Thread: Is GFT going to go to tracker heaven? ='(

Well, judging from Engineer and ethick (who have been in the private tracker world for MUCH longer than I)'s posts, looks like things are gonna go smoothly ^___^.

By the way, don't you mean "wishlist"?

It would be a shame if they went down; weren't they working a new site design as well? 8D

in few hours ago the donate was 15% and now its 75%

Maybe it is an idea for trackers to add/switch to Moneybookers instead of PayPal?

GFT can't die! It's one of my bests no-ratio trackers =/ Donations will be no problem for GFT. There are alot of donors...

Of course, they will easily survive. Other sites had similar problems, they got the monthly donation fee within days. GFT goes on the same way, we don't have to worry. :)

I'm a fresher member of GFT but I believe that the staff is saying the truth and tracker really needs members' help ( unlike the PTP case )... this is a great tracker, above of all, it's ratioless & very user-friendly... I'm glad to that they have finally put the proggress bar for donations so everything could be transparent... because transparency is the key of trust & community lies on trust !

Originally Posted by Takayama

I'm a fresher member of GFT but I believe that the staff is saying the truth and tracker really needs members' help ( unlike the PTP case )... this is a great tracker, above of all, it's ratioless & very user-friendly... I'm glad to that they have finally put the proggress bar for donations so everything could be transparent... because transparency is the key of trust & community lies on trust !

I certainly support transparency with respect to tracker donations, but how does a progress bar ensure transparency? It's not like Ernst & Young comes in and issues audit reports on the use of the donated funds. At most trackers, donations are a black box--typically a percentage of an undisclosed number with little transparency or ability to verify that donated funds will be used for the stated purpose. And then you have these recent fundraising drives ripped off from Oral Roberts (in the 80s he told his followers that if they did not hit a donation target in a few months' time, God would call him home.). GFT is the latest tracker to seize upon this fundraising tactic, which is clearly effective today but time will tell if it stays that way. I would imagine it helps break through the free rider problem, but I for one would like to see real transparency put in place with respect to tracker donations.

how does donation progress bar contributes to transparency ? much more than it seems at first...

in mathematical language, let's say that the money, which is monthly needed to cover all costs, presents the equasion... 2 more parts of that equasion are amount of money which specific user has donated & percentage of money received so far...

for example, montly cost of running some tracker is 500 USD... and let's say that I have donated 50 USD... after a few minutes, I'll expect that donation status bar moves for another 10 % ( my 50 USD presents 10 % of the whole ammount ) if we presume 2 things : 1. tracker updates donations in a quick period od time 2. all members willing to donate aren't doing it in the same time...

after that, if donation progress bar moves for, already mentioned, 10 %, everything is ok and if not, U have a right to suspect in this donation thing and U will contact the staff... if your suspicion becomes justified, U can quickly notice the whole torrent community about the risk of donating to that specific tracker... this would surely take the effect, in a negative way, of course...

so, yeah, I believe that donation progress bar contributes to trust, confidence & transpareny because it's in tracker's interest to have regular donations... otherwise, sooner or later, scam will get to the surface, staff will be excommunicated & tracker will vanish...

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I understand the theory and the math behind donation bars. I mean in practice, in my experience, the monthly tracker run rate is not disclosed clearly (this was the case at PTP prior to the most recent drama) thus greatly undercutting the utility of the bar (you never know what the displayed percentage represents in terms of absolute dollars or Euros). Without that, the donation bar is nothing aside from a graphic to look at. Plus, even if a number is disclosed, given the staggered nature of donations and lag rate in updating the donation bar, I find it very hard to believe that an individual donator would know with a certainly that the donations were not being handled properly. The donation bar offers the illusion of transparency more than transparency itself. Let's just say that recent events have not exactly filled me with confidence with respect to tracker financing.