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

  • 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.

  • 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?

    • vehemenz@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago
      1. Yes
      2. I don’t have high hopes for public trackers in the future
      3. I don’t need to use VPN, can port forward
    • 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.

  • danteScanline@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    on my private tracker you get points for just always seeding, you can turn those points in for ratios boosts at a pretty good rate.

  • computerboss@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I have had this problem as well especially when I first join a tracker. Overall my ratio is around 6, but for private trackers where I have been seeding for over 2 years I barely hit 1.5.

    If the tracker has a bonus point system understand how it works and try to build up a bunch of upload credit with it. If the site has freeleach only download freeleach torrents for a while until you build up enough upload. The last method is personally my least favorite, but you can findout what torrents are normally the most popular and setup a program to always download them as soon as they are uploaded. Even if you won’t do anything with the torrent content it can help build a ratio.

    I highly recommend either making, or buying a seed box for private trackers, and most of them will give you bonuses for seeding for a long time, or seeding very big torrents. If all else fails you might want to consider paying for VIP if they have it. Normally paid accounts get extra upload credit or freeleach on everything, or something like that.

    • 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.

      • 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.

      • 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