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Finally fixed my torrent ratio (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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I'll admit, when I first started torrent I was not really familiar with how it worked and how important seeding was. I would just use magnet links without configuration to save the torrent and seed after completion. Well.. I have finally, got myself back to 1.00 after a couple months and working to try to always seed double what I get for each torrent.

Often times I was one of the few random seeders available for some of these torrents. Friendly reminder to give back because you never know when you're one of the rare cases that can complete someones long lost file download!

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[–] 92 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

Private trackers enforce ratios, and good private trackers reward long-term seeding, which is part of why I like private trackers.

I'm very proud of my CG account that turns seventeen next month.

EDIT: No I don't have invites, before anyone asks.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I have yet to get a positive ratio on anything I've ever downloaded from a private tracker. Always have to sit and wait to accumulate points in their seeding time system... It's annoying because otherwise I'd be seeding a lot more shit for them.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The trick is to use autodl-irssi or autobrr to download the torrent the second it gets added to the tracker. As long as you have a very fast internet connection, you will usually be over 1:1 before it finishes downloading.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    For that to work I'd have to know what I'm looking for in advance... I don't really have enough media exposure for that. I usually find out about shows/movies I might be interested in after they've been out for months.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You're basically never going to hit a positive ratio if you do things that way. Other people are using RSS feeds to know when something becomes available, then grabbing it on a seedbox. They get the entire thing instantly, then they start seeding to everyone else.

    It is possible (but slow) to get a positive ratio if you don't have a seedbox, as long as you grab new things instantly. But, while it will take maybe 20 minutes to download, it will often take days of continuously seeding to hit 1.0.

    If your goal is to hit a positive ratio, either get a seedbox or grab things immediately via a feed. If you're grabbing using a feed, you could theoretically grab popular shows even if you're not interested in them. But, it's a bit of a waste of bandwidth to grab something and seed it if you never intend to look at it. Your best bet, if you're trying not to be wasteful, is figure out a show you actually want to watch that's still releasing new episodes. Grab new episodes immediately and seed them.

    Even if it's a show where you're still on season 1 and currently season 4 is airing, as long as you'll eventually get to season 4, you're not wasting bandwidth that way.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I'm not arguing with you, it's just a pain in the ass to deal with. I don't mind seeding the shit I download at all but it shouldn't be a fucking competition when it's a requirement to download stuff. Obviously they're not hurting for seeders. IMO a better metric would be having a required seeding time (which they do anyway) and let you download as much as you want as long as you seed it long enough. Like you said I'll never hit a positive ratio, even doing things your way I doubt I'd find enough shit I wanted to build up a big ratio. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and rely mainly on public trackers and use the private ones only when I can't find what I'm looking for. I actually have quite a high ratio on both the private trackers I use just from seeding stuff for a long time and trading points in so I can download stuff, it just doesn't help my ratio.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I actually have quite a high ratio on both the private trackers I use just from seeding stuff for a long time and trading points in so I can download stuff, it just doesn't help my ratio.

    I think this is a good way to use private trackers. Most will have occasional events from time-to-time as well. If you keep seeding everything you get from freeleech, eventually you'll hit a point where your seeding benefits outpace the amount you care to download and you can just download whatever and not care anymore forever. One of mine I hit that point about six years ago and I just totally take it for granted that I can snatch anything I'm curious about. I do not understand the need to care about your ratio beyond being enough to download things you want without losing your userclass perks.

    I actually like private tracker forums a lot, they are communities that no organization will ever care to astroturf and that are free of bot posts. You're just talking with people, and as you grow to recognize some of the regulars it feels like a community. Anyway, it's weird how normal most people on those forums are about this stuff considering how if you look at r/trackers you might get the impression that the purpose of these websites is for the users to move up a ladder like it's a game. (Also the consensus on that subreddit is never use a tracker's forums under any circumstances ever because you will 100% be banned for no reason because the mods don't have lives and....what?)

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Also the consensus on that subreddit is never use a tracker's forums under any circumstances ever because you will 100% be banned for no reason because the mods don't have lives and....what?

