for me?  What do these private trackers require?

And how do they get enough people to fill out the obscure stuff?

[Cain]

I've already sent LMNO an invite.

LMNO, it depends on your torrent client, but with uTorrent, simply leaving the actual file where it downloaded to and not removing the file from your torrent client's list should be enough.  As it is downloading, you should be able to notice a column to the right, next to the "Down Speed" called "Up Speed".  That is you seeding the file.  Normally there is a ratio column too, showing you how much you've uploaded compared to the download.

Requia, it can vary on community standards.  I try to keep mine as close to 1.00 as possible, even though normally it only matters for the sake of personal reputation, rather than "you will get banned unless you seed this much".  I think most people accept around .75 or other though.  Also, poor seeders are not likely to have any requests for files answered.

[Requia ☣]

I've already sent LMNO an invite.

Dammit, I did too.   

[Triple Zero]

BDS thanks for your explanation, I suppose I got the wrong impression from these private torrent places.

I should know better than to glean my info from comments left around public torrents and torrent blogs and such My other source was my old WoW addict flatmate who was never really able to explain why I would want to bother, even though he did offer me invites (this was back when we were on a fat broadband connection).

FWIW, you convinced me that private trackers do indeed have added value. So any comments below about "public trackers can also do X and Y" should be seen more as a comparison rather than an argument against private trackers.

if your connection is the suck, don't bother, it's sometimes pretty hard to keep ratio on certain of these.

wouldn't you just seed longer, in that case?

currently my maximum upload speed is about 30 kb/s, which is not a lot, and I usually limit it to 12-18 kb/s because otherwise it clogs up my downstream as well, and surfing becomes a bitch. especially if the gf also wants to watch the news or some other TV program on streaming.

I suppose that puts me nicely in the "don't bother" category, I suppose

2.) The community is so much nicer. Everyone is striving to attain the highest ratio possible, so content standards go up. For example, user rips on what.cd are all uploaded with log files, letting you know exactly what it is you're snatching. Movie rips on TehConnection are all (ish) uploaded with Mediainfo settings and screenshots, so no more downloading shitty cam rips of films masquerading as 1080p HD rips. For me, with my music downloading, quality is most definitely very important, and I just don't trust the stuff on public trackers not to be transcodes from like, 32kbps .wma or some shit.

ok that's cool. from what I heard from outside, it seemed to me to be all about e-penises and e-testosterons who's the coolest kid with the coolest connection and the most "scene" and what not.

how's software? that is one thing I would consider a definite advantage. For instance I'm (not very actively) looking for a nice and recent windows XP slipstream optimized for netbooks. Cause I need to do a reinstall before I make it into a Linux dual boot. Anyway, I would not immediately trust something from a public site, it's an entire OS after all, way too easy to slip something in. And just going by the comments on torrents, even though it helps somewhat with pre-evaluating, I don't really get the impression they are very intelligent. If however the slipstream was actually built by a user of the private community, someone with a reputation to lose, it becomes a whole different story*.

(* actually, it still would be rather easy to hide a botnet zombie sleeper somewhere, without any reasonable chance of detection. but botnets are a numbers game)

Shit hits private scene trackers way faster than it hits public trackers. I occasionally watch the times, and the fastest private's usually have content up within a couple minutes after it PRE's.

what's PRE?

personally, I don't really care if it's minutes, hours or a day. that's a littlebit an e-pen0r thing, IMO. except for series that are currently aired. but I can get the latest Big Bang Theory episode within an hour after it's aired from a public torrent as well. (might be minutes too, but I never checked that quickly)

I think you'd be surprised, I currently max out my connection far faster and more effectively on things downloaded from privates than I do on most things snatched from publics. But YMMV, I guess.

It's nice when you want a movie on demand, I guess

So, if you were downloading something that you do not need immediately, would you limit your download speed as well, in order to preserve your ratio?

and then there's the problem of the people that "host" these private trackers, they usually have zero knowledge about torrents (or DHT, or which clients actually report bad ratios, or whatever) and care mostly about their l33t warez/moviez status and power trip.

Nope, the mods on pretty much every tracker I'm on all have a good knowledge of what they're doing, and the site devs are usually freakin' insane codemonkeys.

Ok I got that impression from some discussion on a torrent blog or something where they were talking about the merits of DHT and PEX. I guess some people got some bad experiences then, or maybe just were butthurt.

And codemonkeys? Hmmmm. I should be hanging out (online) with more codemonkeys anyway. <digress>I need to check up on Seeker's board, and I need to find myself some real quality forum software</digress> (four hours and two posts on Seekers board later, I return to finish writing this one)

oh, it appears to have been finished already now. good.

one remark about uTorrent and the columns, you can right click them and turn some of them on or off, and drag and place them a way you think is clearer than the default. I have (in this order) Name, Done, ETA, Down speed, Up speed, Selected size, Downloaded, Ratio, Status, Seeds, Peers, Bw Alloc, Elapsed. There is also some kind of multi sort trick, you can hold ctrl or alt or rightclick or something, and then you can sort your torrents first on status and then on ETA, so that the seeding torrents will be below the downloading ones, but still sorted on ETA.

