Thread: Review Suggestions

Thread titles that need some touching up...

Needs a space right after the first pipe:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...ne-2010-a.html

E-Learning should be eLearning:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...ng-2009-a.html

hd should be HD (check case of other parts of the title):
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...hd-2010-a.html

Nickname might deserve some abbreviation:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...hd-2010-a.html

I fixed all of those titles. Thanks s2cuts!

I'm not so sure AniRena should be apart of that list since it's a public tracker. UK-T is also closed down so that should probably go as well.

Here are the reviews:

http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...ns-2007-a.html

http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...ne-2007-a.html

These thread titles need touchups.

Missing a year:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...hd-2010-a.html

Needs a space before the second pipe, AND e-Learning needs to be eLearning.
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...tml#post476282

Needs a space after the second pipe:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...tv-2010-a.html

Category should be Adult:
PinkyTorrents | PTs | Porn | 2010

Following week edit:

Needs spaces:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...es-2010-a.html

MUSIC should be Music:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...ic-2010-a.html

The week after that edit:

Title should look like this "Piranha Exchange Community | PEC | Sports | 2010":
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...community.html

There should be a space before the second pipe:
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...sc-2010-a.html

Needs a space after the second pipe, and a space after the third pipe, and 2005 should be 2010. You might want to just delete this one all together as it doesn't follow the review template, and there is a review for TL done in 2009 with all sorts of useful discussion about the tracker.
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...al-2005-a.html


Mod Edit: Done. Thanks again! ~Vegas

I use this great source to quickly review a tracker before I study it in more depth.

What Trackers Offer / What Trackers are Worth - FileSharing Talk

I checked some stats (torrents/members) to the current ones and the list has at least a 25% error margin relative to Jan 2010 values, but at least it gives a good comparative reference and can narrow down the actual reviews one has to go through. I am not sure if something like this can be created here as part of the tracker review section so we can update it regularly

I would personally like to see posting the stats as a requirement for a proper review and included in the template

I'm glad you brought that up. That thread was extremely helpful to me when I first entered the private tracker world. Now that the review section has been cleaned up, I think it's time for a T-I equivelant. Plus, the last time I looked it had close to 2 million hits.

Is anyone up to creating a tracker rarity list? Keep in mind we have almost 300 reviews and it will need to be updated constantly. I think a 10 point scale wil lead to inaccuracies based on monthly fluctuations and personal opinions. A 5 point scale will serve the same purpose and be easier to maintain with less disagreements (5 being the rarest).

So who's up to the challenge?

Originally Posted by Vegas

Is anyone up to creating a tracker rarity list? Keep in mind we have almost 300 reviews and it will need to be updated constantly. I think a 10 point scale will lead to inaccuracies based on monthly fluctuations and personal opinions. A 5 point scale will serve the same purpose and be easier to maintain with less disagreements (5 being the rarest).

So who's up to the challenge?

I agree a 5 star rating is much more useful and create less mindless competition for trackers while still give an accurate feeling of value and exclusivity (much like hotels ratings)

I think if this will be a collective effort the result might be awesome. My approach would be to separate the data mining and gathering process from the data processing and synthesis.

Since the review process is already being streamlined and standardized we can start there by asking reviewers to basically take responsibility for the data they post. A reward system that will extend the one currently in place (that reward the poster of the review) to something like one point for each stats update can be made. Limiting how often the updates can be made to say once week will keep spammers away and might ensure an accurate and constantly updated review section. The updates can be carried out by lower rank members and newbies like me while high rank members can keep up the indexing like s2cuts does

Originally Posted by afacerea

I would personally like to see posting the stats as a requirement for a proper review and included in the template

Originally Posted by afacerea

I think if this will be a collective effort the result might be awesome. My approach would be to separate the data mining and gathering process from the data processing and synthesis.

Since the review process is already being streamlined and standardized we can start there by asking reviewers to basically take responsibility for the data they post. A reward system that will extend the one currently in place (that reward the poster of the review) to something like one point for each stats update can be made. Limiting how often the updates can be made to say once week will keep spammers away and might ensure an accurate and constantly updated review section. The updates can be carried out by lower rank members and newbies like me while high rank members can keep up the indexing like s2cuts does

Yeah, we can do this. I personally feel adding these extra stats/attributes to the review threads is the way to go. What that would entail is something similar to what afacerea described. Let me flush out some of the details from a technical/process perspective.

