On which trackers have you been banned ?

[JohnareyouOK]

The reason asking "do you have better recruit policy design" is that you seem to be complaining about this collection game that trackers force us to play. As users, all of us would certainly like to be able to join the site we want to join directly without stepping stone, but the point is not what we want, but to undertand the intentions, considerations, and concerns of the site's staff.

Bad behavior in eyes of tracker staff is not just the inability to seed, or complete HR.
1. Cheating is one aspect, and we do observe that people on cabal sites cheat significantly less or not cheat at all. Does this have anything to do with the recruit policies of them? I think it does.
2. Account and invite trading is another aspect, let's leave it at that.
3. Just like few days ago U2 banned a person who kept reposting U2 exclusive content on nyaa, in the eyes of tracker, reposting exclusive which disallow to repost is also bad behavior.
4. and also deliberately remove the suffix of release group when reposting, or even changed to their own.
........ etc. too lazy to list them all

A successful recruit policy design (again, to tracker staffs, not us members) is to be able to have those who have all these bad behaviors kicked out, or let the members already join to reduce or no longer have these behaviors at least on their sites. They call this member quality control. By this standard, I don't think "collection game" is the best recruit policy design either and I hate it too, but I do understand staffs think it's the least bad one. Statistically speaking, recruiting already validated people from other reputable trackers is always least risky to trackers.

[anon]

The question of whether private trackers are or can be "infiltrated" is a moot one. I joined or was given the opportunity to join all major ones when I was a teenager with nothing better to do. The big traders and sellers in the forums that allow both obviously found a way in, too. And an employee who gets paid to accomplish it is going to be even more motivated.

The one thing that keeps them safe is their comparatively small size. It's easier and more effective to go after public indexers with literally millions of active users than attempting to take down a private tracker with 20,000 members that currently demands going through a recruitment ladder to join in the first place. Even so, exceptions exist: EliteTorrents, OiNK, What.cd, ScT, BCG.

As for recruitment, there is an implicit trust that can be placed on someone who has reached a certain user class on a tracker, especially those that are hard to keep a good ratio on, join in the first place, or both. And you can always fine-tune your applicants by adding additional requirements. No guarantees in any case, just a strong correlation which mostly works.

Case and point - this site alone has a forum dedicated to how to cheat in almost every tracker, and upon registration encourages people to pick a username they don't use on trackers.

A piece of advice that gets ignored frustratingly often, may I add...

[Nat]

The reason asking "do you have better recruit policy design" is that you seem to be complaining about this collection game that trackers force us to play. As users, all of us would certainly like to be able to join the site we want to join directly without stepping stone, but the point is not what we want, but to understand the intentions, considerations, and concerns of the site's staff.

I think "complaining" would be the wrong word. I just believe logically speaking the collection game does nothing for the true intentions and considerations of the trackers. This is of course to state each tracker's inability to publicly state what their intentions, considerations, and concerns are in regards to membership. And why do they do this..? It seems to be done all in the name of elitism and this sense of secret society. I was (for example) in a tracker IRC channel where I was almost banned for asking questions about tracker rules and recruitment, being told the tracker is "like Fight Club".

If reorganizing the entire system is wrong, maybe creating a massive recruitment forum outside of all trackers would be best. Require users to give a specific amount of proof to enter. There will be no more useless collections and deactivations.

1. Cheating is one aspect, and we do observe that people on cabal sites cheat significantly less or not cheat at all. Does this have anything to do with the recruit policies of them? I think it does.
2. Account and invite trading is another aspect, let's leave it at that.
3. Just like few days ago U2 banned a person who kept reposting U2 exclusive content on nyaa, in the eyes of tracker, reposting exclusive which disallow to repost is also bad behavior.

Let me address these individually.

1 - The internet is a strange place. Tricking someone into thinking they know you is quite easy. So, when you go through all these extensive interviews, proofs, and so on, you still as a staff member know just as little about the person as when they walked in your channel. This site is a perfect example. Tons of people on here cheat. I bet they can pass almost any tracker interview out there, simply because they know the right things to say or do. This alone shows that these recruitment methods solve nothing more than piece of mind. If a staff member feels secure then they must be secure, even though the truth says otherwise.