[bds]

Out of curiosity, define 'good ratio' for me?  What do these private trackers require?

And how do they get enough people to fill out the obscure stuff?

We-ell. Different sites require different ratios and there are bands based on how much you've downloaded. I can't get on any of my trackers atm, on a dumbshit school network, but IIRC, in the 20-30GB downloaded band that I'm currently in on what.cd, you have to keep a minimum of 0.3, and my current ratio is 0.56 (ish). This sounds a lot easier than it is, bare in mind my downstream peaks at about 1.3mbps and yet my upstream peaks at about 70kbps. Its also quite hard to compete with the seedboxes and users with faster connections. Also, there are bonuses for having a much higher ratio than you need. For example, there are user classes based on ratio and amount uploaded, for Power User (this gives you some funky powers and that) on what.cd you need to keep a 1.05 ratio and have >50GB downloaded, IIRC.

Trips, this computer thinks it's fucking hilarious and doesn't scroll shit properly when you try and quote. I'll answer your post when I get home, can't really work this shit atm.

[Requia ☣]

I'm now trying to imagine having a total downloaded smaller than 50 gigs <_<

[bds]

On What.CD that's not so hard, considering my average download is a 100mb or so v0 mp3 album. I occasionally grab FLAC stuff, but I just don't have the hard drive space. On TehConnection, where my average download is a 14gb 1080p movie rip, my total downloaded is like 150GB (a lot of the stuff I've snatched is freeleech, meaning it doesn't count towards your download) and my ratio is like 1.4 or something. I guess it depends on how heavy your download is, but for me, having access to this private tracker has kind of changed the way I view torrenting. Before it was just a way for me to get free shit; now it's an awesome way to talk to like minded people, get recommendations for awesome shit, and downloading stuff is just sort of a bonus.

[Requia ☣]

Ah, so a lot of these are specialized trackers?

That actually sounds useful as hell.

[bds]

All of them are specialised trackers. I think I posted a list of most of them earlier, can't remember though. And yeah, it's damn useful, I know exactly where to go when I wanna get something.

wouldn't you just seed longer, in that case?

currently my maximum upload speed is about 30 kb/s, which is not a lot, and I usually limit it to 12-18 kb/s because otherwise it clogs up my downstream as well, and surfing becomes a bitch. especially if the gf also wants to watch the news or some other TV program on streaming.

I suppose that puts me nicely in the "don't bother" category, I suppose

Well, yes. But seeding longer doesn't always work, I've been seeding torrents for months and barely got any upload on them at all. And yeah, I'd think 30kbps probably is a little too slow for you to be able to manage, unfortunately.

how's software? that is one thing I would consider a definite advantage. For instance I'm (not very actively) looking for a nice and recent windows XP slipstream optimized for netbooks. Cause I need to do a reinstall before I make it into a Linux dual boot. Anyway, I would not immediately trust something from a public site, it's an entire OS after all, way too easy to slip something in. And just going by the comments on torrents, even though it helps somewhat with pre-evaluating, I don't really get the impression they are very intelligent. If however the slipstream was actually built by a user of the private community, someone with a reputation to lose, it becomes a whole different story*.

(* actually, it still would be rather easy to hide a botnet zombie sleeper somewhere, without any reasonable chance of detection. but botnets are a numbers game)

There's lots of software on what.cd, but I'm not on any specialist software sites, no.

what's PRE?

personally, I don't really care if it's minutes, hours or a day. that's a littlebit an e-pen0r thing, IMO. except for series that are currently aired. but I can get the latest Big Bang Theory episode within an hour after it's aired from a public torrent as well. (might be minutes too, but I never checked that quickly)

Pre is sort of a term for when the file first gets picked up off the topsites. And yeah, it's kinda an e-pen0r thing, I like going to my friends: "I can download an album in 10 seconds, nuh." It's also useful as hell being able to snatch music that quick, almost renders things like Spotify and Grooveshark useless.

It's nice when you want a movie on demand, I guess

So, if you were downloading something that you do not need immediately, would you limit your download speed as well, in order to preserve your ratio?

Hell yeah. And nope, I rarely do that. Usually it's more beneficial just to pull it down and start seeding it quicker. Thing us, my upstream can only keep up with my downloading if I leave things seeding for ages, so limiting my downspeed isn't really gunna help.

Ok I got that impression from some discussion on a torrent blog or something where they were talking about the merits of DHT and PEX. I guess some people got some bad experiences then, or maybe just were butthurt.

And codemonkeys? Hmmmm. I should be hanging out (online) with more codemonkeys anyway. <digress>I need to check up on Seeker's board, and I need to find myself some real quality forum software</digress> (four hours and two posts on Seekers board later, I return to finish writing this one)

Yeah, some of the devs at What.CD coded this new software for hosting torrenting trackers, Gazelle. It's far better than the old TBDev source that most older trackers are running on. Makes shit look sexy as hell, an'all.