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!

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    15 days ago

    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.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      15 days ago

      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.

      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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        15 days ago

        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.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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          15 days ago

          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.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            15 days ago

            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.

            • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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              15 days ago

              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.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      15 days 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.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        15 days ago

        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

    • kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      15 days ago

      Between my bad Internet connection and my apparent tendency to be the very last person who decides to download any given torrent, I just gave up and paid my private tracker to ignore my seed ratio ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        15 days ago

        Maybe your VPN or internet doesn’t have port forwarding? That severely limits seeding potential.

        I used to think seeding was impossible, no matter how many files you seed the ratio just doesn’t get better. Then I tried a port forwarding enabled VPN and realised that was my issue.

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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    15 days ago

    Giving back is good but once I realize how much I hate companies that own the media I have been seeding these Linux iso extra hard out of spite!

  • RedSnt 👓♂️🖥️@feddit.dk
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    14 days ago

    That’s the spirit!
    My rule of thumb has always been to share to ratio 1.1. Side thought: Maybe there’s a funny correlation between birthrates needing to be 2.1 for a stable population, the extra .1 to make up for deaths, and well, the 2 is because it takes two to make a baby.

    Anyway, since we're all sharing, these are my stats from 41 days ago when I switched to Nobara.

     
    (Gigabit internet is the biggest luxury I allow myself to splurge on.)