Thread: Yet another private tracker survival guide for n00bz

So you have been invited to the tracker you've always wanted to join? Congratulations!
However, getting an invite is the easy part. The hard part is what's still ahead of you - to make sure that you survive your first days without being kicked out.
This guide contains some information that will hopefully assist you in doing this, especially if this is the first time you join a private tracker.
So, let's begin.

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: When you join a private tracker, DO NOT IMMEDIATELY START DOWNLOADING STUFF LIKE A MADMAN.
If you do this, I can guarantee you that your account will not survive over one week. Moreover, sometimes (especially when you're a newbie) even a single poorly chosen download can put you into a situation from which it will be extremely difficult to recover.



Read the rules: The very first thing you should do after registering is to read the tracker's rules section and the FAQ section.
Really - DO NOT DO ANYTHING BEFORE READING THESE.
The reason why this is so important is because not knowing the rules does not exempt you from being punished for breaking them, and many trackers have rules that you will definitely break if you're unaware of them.

The Ratio concept:
The most important thing to mind is your ratio. Your ratio is a positive rational number that is calculated by dividing the number of bytes you have uploaded to other peers by the number of bytes you have downloaded. A ratio of 1.0 means that you have uploaded the exact amount of data than you have downloaded. A ratio between 0 and 1 (for instance, 0.75) means that you have downloaded more than you have uploaded and a ratio above 1 means that you have uploaded more than you have downloaded.
The ratio is kept for each torrent you download, and there is also an overall ratio that counts your entire activity in the tracker.
Almost all trackers require you to maintain a certain minimum ratio in order to continue being a member. The exact number varies from one tracker to another, but it can always be found in the rules (which by now you should already have read). In addition, new users are given a "grace period", which means that you will not be subject to the ratio requirement until you've downloaded a certain amount of data (usually 5GB but can vary).
Your most important task is to make sure that when you cross that "point of no return", your ratio will be over, and at a safe distance, from that minimum level.
You should note that when you are a newbie (i.e. - have not transferred a lot of data), your ratio is subject to very rapid changes. A single torrent can drastically affect your ratio. It's important to consider this when beginning to download, and we will further discuss this later.
By the way, regardless of the minimum level dictated by the site's rules, it's always a good thing to keep your ratio at 1.0 or above.

The Overseeding problem:
If you've downloaded from public trackers, you can probably remember that many times there can be more than 10 leeches for every seed, which can cause your download to be slow as a snail. Well, private trackers tend to have the opposite problem - The number of seeds is usually significantly higher than the number of leeches.
You may ask yourself why this is a problem: True, this will allow you super fast downloads, however, the problem is that once you've finished downloading, it might be extremely difficult to seed back the torrent and maintain a good ratio, because you will be competing with all these seeds (from which you have downloaded the torrent yourself!) for every leech.
Minding this, our first task is to carefully select our first torrent, such that we will be able to seed some data and get a good ratio even with the overseeding problem.
REMEMBER - Your first downloads from a new tracker should be for the sole purpose of achieving a good ratio. You will be able to download things that you really want once you mature and your ratio becomes more stable.

FREE LEECH TORRENTS:
Some trackers (not all) sometimes help new users by making some torrents "free leech", which means that the data you download does not count towards your ratio, but the data you upload does. This means that these torrents can only increase your ratio, not decrease it, which is excellent for us n00bz. Moreover, because of this, there will usually be a significant number of leeches for these torrents (basically other people trying to do the same thing), something which also helps us. If your tracker has these torrents, you should stick to them at first. If your tracker does not offer free leech torrents, or if they are extremely rare, don't worry, you can still get a high ratio even without them.

POOR CHOICES FOR YOUR FIRST DOWNLOADS:
As a new user, you should avoid these kinds of torrents as much as possible:

• Old torrents - You should always stick to newly releases torrents, because they are still heavily leeched. After a certain time passes, every torrent reaches the point at which the leeches dry out and the torrent is left with only seeds. This means that they will be practically impossible to seed back.
• Large torrents (e.g. DVDR or HD releases) - These torrents will burn your initial grace period extremely fast and also have a drastic effect on your ratio if you're a newbie. As a new user, you should stick with the medium-sized torrents. A 700MB (1 CD) torrent is a good choice.
• Extremely overseeded torrents - Any torrent whose number of seeds is over ten times the number of leeches should be avoided. You will not be able to properly seed these because of the competition from other seeds. Keep away especially from torrents with zero leeches.
• Non-mainstream torrents - I'm talking about stuff that may interest you, but not many others, for instance, a relatively unknown music album or a piece of software that not too many people use. The reason, again, is that the leeches will dry out very quickly.

As I said, choose your first torrent very carefully. If properly chosen, you should be able to seed your torrent back to a 1:1 ratio.

ADDITIONAL METHODS:
Here are a few methods that I think can be extremely helpful for the purpose of achieving a good ratio. Note that they should be combined with a wisely chosen torrent (as discussed in the previous paragraph).

