Thread: TheOccult (TO) Review

Table of Contents:

1.) Introduction
2.) Screenshots
3.) Detailed Statistics
4.) Further Detailed Information



1.) Introduction

TheOccult.bz, as the name implies, is a specialty tracker that deals with occult, esoteric, mystical, and other similar topics. View the screenshot of the search bar for a complete idea of the categories.

Some topics are not allowed, such as aliens, conspiracies, scientology, self-help & lifestyle (ThePlace.bz deals with this), and general math and science that doesn't deal with "occult" issues. This can cause some confusion, as the line between what is, and what isn't occult can be blurry, and different moderators seem to have varying opinions when it comes to the more blurry topics.

Overall, this tracker is a very good one -- perhaps the only real one -- if you are into these sort of topics. It is fast growing, and new, having begun in Jan, 2009. If it continues on this track, it will become more and more of a one stop shop for occult-type topics. This indeed is the goal of the admins, as has been stated by some of them in the forums there.


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2.) Screenshots


Banner



Search/Categories



Cloud Search




Forum






Requests




All Torrents Sorted by Leechers Desc.




Ratio/User Levels




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3.) Detailed Statistics


- General Torrent Statistics

Current Total Torrents - 14,226 (update, Feb-2011 - 22,000+ torrents)
Total Number of Torrents Uploaded - 18393 (deleted due to dupes, etc)
Most Heavily Downloaded Torrent - 1220 times

Torrent With Most # of Seeders - 59 seeders as of now
Most Number of Leechers - 21 as of now
Number of Torrents With No Seeders - 1877

Number of Requests - 188
Average Number of Requests Per Day in recent months - 3.9/day

Registered Users - 23,022
Male Users - 19,788
Female Users - 3,222

Total Upload - 253.42 TB
Total Download - 177.90 TB
Total Speed - 11.07 MB/s

New Torrents Today - 17

Growth Rate of TheOccult.bz, from start to current date
(Numbers include deleted torrents, so the chart is relative/comparative. To get the number of approximate real torrents at any point, divide the number of the graph by 1.3)





Torrent Statistics by Category (rounded)

African Traditional Religion - 100
Alchemy - 260
American Indian - 125
Astrology - 250
Buddhism - 1150
Chaos Magic - 150
Egyptology - 330
Enochian - 1200
Entheogens - 300
Esoteric Christianity - 500
Everything Else - 3340
Fourth Way - 110
Greek/Roman Mythology - 130
Grimoires - 180
Hinduism - 550
Lucid Dreams/Astral Projections - 200
Meditation - 1200
New Age - 700
Paranormal - 200
Parapsychology - 200
Philosophy - 550
Qabalah/Kabbalah - 250
Rajneesh - 240
Ritual Magic - 110
Rosicrucian - 200
Satanism/Left-Handed Path - 400
Shamanism - 200
Sufism - 130
Taoism - 440
Tarot - 200
Thelema - 200
Wicca - 250
Yoga/Tantra - 720


By Content Type/Format-- Approximate (some torrents may contain files witih more than one format, so there is some overlap & redundancy)


***By Format***

Note: Although good titling is encouraged and enforced, there may be many torrents that do not have proper format information in the title, so the statistics below are a minimum + estimate.

PDF - 7000
AVI - 1500
Divx - 40
MP3 - 2600
WMA - 60
FLAC - 300
MP4 - 200
VOB - 200
MPG/MPEG - 90
DVD - 1300


User & Community Statistics

- No user statistics found on site
- 14,131 total forums posts. 1704 topics



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4.) Further Detailed Information


Technical Details


- The speed of browsing the site varies, although overall it is pretty decent. Sometimes things get a bit bogged down, and you will wait awhile to navigate, download or upload torrents, etc.

Search option/parameters:

* Active, Including Inactive, Only Inactive, Exclusive, Free
* Keyword match: Fuzzy, matched, parsed, and simple.
* Search title only option
* Search cloud
* Search specific categories: Yes
* Disable search bar: Yes
* Search by content type: No

* Able to order search results in desc/asc order? -- Yes

* Order results in desc/asc by category, name, rating, # of files, # of comments, # of files, # of snatched, date uploaded, leechers, and seeders.









Ratio, Upload/Download, Invites and Activity Details

- See screenshot above for user levels
- Under 2.5 GB downloaded does not have to worry about ratio. If you have between 2.5-5 GB, the minimum ratio is .1. The minimum ratio increases by .1 every 5 GB.


- Can anyone upload/requirements to be an uploader? -- Yes/no

- NFO file required? No - only power users or above can see the NFO files

- If you go below the minimum, you get 28 days to fix it
- As with most private torrents, people with a low ratio are more likely to be pruned for inactivity.

