Does going No-Ratio really help peer activity?

IMHO people with extreme ratio's on sites are the ones that do damage to them and I have been preaching this for yrs.
OK you all want to know why I guess, think about it and see if you can figure it out? of course there is an exception to the rule of hi ratio's and that's uploaders :)
Sorry cannot give any prizes for right answer but will be good to see who can work it out.
 
That's probably because the members are invested in the tracker.
Personally I'm less likely to abuse things I have some appreciation/respect for than things I don't.
 
ratio free sites generally succeed or phail depending on the community/userbase they have, and the kind of content they strive to have.

FTN has popular torrents seeded rather well, but unpopular torrents do lack peers or, are dead. Its a fact most ratio free sites have to live with.Loyal members who value their membership, and really want to do something for the community, seed for longer durations.
Members who are genuinely interested in content download what they 'actually need' and find interesting. ofc..the stuff someone grabs out of his own interest is gonna stay seeded for a longer duration.

Ratio free trackers eliminate the need to buffer accounts up (for the purpose of sustenance) by grabbing unwanted stuff which gets removed off Seedbox HDDs in a matter of hours.
Loyalty of members towards a tracker is one of the most important points to be considered while discussing ratio free trackers. It made a lot of difference between survival and phailure of ITN. (The dead polish 0day ratio free tracker)

One of the reasons FTN has scrapped minimum seed time rule is that the staffers felt they could trust their members enough to avoid HnRs. It certainly went a long way in increasing the number of peers. (quite logical, isn't it?)
i would prefer to grab stuff off some site which offers good speeds, is ratiofree with no seed time restrictions to a site which has strict 3 day seeding period and ratio system (or no ratio system for that matter) in effect.


Moving on..No ratio music sites may serve as secondary options for mainstream music enthusiasts. People would actually prefer to grab Britney (lol), LP, Metallica and other mainstream stuff off these sites rather than 'waste' buffer on what and waffles, as they are ridiculously difficult to seed on.
 
I think FTN owes much of its success to being a pioneer of the no-ratio system. It isn't a huge site with a tremendous archive of well-seeded torrents, but that's not really the point of torrents in my opinion (and that of some uploaders I've chatted with).

But I've noticed in the last year, since they've opened up a lot more invites, that the explosion of seedboxes has affected FTN as well. I've noticed that most of the new users have quickly surpassed my fairly high upload amount. These people are pushing out TBs within a few weeks/months. How? By downloading everything popular in every format available and every pack and then even cross-seeding on other sites. Why would anyone cross-seed a new torrent on FTN? There is no ratio and the guise of "I'll help seed" is bogus. It's all about the epenis.

So I've noticed in this time that there are probably a lot of peers, especially in the first wave of snatches and first couple of days, that are not at FTN to benefit from the no-ratio system. In fact, the no-ratio system should be discouraging them from downloading at FTN. Yet, the peer numbers overall are inflated by the seedbox phenomenon.

I've only been a member of PTM for a few months and frankly don't use it all that often. Plus I cannot observe the peers list on site (and am not familiar with most of the older users like at FTN). However, I think their variation of the no-ratio system works great. Most of the users are on home connections. Some are on shared seedboxes or decent dedis. Overall this means speeds are a little slower, but with the larger userbase, the swarms are still really fast. I'm sure there are some cross-seeders and other forms of kids playing with their seedbox there as well, but from what I can see, there are still a lot of people benefiting from the no-ratio system.

All that being said, I think you're misinterpreting two key points.

1) No-ratio systems are not intended to prevent hit and runs.
No-ratio systems are intended solely to encourage leeching, especially for slower home connections and those who come a few hours after the swarm. The reason a number of torrents are 1/0 is almost always because it is something nobody really wants (some lame tv show) or it is really old and being kept alive by one of the handful of people who everything forever no matter what.
2) Most new trackers fail. I think there are more than enough trackers out there. There probably were more than enough a year or two ago, but they keep on coming out. Just going no-ratio will not save any site, no matter how awesome it is in theory. I think one of the biggest problems in this over-saturated marketplace is the fact that so many trackers make it difficult to even hear about them, let alone get in. Keeping things small and private is great, but not when the server costs are still high and the lack of torrent activity makes people who finally do get in go, "that's it?"

I truly believe in the no-ratio system. By having some stats and rules in place and providing good content, you'll encourage people to be responsible users. They might not seed forever, but if they seed for a few days or close to 1:1, I think that's pretty damn good. I don't know if it would work on a big site, but I doubt it will ever be implemented. Big sites are big because they are established and most of them are not going to radically change their ways.
 