    Presumably half the subreddit were banned from the official forums for treating it like ranked competitive piracy

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    "The problem", I explain, "is that the mods have no lives", to conclude my essay on how using a forum introduces a risk that could potentially shave precious seconds off someone's speedrun.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Part of the problem is that people who hit some massive share ratio are doing it at the expense of people who are simply trying to hit 1.0.

    My guess is that most of the people with really high ratios aren't even aware of how much they're sharing. They just set the things to seed and then forget them. Some people do treat it like a competition, but for many it isn't. Most are probably just trying to be nice and make sure that something stays available.

    What's really needed is some seeding priority thing so that someone who is trying to prove they're not a leech is given top priority to seed things, and someone who has already established their credentials is put at the back of the queue.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I fail to see the problem with not being able to seed to 1:1. Most sites provide points for seeding over time which can either be used to increase upload or buy free leech tokens (which allow you to download anyway). It should be more than enough to download what you want once you have a large enough seeding size.

    The BitTorrent protocol prioritizes fast seeds to achieve the best possible transfer speed. It's goal is not for everyone to be seeding to the same ratio.

    Also the best way to help the network is to keep content available. For this purpose the speed of it's seeds is not as important.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I may be wrong, but I think you can even game the system a bit. I think the way the torrent protocol works, it prefers to trade packets between people who don't have a complete download before it requests missing bits from seeders. So, if you restrict your download bandwidth so you avoid becoming a seeder for as long as possible, you'll upload more stuff. If I'm right, then the ultimate way to do things would be to grab as much of the content as quickly as possible, but slow way down when you're at 99% complete. That way you have the chunks that everyone else wants but you don't get counted as a seeder.

    I haven't bothered looking into the protocol to verify this, but it always seems that I upload less when something's complete vs. when it's in progress. But, that could just be an illusion.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I have also observed this behavior, but only when the file is new and the only seeder is the uploader.

    Hower I'm kinda curious to test it out. Any idea if there's some way to script qbittorrent to somehow mimic this behavior?

    Download until 99,0% completed with 100% of download speed, then reduce to 0.1% of my download speed until finished?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's definitely not easy, especially if you don't have a seedbox.

    I have gotten a good amount of upload, but that's on torrents I have been seeding for literally years at a time.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    If you don't have a seedbox you're basically "competing" against people who do. So, even if you're willing to seed to a ratio of 2.0 and keep things around for months or years, the requests that go to seedboxes get fulfilled at an insane bandwidth and nobody needs the content you're serving up using your 2400 baud modem.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    EDIT: No I don’t have invites, before anyone asks.

    Yeah, this is also a problem though. I'd love to be on a private tracker as I was in the past, but once you're out it's just too much of a hassle to get back in.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I commend you, that account is considered vintage by now. I don't even remember what computer I was running in 2008.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    I'm honestly surprised CG has survived this long. Most of the other trackers I was on from that era are long gone.

    Oink's Pink Palace gone, What gone, baconBits gone, cheggit gone... I think the only two other than CG that still exist are indietorrents and empornium. I'm old now so the porn trackers no longer appeal to me.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    There's a private sports tracker I've heard of that rewards long-term seeding. What's cool about that is that most sports events are only relevant for a few days and then people move on, this is especially true for big fans of certain teams who want the latest event. But, if you reward people for seeding, they'll just keep some random game or event around for months. That means that if something suddenly becomes relevant months later, you can probably still find it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    What's are private teachers? How do they reward long term seeding?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Private_trackers#What_is_a_private_tracker.3F

    What is a private tracker?

    A private tracker is a torrent website that provides the same functionality as a public tracker but is invite-only. This means you need to be a member to view the contents of the site and download its torrents. A tracker can either be semiprivate, where you can create an account for free by just registering your details, or fully private, where another user has to invite you. Within a tracker, there is usually an extensive set of rules covering how much one can download, what kind of content one can upload, what precautions one must take when logging into the site, etc. Such rules and content vary from tracker to tracker, and go from rather liberal with little enforcement to ultra-paranoid and autistic

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Usually they give users points of credit to download more torrents: Users that don't seed will burn through their download credits and won't be able to download.

    Other trackers will also give you points for every hour you seed a torrent (usually X points per gigabyte per hour) which encourages seeding even if the given file isn't as popular, or so popular that other seeders choke you out of uploading to other users.

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