2 - Invite trading is a muddy subject. I agree most members who are let in by this method are not good members. I also know without it you will have a hard time with your community growing and allowing different perspective to take part. I'm a great example of this concept. I've been torrenting on and off since 2003. I have had a lot of friends over the years who have torrented, but fell off the map due to life's basic complications. Now I'm the only one left. So... Since all my friends abandoned torrenting, should I by association be screwed out of my want for torrenting? After all.. getting invites from people you don't know in real life is generally frowned upon by trackers. So, I'm stuck trying to convince some guy I don't know, who is trying everything possible not to let me in, that I would be of service to him? Look back at #1. My convincing can lead me to be no better or worse than the guy just getting randomly invited by some chump on Reddit.

3 - What exactly makes content "exclusive"? I understand on TV trackers there are cappers who want their caps specific to a tracker. I understand wanting your efforts to get noticed. But the whole concept is a bit silly. That HD or 4K cap you just made is equally available on so many more trackers. It isn't like you are the only one who had the ability to access that particular show in that particular quality, and now want it only spread among a particular community. Exclusivity is another term for material within elitism. I wish all these people would understand - once you release content to a large group of individuals, it no longer becomes exclusive.

They call this member quality control. By this standard, I don't think "collection game" is the best recruit policy design either and I hate it too, but I do understand staffs think it's the least bad one. Statistically speaking, recruiting already validated people from other reputable trackers is always least risky to trackers.

So then what has been tried and hasn't worked in the past? If you disagree with both my approach and the approach of the collection method, what would be a good replacement?

---------- Post Merged at 12:46 ---------- Previous Post was at 12:25 ----------

The question of whether private trackers are or can be "infiltrated" is a moot one. I joined or was given the opportunity to join all major ones when I was a teenager with nothing better to do. The big traders and sellers in the forums that allow both obviously found a way in, too. And an employee who gets paid to accomplish it is going to be even more motivated.
.

Is the business of trackers (outside of the trackers themselves) really that big? I wouldn't think you would make but a few thousand dollars a year on selling invites. Even so.. If recruitment is as good as it is with all these strict methods, how do sellers still easily get so many invites?

The one thing that keeps them safe is their comparatively small size. It's easier and more effective to go after public indexers with literally millions of active users than attempting to take down a private tracker with 20,000 members that currently demands going through a recruitment ladder to join in the first place. .

I agree. Though I question.. If say every user that wanted to be on RED was on RED, I still think the member count would be lower than half that of public trackers. I would say even lower if the trackers still went by ratio/HnR/decativation standards.

As for recruitment, there is an implicit trust that can be placed on someone who has reached a certain user class on a tracker, especially those that are hard to keep a good ratio on, join in the first place, or both. And you can always fine-tune your applicants by adding additional requirements. No guarantees in any case, just a strong correlation which mostly works.

I have no issue with proofs. I don't care if you want a specific ratio, user class, time frame of membership, etc. I have a problem with the snobby elitism. To give a personal example, I was about to be given a RED invite. They wanted to see proof on trackers. I gave them my two best - one with a ratio of 24 14 years membership and that I was staff back in 2010, the other 4TB shared over 4 years with an over 1.0 ratio. I was not given the invite simply because they weren't "reputable" trackers. I get wanting to filter out cheaters. I also don't know how much you can tell if I am cheating or not based on a screenshot.

[anon]

1 - The internet is a strange place. Tricking someone into thinking they know you is quite easy. So, when you go through all these extensive interviews, proofs, and so on, you still as a staff member know just as little about the person as when they walked in your channel. This site is a perfect example. Tons of people on here cheat. I bet they can pass almost any tracker interview out there, simply because they know the right things to say or do. This alone shows that these recruitment methods solve nothing more than piece of mind. If a staff member feels secure then they must be secure, even though the truth says otherwise.

In addition to the factors I mentioned before, having to spend even a short amount of time preparing some proofs/profile links, plus maybe a quick explanation of why they want to be invited, makes people feel like they're "earning" their new membership and filters out the totally lazy. Or as I said some years ago...

I had a look at [animetorrent.me's] application form, and it seems pretty reasonable to me. Remember, "invite application" does not mean "free invite". You have to show that you're aware of what the tracker offers, actually have an interest on that, and know what's required to be considered a good member. Displaying the ability to string a few coherent sentences doesn't hurt either. Obviously, none of those things guarantee you will actually be a good member, but they generally correlate.