• Partial seeding - Many torrents contain more than a single file (for instance, most scene releases contain a series of many RAR archives). As we are not really interested in the content, but only in the ratio, we do not really need all of them. Instead, select to download only a handful of these files (in the case of scense releases, 5 files should suffice). Doing this allows you to start seeding relatively quickly, and also helps to avoid a significant decrease in the ratio from the download. If the torrent is a movie release then the sample file is an excellent choice to download. The experience of many users shows that partial seeding is an excellent method of achieving a good ratio.
• Outside sourcing - The concept here is to somehow get the content of the torrent by some means other than downloading it from the tracker, and then join the private tracker's swarm immediately as a seed. This means that you will only upload data to the tracker, achieving the same effect as the free leech torrents (as discussed earlier). If you have a friend who also uses that tracker (e.g. the person who invited you), then the best way is to copy the content from him/her. An alternative is to download it from somewhere else (a public tracker, for instance). Note that in this case the content must be identical to the content published on the private tracker. The best selections for this purpose are scene releases.
• Uploading - If the tracker allows every member to upload new torrents, then this is a good way to go because, again, you will only upload stuff therefore only increase your ratio.

Extremely important rule:
DO NOT F*** WITH THE TRACKER'S ADMINS!!! As the name implies, a private tracker is private. The admins can ban you for not liking your face or any reason whatsoever. Don't give them any reasons to ban you.

More updates are available in further posts in this thread.
Good luck!

Thanks. Here are some more tips:

HIT'N'RUNS:
An HNR is when you finish downloading a torrent and immediately stop it without seeding or very soon after you become a seed (like most a****les on the public trackers do).
When dealing with private trackers, this should be avoided for two reasons:

1. It screws your ratio, especially when you're a newbie.
2. Many trackers have rules against HNR, which means that if you get too many of these you will get banned, regardless of your ratio.

The HNR rules in most trackers require you to seed every torrent you download up to a certain ratio or for a certain time (whichever one comes first) before you can stop it.
Here are a few tips that will help you avoid HNR's:

• Decide from where to download - The computer from which you download the torrent should have a persistent connection to the Internet. While the best solution is a seedbox, there is no reason not to use your home computer as long as the Internet connection is stable. The worst possible choice is a laptop.
• Decide when to download - Sometimes you know it's possible that you will have problems keeping your torrent running (e.g. There is a storm in your area and power outages are likely). In these cases, better keep your download to later times.
• Decide which torrents to download - Downloading torrents with zero or very few leeches is a bad idea, first because they will damage your ratio, but also because you will probably not be able to seed them back to the required ratio and therefore you will have to keep them running for the maximum time (according to the site's rules). Only download these if you believe you will not have any problem keeping the torrent running for a long time.

THINGS TO AVOID:

• Cheat - Cheating means using software that reports fake amounts of uploaded data to the tracker, thus unfairly increasing your ratio. CHEATING IS THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO. EVER. If you get caught cheating, you will be immediately banned without warning and with no questions asked. And every cheater gets caught eventually.
• Invite a cheater - When a user gets caught cheating, in most trackers, this will also have implications for the user who invited him/her to the tracker. This can range from giving you a warning, through permanently revoking your invite permission, to completely banning you (depending on the specific tracker).
• Share your account with others - The use of a single account by more than a single person will get your account banned.
• Create multiple accounts for yourself (i.e. inviting yourself) - Doing so will get both your accounts banned.

HOW TO AVOID FALSE SHARED ACCOUNT DETECTIONS:

• Do not download the same torrent twice - If for some reason you lost the content and need it again, try getting it elsewhere or get the tracker's admins' permission before redownloading.
• Create only one account per household - Do not create different accounts for family members living with you, as this will be detected as having multiple accounts.
• Do not browse the tracker's website from two different locations simultaneously - If unfortunately you had to give access to your account to someone else (e.g. a family member who lives with you) and you need to access your account away from home, better call and verify that you are the only one currently accessing it. By the way, while browsing the tracker's website from two different locations simultaneously is forbidden, most trackers allow you to seed torrents from two machines simultaneously (still you'd better the site's rules).

Am I right that I have seen this somewhere else before? Read the rules!!! If it is add a source. Since I can't proof it at the moment you won't receive a infraction for this, but if I find out that is and you haven't added a source yet you will one.

*Greetings, Elonoir.*

Originally Posted by Elonoir

Am I right that I have seen this somewhere else before? Read the rules!!! If it is add a source. Since I can't proof it at the moment you won't receive a infraction for this, but if I find out that is and you haven't added a source yet you will one.

*Greetings, Elonoir.*

The only reference I can think of is a tutorial called "Yorien's newbie survival guide" that was in TL's forums. Unfortunately it has been deleted at least several months ago (I don't know the reason) so I cannot give a link. I did get SOME tips from there. However many of the tips are my own and the actual tutorial is 100% my own work.

Originally Posted by Elonoir

Am I right that I have seen this somewhere else before? Read the rules!!! If it is add a source. Since I can't proof it at the moment you won't receive a infraction for this, but if I find out that is and you haven't added a source yet you will one.

*Greetings, Elonoir.*

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If qpow2 finds this in an external forum other than here, is he still in breech of the TI polcies?? Elonoir.

Opow2 for me this was very informative m8, Some i new already, and some new. This was what i had requested when joining up with Torrebtleech for the first time and no one could help!!
good on dude!