Duckater said:
IMHO people with extreme ratio's on sites are the ones that do damage to them and I have been preaching this for yrs.
OK you all want to know why I guess, think about it and see if you can figure it out? of course there is an exception to the rule of hi ratio's and that's uploaders :)
Sorry cannot give any prizes for right answer but will be good to see who can work it out.
Click to expand...

Because it breaks the system. There will always be a global ratio on every tracker of 1:1(real traffic I mean) and every person that uploads five times the size of the file they snatched is making it impossible for four other people to get ANY upload on something they grab.
 
In the context of the OP, PtN has to deal with the same problems every ratioless tracker has to deal with all of which have been stated already in this thread.

Megabyteme said:
It seems there are 2 kinds of users who look for ratio-free sites.

1) Adults who appreciate being trusted and treated like adults. These members like to give back (and probably then some)and like being part of a thriving, prospering community.

2) Immature kids. They act like kids, need to be treated like kids, and don't have a clue what community means. When the site goes to shit, they say, "lame" and keep moving on...

I don't think that there is an inherent failing in the ratio-less site philosophy. The problem(s) occur when too many "kids" are allowed to play in the "adult" world.
Click to expand...


I think this post says alot about what keeps any ratio free site going, and hell, it even follows for ratio enforcing sites in my opinion. Our goal when we thought up the whole total traffic system was to try to take a new tack on how to approach the leech factor.

The problem always boils down to the whole "give em an inch" aspect of human nature. When given latitude most people will take the easiest route, and it never ceases to amaze me that people seem to think that with all the leech friendly aspects of our site they can just ignore the basic ideas behind the BT protocol.

Here's the really funny thing, alot of the best users PtN gets are people that aren't "celebrities" in BT, just people that heard about us and wanted to check it out. Those are the folks that actually read the rules and FAQ, and learn what is expected of them at our site. That's not meant to be a knock on all the familiar names, just an observation of who actually values the site.
 
To add something to what you guys are saying: It makes me extremely happy when I start downloading a very old torrent with one seed that's not a seedbox. It makes me feel like I'm really doing something significant for the site as I know I'll be seeding it for a long time and in most cases despite my pitifull up speed doubling the down speed of the said torrent.
 
The_Martinator said:
To add something to what you guys are saying: It makes me extremely happy when I start downloading a very old torrent with one seed that's not a seedbox. It makes me feel like I'm really doing something significant for the site as I know I'll be seeding it for a long time and in most cases despite my pitifull up speed doubling the down speed of the said torrent.
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and yet you wonder why you repel women
 
For the ratio-free tracker,i think a primary consideration is Community and Friendship,then maybe the content or peers...you konw,Popular torrents will always seeded well in all over the trackers....As far as I know,Many secret ratio-free trackers works well throughout.....
 
Intr4ns1t said:
In the context of the OP, PtN has to deal with the same problems every ratioless tracker has to deal with all of which have been stated already in this thread.




I think this post says alot about what keeps any ratio free site going, and hell, it even follows for ratio enforcing sites in my opinion. Our goal when we thought up the whole total traffic system was to try to take a new tack on how to approach the leech factor.

The problem always boils down to the whole "give em an inch" aspect of human nature. When given latitude most people will take the easiest route, and it never ceases to amaze me that people seem to think that with all the leech friendly aspects of our site they can just ignore the basic ideas behind the BT protocol.

Here's the really funny thing, alot of the best users PtN gets are people that aren't "celebrities" in BT, just people that heard about us and wanted to check it out. Those are the folks that actually read the rules and FAQ, and learn what is expected of them at our site. That's not meant to be a knock on all the familiar names, just an observation of who actually values the site.
Click to expand...

Do you think that is due to the fact that a lot of tracker collectors ain't worried so much as long as they don't lose there account?
I agree that people new to the private BT scene can make the best users as these people can be shown how you/your tracker want them to respect your place and even if they do move on in the future the chances are if it is their first private tracker it will always be treated with respect. This is where I think where part of the problem is, and yes I am probably guilty of this to some extent, once on a few trackers and read there rules and most have the same rules we think we know them all and thus take it we are in the right when we do as we do just about ever where else.
Ok any one else have thoughts on that?
 
Yes Intr4ns1 and you was one I guessed would get it right but to be honest was hoping a few others would have tried 1st :lol:
I do discourage high ratio's and as rue try and keep mine on sites between 1.0 and 1.2 it is higher on sites where I have mostly uploaded and one other large tracker where I seeded old torrents that either had no seeders or just the odd one.
But I do tend to keep things for an eternity lol
Retention of torrents on a site is one way I judge a site these days as I think it shows how it is run and what the members are like weather ratio free or not. A site that is say over 2 yrs old with torrents that are over 100 weeks to me has done well and clearly got right people involved all the way thru it :)

I must admit it is good to find like minded people on ratio aspects but to be fair I don't think ratio free would work for us.
 
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