We're currently putting some basic stats into the thread title, those being name, nickname, genre and year. If we want to add potentially a truckload of stats (torrents, seeders, leechers, etc.), we're going to have to put them in the tracker review thread body. Updates to these stats would have to be added as a new post in the tracker review thread. A template for 'stats update posts' would have to be developed, and users would just go to town adding stats updates to the review threads. It's worth noting that this would allow the review thread titles to only contain the tracker's name. From there, I can write the script to parse all the tracker reviews, and put together review indexes with whatever stats, by whatever order. In the biz we call it 'slicing and dicing'. The "Review Index" could potentially have 10 to 20 posts depending on how many different views of the reviews we want to see. We could also highlight tracker reviews in the index that are stale. For example, if a tracker review hasn't had it's stats updated in say one month, it would be italicized in the Review Index. There's lots of cool stuff that can be done once we have built a mechanism for gathering and updating a tracker's stats.

Now for the challenges:

- The script could potentially take close to an hour to run depending on how many threads have to be parsed and how quickly the TI server responds (currently it takes about a minute). And add to that the time it would take for a person to copy and paste the script results into the Review Index (not so bad as the index is only 4 posts long today, but if that grows to 10+...). This may or may not be an issue depending on who runs it (I'm looking at you Vegas, remember anyone can run the script).

- Simultaneous updating to 300+ reviews is bound to generate some formatting errors that might cause the script to misinterpret the stats. Some stuff I can identify programmatically, but other things only human eyes will be able to spot. Some mechanism to deal with that will have to be developed. I'm currently manually glancing over the current Review Index results and reporting roughly a handful of errors a week, which is not a big deal for me (not sure about Vegas). What might be the best solution here is for the script to highlight errors (those it can identify) with a chosen color say. Users who use the Review Index would then have the onus to make new updates where they found errors. The corrected update would get picked up on the next Review Index update. This would hopefully shift the burden of keeping the stats up to date and correct to the users.

- I can not see a mod giving out respect to each person who makes an update. Too many. What I can see is a rule being imposed where by the person making an update is responsible for tanking the previous updater if that previous update was correct.

- Lastly, stats such as 'rarity', 'popularity' or 'difficulty to seed' are subjective stats. How will they be determined? Who determines them? This needs some thought.

For the record, this would be a lot easier and neater to implement server side. A button similar to "Report Post" called "Update Stats" could bring up a form that would allow a user to submit stats directly to the database. Then the Review Index would be updated in real time. What we've been talking about above is really just a somewhat graceful kludge. Normally I believe in the survival of the fittest. If you don't know what your site needs, then you don't deserve it. In this case, however, I actually care about this community, so I'm willing to go the extra mile. If a site programmer who cares wants to consult, let me know.

Originally Posted by s2cuts

Yeah, we can do this. I personally feel adding these extra stats/attributes to the review threads is the way to go. What that would entail is something similar to what afacerea described. Let me flush out some of the details from a technical/process perspective.[...]
For the record, this would be a lot easier and neater to implement server side. A button similar to "Report Post" called "Update Stats" could bring up a form that would allow a user to submit stats directly to the database. Then the Review Index would be updated in real time. What we've been talking about above is really just a somewhat graceful kludge. Normally I believe in the survival of the fittest. If you don't know what your site needs, then you don't deserve it. In this case, however, I actually care about this community, so I'm willing to go the extra mile. If a site programmer who cares wants to consult, let me know.

I surely vote for server side + form based solution tot keep the errors to a minimum. I am sorry I am not much of a programmer to be of more technical help, just entry level. This why I come to rely on some outside sources such as Google Docs for higher level needs. Could Google Docs be a solution for the data gathering and updates? Template could be a form posted to a nice spreadsheet, script can read the data from Google, and 'slice and dice' it to the proper format here.

PS. I hope you guys get enough thanks for the kind of hard work you are doing here under the radar