JustJenna

Read a great post from a member on how best to get along here as a new guy and he makes some great points. Have a read:

Originally Posted by Duv

Not sure where to post this, but I figured here might be as good as any (Wasn't sure about what to put as a title either).

Before I joined TI, I had only been using public trackers such as TPB. I had long been looking for an invite to demonoid, and I actually thought that demonoid was the sole private tracker out there. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

Two months later, I have learned a lot. I thought maybe new members who are in a similar situation as I was could benefit from my experiences.

1) First of all, read the FAQ for the intro section thoroughly, and do not do anything stupid such as lying in your introduction about which trackers you belong to. Because even if you think it might be a good idea to slightly “modify the truth” a bit in your introduction, so to improve your chances of being accepted, by all likeliness the effect will be the opposite. As the intro moderators sense that there is something wrong with your introduction, your path to entering this wonderful world of goodies will be considerably harder (as well as a lot longer).

2) When you have submitted your introduction, and you are waiting for a reply, you’ll be excited and you will start browsing the forum. Perhaps you will stumble your way into the invite-giveaway section and have a look around. Now as you’ve read the rules thoroughly and know that you should wait until you’ve been repped in before you make a post, you discover that there is a way around it: Perhaps if you send a private message to the person giving out invites, maybe he’ll just give one to you, under-the-counter so to say. While this might seem like a good plan, it is very likely to fail. The most likely scenario is that the person whom you PM’ed asking for the invite, is going to report the incidence, and you’ll get warned, prolong your introduction process, or worse. It’s not a good idea (Luring some member into joining in mischief is not going to work, you will be reported, and find yourself in a ton of trouble). And hence, you should always read the different rules (shown as a sticky) for each sub-forum, and most importantly: follow them. Or else you’re very likely to run into problems. The saying: “Rules are made to broken”, is definitely something you should leave behind when entering TI, as the rules seems to be enforced strictly, and consequences may be dire.

3) Now, you been repped in and you’re going to ask for an invite. You should read the sticky explaining the rules of the process, and in addition it might be a good idea just to browse about the section a bit, looking at how the process works → Just check out a few giveaways and see how people post on the thread back and forward, that way you’ll catch the etiquette how invites are given away and received pretty quickly, and you’ll avoid embarrassing yourself, or even worse offending someone.


4) You have now gotten your first invite. Now activate it. Read the rules thoroughly for the given tracker, as rules may differ quite substantially from the general impression that you have made up from browsing TI, or from other influences. And, for sure, the environment of your new private tracker will be different from any public tracker, and so are the expectations to you as a member. If you stumble into any problems, or better yet, before you stumble into any problems because there is something that you do not understand completely, do a search on the TI forums. Most likely someone has already been in a similar position before you, and you’ll find the solution in an already made and resolved thread. If not, there are two alternatives: Either you make a new thread, or you join the TI irc channel. What I chose to do in this situation was that I joined the irc channel. And I’m happy that I did that, because there (to my surprise?) I found plenty of active people who were enthusiastic of helping me, and my issues were resolved (But I’m positive that asking on the forum would have yielded similar results). Given, depending on your questions, you might get some laughs (or lol’s), but it’s all in good fun, and you’ll get plenty of help to solve your problems (or advice on how to avoid potential problems that you fear).

5) As you’ve by this point starting using your new tracker, you might want to enter some more, and ask for multiple new invites. It might not be a good idea. My first invite was to demonoid. And I spent about a month after that familiarizing myself with both the concept of a tracker where your upload and download is noted, and also sort of how the community works. It’s a given, demonoid might not be the highest appreciated tracker, most, if not all private tracker users wouldn’t even regard it as a private tracker. But as a stepping stone between frank public and frank private trackers I found it very valuable.

6) Now, time has come to get an invite to another tracker. I was lucky to get an invite to IPT. Which is an excellent general tracker. I was ecstatic: I was able to max my download speed consistently. The only problem that I realized after a bit was that even though my upload was also maxed, it was far from enough to be able to maintain the needed ratio. I was in a situation that required a lot of work to resolve – or maybe not. I had seen people talking about seedboxes, and how they were so amazing. I read up on it, and I rented a seedbox for a month, and all my ratio issues were resolved. Now, there are also ways to get out of this situation without renting a seedbox; you’ll find plenty advice on that if you just browse and search around the forum a bit; there is a lot of knowledge there ready to be collected. I think the bottom line is that it is far much easier to keep a good ratio from the beginning off, contrary to fixing a broken ratio (unless you get a seedbox).

7) Now, after we’re up to the current date. About two days ago I was fortunate enough to get an invite to a movie tracker called PTP from another member. And it seems like a great tracker: Searching movies by title, instead of having to browse tons of individual torrents with hieroglyph-type names, that was a revelation to me.

The bottom line is: You have come to a wonderful site, there’s a lot of opportunities.
But, be patient, not all of them will presented to you straight away, you need to be patient: You need to show the community that you are able and willing to follow the rules set down (but first of all you need to learn them).
Most importantly you should find it entertaining and have fun. There are very many exceptional people in this community, take this opportunity and interact with them.

I hope at least some new members will benefit from my experiences and observations, or at least that some of the more senior members will get some good (or at least mediocre) laughs from it.