After rarbg went down, I got into a private torrent site. They expect everyone to maintain a certain ratio, which is reasonable, but there is actually no way to build ratio. The seed-to-download ratio is ridiculously high for all of the popular torrents, and new users aren’t allowed to post their own torrents. (As a sidebar, normies seem to run the Internet now, so all of the most recent torrent offerings are bad network TV shows, Marvel movies, or equally unwatchable fare).

When I was on Demonoid during its heyday ~20ish years ago, the standard way to build ratio was to offer something for download that nobody has, allowing your ratio to grow by uploading to the first few initial seeders.

This is not possible anymore, at least on this private site. Is this normal, or is this private torrent site just stupid?

  • hugz@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Usually there’ll be freeleech files or freeleech days etc. This alows you to download without affecting your ratio.

    Download a heap of freeleech content ans seed it 24/7. I was on a porn tracker and downloaded a few 20gb site-rips on freeleech. If 5 people download the full site off me, that’s 100gb of ratio.

    Try download some big files that you’ll be one of the few seeds of after a while. If you only download content with 2000 seeders then you’ll never get a good ratio, but if you can download some full TV series on freeleech then people will occaisionally want to watch the show and you can seed it to them

  • Entropy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Seeding, but not uploading earns bonus points. Bonus points buy upload credit, so all you need to do to is not delete the torrent from your client and you’ll earn BP.

  • silent_clash
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    1 year ago

    torrentleech.org lets you stop seeding after 10 days regardless of the torrent’s ratio. They just closed open sign ups though…

    Regardless, the struggle is real on private trackers if your upload speed sucks super bad like me. It’s maybe 1/100th as fast as my download speeds.

  • Damaniel@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I guess it depends on the tracker. The only private tracker I ever used was actually for arcade and video game ROMs (PleasureDome), and they structured things so that their most popular torrents (MAME sets) were free to leech but contributed to the upload side of ratio (so you could download the entire thing for ‘free’, but that download didn’t count against your ratio requirement, and you could build ratio by seeding it). It generally worked - at least most of the time, but unless you had a seedbox, a VPN with port forwarding or exposed ports for BitTorrent, you weren’t likely to build up much ratio on other torrents.

    I don’t use torrents much anymore (I’m pretty much in the Usenet camp these days), but I wouldn’t really do it seriously unless I paid for a seedbox.

  • Elghoto@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Typically, ratio private trackers have bonus point systems that you can exchange for free leeches or upload data. Read the rules for bonus points. You can maximize your points by being smart with your downloads. Downloading small torrents that are old, free leech huge torrents, torrents dying, etc. Depends on the tracker.

    If they don’t have bonus points, trackers also offer free leeches…that you need to snatch asap…if you download those everything you upload goes to your buffer.

    I’ve been in many trackers and made TBs of upload data without having a seed box or uploading new torrents. It’s just a little patience and then you’ll be able to download whatever.

  • Bazrid@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    For starters, many have mentioned freeleech torrents to build ratio, you can also add stuff you already have by downloading the same release from their site and setting the directory to where you already have the files (this only works for releases that are identical though), if your internet is fast enough, you can snag just released torrents (the more popular you expect it to be the better) and reseed to other people as they get it. This only works for torrents that are within a few minutes old though.

    Past that look into getting a seedbox or set up an old/cheap computer to run constantly and download your torrents to that, and just transfer them to your main pc as you need them.

  • Landor Dragen@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Just a question: why private trackers? Do you need any specific content that you can’t find anywhere else?

    • Bazrid@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Private trackers you won’t have to worry about fake torrents / malware / letters from your ISP telling you stealing is bad.

  • Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s frustrating. I’m on an invite-only MMA tracker, and it’s pretty much impossible to maintain ratio because instead of just uploading a 480 / 720 / 1080 for each event, we end up with 20 different uploads as everyone tries to get as much seeding themselves as possible.

    The result of that is, without becoming an uploader your ratio just drops and drops. Which of course further incentivises fracturing of a single source into 20 pointless reuploads.

  • SpaceToast@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Look for freeleech torrents and also sort by most leechers. See what most people are actively downloading and get that. Your ratio will increase in no time.

    • vehemenz@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Outside seeding might work. Basically, download the same release from another site, then seed as if I downloaded it from my private tracker, right?

      Still, it would have to be something popular, and all of those torrents have a gazillion seeders (and zero downloaders) already. But I suppose after enough time… sigh.

      • Slayer 🦊@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I’d tread careful with that one. Depending on the tracker it could get you banned. And being banned with one private tracker can get you banned on multiple

      • Bucket_of_Truth@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Back in the what.cd days I got started by just buying albums on the bounty page.

        The quickest way is to get a seedbox and write a script to download new releases from the tracker. I built up a few TB of upload credit when Game of Thrones was at its peak by downloading episode torrents minutes after they were released.