Is the business of trackers (outside of the trackers themselves) really that big? I wouldn't think you would make but a few thousand dollars a year on selling invites. Even so.. If recruitment is as good as it is with all these strict methods, how do sellers still easily get so many invites?

A few thousand dollars is a lot of money in the countries most prominent sellers come from, and that's not criticism or discrimination, as I live in one such place.

Anyway, regarding how to obtain invites, let's face it: all you need to do on trackers that award them automatically is use a gigabit seedbox for a month, plus possibly engage on a marathon session of uploading torrents to meet class requirements. Then, simply sit back and watch them pour in - trackers with traffic requirements are a minority easily dealt with by your seedbox, and potential demotions from inactive uploads getting pruned is solved by uploading much more than is required for your desired class. Having multiple accounts makes the process even faster. This strategy would work at RED, for instance: with minimal investment (gigabit boxes are fairly cheap, other expenses like electricity and Internet access you had to pay for anyway) you can start getting invites as quickly as within two weeks, which as I recall sell for around $50 each.

For the ones that are recruitment-only, just play the ladder game and sell your account (or newly-created Gmail address with the invite message inside) when you finally obtain it. Hacking is another option, on its own or combined with the others. Hacked accounts are sold every day; their true owners may attempt to recover them, of course, but once you get paid that becomes someone else's problem (see https://old.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/6lhvkg/).

[Nat]

Interesting...

I'm not all too tech savy. And as (I think) I've said before, I'm too afraid of getting caught cheating and such.

Ladder game used to be a lot easier. I've been at it now a few months minus the trackers I've been on for many years that are hated by other trackers.

I've never paid for a seedbox. I don't even know if I'm set up to use one. I'd imagine if a torrent has 30 seeds and 20 of those 30 seeds have seedboxes, we are all still fighting for minimal credit.

I'm all for applications. Maybe that is a better method than having people line up in IRC chats and wait to be tested on stuff.

[sigduwksnsksis9283]

Interesting...
I'm not all too tech savy. And as (I think) I've said before, I'm too afraid of getting caught cheating and such.

To be honest i cheated on all the trackers i was in and got banned during the early days once by thinking i kept the speed at 1024kbps but i didn't and it was on 100024 kbps i got banned the next day while this was a pure accident of me being high/blind the rest of the times it wasn't anything major i.e low ratio during the early days, so cheating is really safe these days as long as your not a retard who cheats at high speed and keep low seed time. most of the stuff i cheat on are seeded for atleast 6 months so the ratio on them is totally plausible and plus they are popular stuff so that makes it even safer. 1 tracker i got banned was the .biz or "the" trackers signed up and was asked for raw ratio's on the tracker they recruit like this is really retarded mechanism either they are collecting emails and ip's to share with some fed or else they have some weird as fuck motive i have no clue about like IP and RAW ratio from those site to keep the users safe from ratio drops doesn't mean that you should just ban them on first sight. sighs well those staffs probably have bad or good intention and i all i can do is stay away from them.

I'm all for applications. Maybe that is a better method than having people line up in IRC chats and wait to be tested on stuff.

indeed but "they need something live/realtime to talk in" most irc's are a graveyard as you have really less chance of getting your account back whether your legitimate user or not.

[anon]

Ladder game used to be a lot easier.

That's because more alternatives existed and trackers couldn't be too choosy if they wanted to grow (see my comment in the other thread about joining PTP through open signups). Check https://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?p=173333 out. It's a list of reviews that have been posted here since 2009, divided by category. Pay close attention to the TV, movies and music lists. How many of those still exist?

I've never paid for a seedbox. I don't even know if I'm set up to use one. I'd imagine if a torrent has 30 seeds and 20 of those 30 seeds have seedboxes, we are all still fighting for minimal credit.

I've never paid for a seedbox either, but that doesn't mean I haven't used them Anyway, actually setting one up is the realm of advanced users, who will usually rent a dedicated server or VPS and configure it for torrents. All providers will offer everything prepackaged for you, you only need to log in through the interface of your choice with your assigned username and password.

As for swarms of seedboxes talking to each other, autosnatched torrents on RED are a prominent example of that. Lack a box yourself and you'll either get only a 1:1 ratio if you're the original uploader, or almost nothing if you aren't. You're forced to either accept this, or become part of the problem.

