should tracker staff get paid?

[buggyfresh]

No. Torrenting is about sharing things fo free..only reason money is involved is that the internet isn't freee. Ppl who want to staff should do that in the same spirit volunteeers for soup kitchens work..out of a passion love or need to help, not for benefit..and hey I'm sure they beneffit from the tracker being alive via downloads anyway!

[stoi]

OK everyone says you cant profit from P2P, fair enough, I agree with you even though some out there will say i do not.

But lets look at this realistically.

People pay the scene for scene access, they donate servers and bw for scene access, they would sell their wife to a scene member for scene access if they could.

Now i have nothing against the scene at all, but the fact is the above still happens.

usenet companies must be making a pretty penny, Rapidshare must as well.

If torrent sites even look like they are making cash, all hell breaks loose and there is hell on, I just dont understand it.

I have even tried taken donations off altogether for a month and just having ads, it did not work at all. Then i had donations no ads and no benefits and that did not work either.

We do not ask you to pay anything, if you wish to donate great, but without some bonuses involved, no one donates, i should know i tried it. and when the media comes out with "he was making £30,000 a month" i just laugh, and think yeah right, if that site was making that, then i am doing something very very wrong (not that i even want to make a fraction of that).

and then you have the argument of, well that site has 1000 members, the site with 50,000 members must be making a fortune, but most members of private trackers are members of others as well, they cant donate to them all every month.

this is just from my personal experience you understand, some other trackers may very well be pulling in the numbers i quoted, and if they are good luck to them, if they went down tomorrow, yous would be the first to cry about it (look at oink if he really was making that much).

Honestly all this holier than vow attitude pisses me off sometimes, if you dont want to donate, dont donate (no tracker forces you), if you think a tracker is making a fortune and you dont agree with it, delete your account, just dont presume that member numbers mean the tracker in question is raking in a fortune, because it does not work that way.

[Brandon]

Unlike trackers like FTN where they get double the amount of donations EVERY month. The amount of donations FTN gets is fuking crazy and this is not just once of twice it happens nearly every single month.

Brandon you cunt.

1) The current server bills are fairly low because they use a pretty weak server. Also they plan on upgrading the servers soon, because the current one is inadequate for desired growth.
2) The donation bar just increased this month to account for the future plans of a new server and it hit a little over 10% beyond what is needed. No more doubling I guess.
3) Maybe the fact that FTN receives more in donations is simply a positive reflection on how great the site is and how the small but active group of members really think the site is worth their support.
4) Brandon is the man. We all <3 him.

Oh hai guys, I iz new here, can I haz some wub?

FTN has a lot of amazing members who support us every step of the way. But you have to keep in mind, our donation costs were only $200 for a long time (which is why they doubled so easily), and I did pay for some of that for a while because I'm not the type of person who likes to ask for things, especially money. Truth be told, I paid a portion of FTN's bill for most of the first year we were up, as did our third original sysop.

Most of these sites pay in some way or shape to get their releases. FTN does not. That cuts quite a bit of our costs, which is really something that's allowed us to pursue our moral goals and more freely pursue our ideas (or experiments).

Our costs have gone up the past month in order for me to continue to add value to the site, and none of our donations have ever entered my pocket or any other ftn staff's pocket. I started my torrent activity back when it first began. The general idea at that time was to bring a piece of the scene to the general population, and rebel against what I always considered overly inflated prices. For me it's always been about the appreciation and sense of personal accomplishment. That and the fact that I love my staff to death and would miss the hell out of them.

Having said that though, I think it's really a hard issue to agree on. I can see the argument on both sides, and unless you really enjoy what you're doing.. Then of course you're going to want some type of compensation for doing it (profit).

PS: Hai ftnftw

[Funkin']

Honestly, I don't think it's possible for me to care any less if they get paid or not. It's not going to affect my leeching.

But besides, as someone else mentioned, they're all volunteers. Now, if a greedy admin just has to pocket the left overs after every months donations instead of sinking back into tracker for future costs, upgrades, and the like, then that money should be put aside incase any of the staff members get into trouble(like Stoi tried to do with his staff).

[bammers]

The big uploaders at these sites are paying for their seedboxes, the admins are paying for their hosting and by offering there freetime. it all kinda evens out at the end....

[saulin]

It's hobby dude. You can't just get paid for it. People choose to be mods at message boards and trackers on their own and also you can't depend just on donations to keep a site running. I do believe that if there is danger of a really good tracker going down because of server costs for example. Donations should be given to support the site. But like I said this is a hobby not a job.

[JROQuinn]

who gives a shit!?!! If you dont like the fact that someone is making a profit from the site then get your own site & make it super 1337. All in all, you're just jealous that you aint making the cabbage

I have a job, thats how I get my money & I dotn give a shit how you make yours as long as it doesnt involve a truly criminal action like selling crack to kids, etc. So again I dont care if a tracker makes $10,000 profit, I congratulate them.

[users]

well, tl and sct sucks, why would you sell invites and offer pay-to-leech.....profit.

[ben99]

hmm, 4818 out of 2000 dollars for SCT, and the money goes to the server fund...hmm yeah right. Feeling must be making a good amount of money each month...

[Green Goblin]

depends on how much the tracker is making in donations if they make a shitload of money sure hand it out.