- No collections including more than a single product. One torrent, one product. Multiple parts in one torrent are allowed.

- No limit to active seeding torrents, unlike other trackers like bitme

- 1 invite given when promoted to neophyte/power user

- At ANY user level, if you have downloaded more than 10 GB, and have a ratio of 1.05 or higher, you will get 2 invites the first time you achieve this, and 2 more every 20 days (unless invites are closed, of course)

- No bonus system given, such as points for seeding torrents, for example.

- Like TheVault, they seem to be getting a decent groupbuy system going

- Being promoted to neophyte/power user allows you to make requests.


Easiness/difficulty of uploading

- If you have a fast seedbox, jumping on new torrents and getting some upload is generally pretty easy.

- If you have a collection of your own, you will probably have a lot of stuff that you can upload. Searching around the internet for good content from other sources to upload can yield some good results.

Unlike trackers like TV or movie forums, where a good tracker will have just about everything that is easy to find, trackers such as this one are easy to go out and search other sources for good books, media, etc and upload it. Unlike popular TV shows and movies, there is hardly any practical. shortage of material out there to find.

The goal of admins of this tracker is to become a "one-stop-shop" for occult topics, so they encourage uploading materials that are easy to find elsewhere, including materials that you can freely download.


- Based on observing all of the torrents I have uploaded, having a seedbox definitely gives you an advantage. I.e. many members here have seedboxes, but many don't, so you will have a big [i]comparative[/b] advantage over many other members, unlike a site where most people have seedboxes -- so you are at the same level as everyone else. Especially given that it's not really a necessity to survive here -- many people do not have them.

- I find that when it comes to a theme like this, many people including myself, like to collect any materials that seem a bit interesting. Unlike other trackers, where people might tend to be interested only in very specific items... the community here is such is that if you upload any semi-decent content, there will be some people who are interested in it. So if you're willing to search around the internet to bring new content to this tracker, building up an upload buffer is very doable.



Donation Info

- 5 Euros for 3 GB
- 10 Euros for 10 GB
- 20 Euros for 25 GB + Star
- 50 Euros for 70 GB + Star
- 100 Euros for 150 GB + Star

* Having a star makes you immune to auto-pruning.



Staff


- Based on my experience, many of the admins seem to be pretty easy going, and will take the time to respond to you.
- From reading through the request to upload forum, the moderator who does most of the sorting there seems to have a pretty rigid view of what is considered occult, and what is not.


Forums & Community

- Although the size of the forums of private trackers are going to be much smaller than a site whose primary purpose is a forum community, the forums do live up to the site name, as far as the types of discussions. You will be able to get a wide range of discussion that you will not be able to find on any tracker -- even if on a forum like this, you get a few replies a week.... as opposed to a few replies per hour on a big forum.


- IRC channels have a lot of idlers all the times I've been in them. I haven't frequented them enough to know if they are very active at certain times. There are no automated benefits to participating/idling, although there are always the usual potential social benefits


My Other Comments


This is definitely a very unique tracker, and is currently very good, with the potential to grow into something very great. Due to the nature of this topic, since most members take a great personal interest in the content, there is a lot of potential for it to grow very fast, and very big.

Unlike many trackers where the main motivation is to upload so that you can download, many people in this type of community enjoy sharing. Maybe it is because people who have an interest in this type of content are interested in the material on a deeper level, so they have more passion and energy whenit comes to putting the work into sharing materials that are meaningful to them.



Hopefully there will be many more members to join, that have such a mentality.

I've been having a hard time finding material on taoism and meditation. Many thanks for this.

yes, great tracker loaded with content. and with exclusiv uploads.

I am interested in Occult in general. Thank you so much for this information. I was wondering if something like this existed.

great site... with some rarest of rare stuffs... not for collectors though! They want members who are passionate about the topic.

Originally Posted by chrisdino

great site... with some rarest of rare stuffs... not for collectors though! They want members who are passionate about the topic.

Yea, that's the nice thing about this topic -- youre not going to get many people who join who arent into it.

Well... There are always.. who does! The site is pretty active! And great speeds.
Quality is good! This is some tracker where you got lots of exclusives! And they are particular about it! I just love it!

Thank you for the posting this. I frequent a huge wiki style site dedicated to the topics listed on this reviewed site. This will quickly replace that, I'm sure. Thank you for this gem. Sadly, invites only now. =/

Originally Posted by seedeternal

Thank you for the posting this. I frequent a huge wiki style site dedicated to the topics listed on this reviewed site. This will quickly replace that, I'm sure. Thank you for this gem. Sadly, invites only now. =/

Would you pm me the url of the site you are referring to. Also, you should be able to find an invite here for theoccult. Ive said it time and time again... If you're into this niche.... This place is AWESOME!