I'm all for applications. Maybe that is a better method than having people line up in IRC chats and wait to be tested on stuff.

If you swap IRC interviews for invite applications, then RED won't be able to check if you're "cheating" by reading the interview preparation site, nor will OppaiTime manage to put you on the spot by asking for dickpics It's sort of like having an open book exam vs. a real one.

Anyway, I don't find their desire to have a one-on-one, real time conversation particularly bothersome. It's queues, waiting times and uncertainty about when you'll be called that are the problem

To be honest i cheated on all the trackers i was in and got banned during the early days once by thinking i kept the speed at 1024kbps but i didn't and it was on 100024 kbps i got banned the next day

A lot of people got banned in the past for using the wrong digit separators in RM. Since this is an English-speaking forum, we use dots for decimals and commas for thousands, and it made sense to assume the program worked the same way. However, it actually followed your system locale settings, so if the symbols' meaning was reversed, "123.45" KB/s would magically become 123 MB/s... a nasty surprise if not detected in time.

1 tracker i got banned was the .biz or "the" trackers signed up and was asked for raw ratio's on the tracker they recruit like this is really retarded mechanism either they are collecting emails and ip's to share with some fed or else they have some weird as fuck motive i have no clue about like IP and RAW ratio from those site to keep the users safe from ratio drops doesn't mean that you should just ban them on first sight. sighs well those staffs probably have bad or good intention and i all i can do is stay away from them.

Staff at The*.click (formerly The*.bz) routinely treat both applicants and actual users like shit, confident that they will put up with it, as alternatives to those sites are either few and nowhere good enough or nonexistent. So far it's working out for them, but they're a prime example of why I advice everyone to not get involved with tracker communities, just download and seed. Well, MAM may be an exception.

[Nat]

As for swarms of seedboxes talking to each other, autosnatched torrents on RED are a prominent example of that. Lack a box yourself and you'll either get only a 1:1 ratio if you're the original uploader, or almost nothing if you aren't. You're forced to either accept this, or become part of the problem.

I'm experiencing this on TL right now. I have to seed for 10 days. So, I have a list of torrents I have seeded since day one (to show retention), and I am routating in and out freeleech torrents every 10 days (the HnR requirment) until I hit PU and can show my stats to get invites. What I'm doing is trying to grab freeleech torrents when they only have one or two seeds with the hopes I get something from it. Sometimes I am getting lucky and grabbing a few gigs, others I'm only getting 1 or 2.

I'm also afraid to use points for seed bonus because it looks better to recruiters if I am able to keep those points in tact.

On another note..

I'll put this here (since it isn't worth starting a new thread for).

BTN might have a bit of an issue now, no?

I guess accounts were being banned/deactivated if users didn't log in over a 6 hour period of time (?) In response users were going to their IRC for help and not getting it due to the overflow of users and small amount of active staff. I'd say this causes a big problem with the time it would take to talk to each user, make sure they are who they say they are, and enable accounts.

So.. I know I'm holding out for a miracle here but... They might be stuck activating all deactivated accounts for a short period of time so users can log in with no issue. The long deactivated accounts would mostly stay deactivated because those users either forgot they had an account or have given up on trying to get it back. Accounts with obvious bad rep might throw up red flags, but they can't possible have the time to review all deactivated accounts. So, I'm occasionally trying to log into my account to see if I can catch a break.

[sigduwksnsksis9283]

I'm also afraid to use points for seed bonus because it looks better to recruiters if I am able to keep those points in tact.

Jokes on you i got declined on one user request thread once because i had around 20-10k points and around 15-10Tb upload. His words were, "Your ratio and upload's are too good to be real" I mean sure i cheated before on trackers and am still alive but too good to be real is bizarre these days.

[Nat]

Jokes on you i got declined on one user request thread once because i had around 20-10k points and around 15-10Tb upload. His words were, "Your ratio and upload's are too good to be real" I mean sure i cheated before on trackers and am still alive but too good to be real is bizarre these days.

Back to my point on how unreasonable tracker staffs are. They want reasons not to let in members rather than weeding out bad members and letting in the good.

I'm talking about a smaller amount of points. I don't want to say spend all my points to add 100GB to my upload and have little to no points. It becomes obvious to recruiters that my upload is a lot of credit.

[anon]

until I hit PU and can show my stats to get invites. What I'm doing is trying to grab freeleech torrents when they only have one or two seeds with the hopes I get something from it. Sometimes I am getting lucky and grabbing a few gigs, others I'm only getting 1 or 2.

To buff your ratio on TL: find any new and very active movie or TV episode torrent, then download only the sample or first RAR part as applicable. If there is no sample or split RARs, grab a small (5~10%) portion of the torrent, then set the priority on everything to "do not download" and you'll immediately begin partial-seeding it. Permaseed and repeat the cycle with newer uploads. Credit will quickly build up over time; if your timing and upload speed are good, the ROI can end up being ridiculously high.

As for the BTN login drama, all trackers log disabled channel conversations and other noteworthy data about accounts on their user notes. See the 2019 32pag.es staff hack at https://ibb.co/album/nqOLFa; the amount of data collected is insane (profile views, for fuck's sake!). No matter how overworked staff are, they'll look at this information before deciding whether to reverse any ban as a matter of policy. If you intend to turn this crisis into an opportunity, I'm afraid you'll be wasting your time.

Jokes on you i got declined on one user request thread once because i had around 20-10k points and around 15-10Tb upload. His words were, "Your ratio and upload's are too good to be real" I mean sure i cheated before on trackers and am still alive but too good to be real is bizarre these days.

That guy obviously didn't want to invite you. A quick look at the top 10 uploaders table on any tracker will tell you that 10~15 TB of upload isn't "too good to be real" anymore. Someone in Pornolab had 125 TB. Even RED has accounts in the mid 40s... all you need is a good seedbox, time, and the ability to delude yourself into believing such a buffer is both desirable and necessary.

[Nat]

To buff your ratio on TL: find any new and very active movie or TV episode torrent, then download only the sample or first RAR part as applicable. If there is no sample or split RARs, grab a small (5~10%) portion of the torrent, then set the priority on everything to "do not download" and you'll immediately begin partial-seeding it. Permaseed and repeat the cycle with newer uploads. Credit will quickly build up over time; if your timing and upload speed are good, the ROI can end up being ridiculously high.
.

I just continue to do freeleech torrents. Since my connection is slow due to me currently living with family on a shared network, it isn't working out all too well. But hey.. I guess slow and steady wins the race?

I wonder if partial torrenting (like you say) is a way to get around the HnR rule. I don't want to clog up my hard drive with these large files, so I am only doing two or three at a time while keeping up my rentention ones.

[anon]

Since my connection is slow due to me currently living with family on a shared network, it isn't working out all too well.

Sounds like a good opportunity to learn about ARP poisoning

I wonder if partial torrenting (like you say) is a way to get around the HnR rule.

I honestly don't know, although IPT is the only tracker that's been reported to monitor hit & runs on partial torrents. But (as I said before) you should permaseed all of them if you want to make the most out of this tactic, and its disk space requirements are low, so it shouldn't make a difference in any case.

[sigduwksnsksis9283]

That guy obviously didn't want to invite you. A quick look at the top 10 uploaders table on any tracker will tell you that 10~15 TB of upload isn't "too good to be real" anymore. Someone in Pornolab had 125 TB. Even RED has accounts in the mid 40s... all you need is a good seedbox, time, and the ability to delude yourself into believing such a buffer is both desirable and necessary.

Most likely, I have seen some red racers and can say they are quite profiting! 30 euro for few tbs on one of the best sites for getting musics. sounds better then it should imho. but then again my conscience comes telling me not to pay to pirate.

[anon]

but then again my conscience comes telling me not to pay to pirate.

In my case, it's my conscience and wallet With that said, if you take full advantage of freeleech tokens and the required ratio system, you can get away with a lot of downloading without having to upload a single byte in return.

In fact, it's amazing how generous they are on that regard, and the paranoid side of me thinks we should enjoy it before they reevaluate their stance. And maybe, just maybe, do something about autosnatchers, seedbox abuse and Deezer upload spam too. The whole scheme will collapse under its own weight one day... once you've buffered enough TBs by raping everyone else with your gigabit box, and made enough throwaway uploads to secure a slot among the high user classes, there's no incentive to seed or upload anything else anymore.