[Poll]BitTorrentTrackers Staffers to be paid or not to be paid ?

[eldiesel]

Yes .Why ?
No .Why ?
List your thoughts and what will be the impact of paying staffers on the torrent communities .In my opinion being staff in a major tracker with thousands of members takes a lot of time and needs special set of skills so in someway staffing can be defined as a job . This idea came to my mind after what happened with SCT and PTP founders as they both stole the donation money so I looked into that from another way which is building a strong and a secure torrent website consumes a lot of time , effort , technical and non technical skills , so these guys deserved something in return ( not saying that I agree with building a site to steal donations and run away ) but suggesting that donations system should be changed to let members know that If they pay 10$ 4% of them will go as a salary for staffers and in return members should expect a high class level of staffers who can keep the community tight and come up with new creative ideas .
Let the debate begin.

PS : I am not a part of staff of any existing torrent tracker , though I was once a year ago .

[anon]

Some staffers are already accused of using donations for their own purposes without this "system". You can imagine the amount of negative feedback should this be implemented on almost any site.

[n00bz0r]

Salary for staffers?
Last time I checked, people (who eventually become staffers) get involved with sites coz they enjoy interacting (and helping peeps along the way) while feeding their piracy needs and taking time off their busy (or not?) RLs.

Being paid for a job facilitating piracy of copy righted material and eventually profiting from piracy is absurd. It'll create more problems than it'll solve. so, 'nuf said.

Hope common sense continues to prevail, for its an entity which is getting rarer by the day..

[IdolEyes787]

First you have to implement a structured pay hierarchy at a tracker.Lots of luck with that ."Hey how come Johnny gets more than I do just because he's x position when I do more work?" This isn't Dow chemical .You are basically dealing with kids here .Kids who btw haven't by their very involvement in such illegal activities probably don't have a clear concept of what is just or fair.
Then you are going to have to set what the ( donation) market will tolerate which most places is apparently next to zero anyway.
Then you are going to have to try to convince members why they suddenly need to pony up more money given that everyone involve managed to do the job perfectly well before without any remuneration.
I sympathize with staff as it no doubt can be at times a very difficult and time-consuming proposition but let's get serious here.

[ca_aok]

Some staffers are already accused of using donations for their own purposes without this "system". You can imagine the amount of negative feedback should this be implemented on almost any site.

Well in this system it'd be transparent at least. If I knew staff were being paid from my money, I'd still have the option of donating (or not). The difference is I'd know up front that not all of my money was going towards the site.

I think it'd be a terrible idea to accept payment as a staff member. Any leeway you'd have if you were ever taken to court would evaporate if you were seen as profiting off piracy.

[Rart]

While I most certainly think that certain staff, considering the amount of time they into the site (especially coders/IRC support), would deserve some sort of compensation (perhaps a la not-for-profit, just enough to cover the expenses of operation, in this case, the hours they spent) in reality it is simply impossible.

In an already sticky legal situation, lawyers and such will cling to anything they can find, no matter how small, in order to shut down a site and put one under bars. This is just one other thing (and in this case, it really isn't that small of an issue) that lawyers will use against you to better their case. It simply isn't feasible.

[Night0wl]

No

Being paid for a job facilitating piracy of copy righted material and eventually profiting from piracy is absurd. It'll create more problems than it'll solve. so, 'nuf said.

and

I think it'd be a terrible idea to accept payment as a staff member. Any leeway you'd have if you were ever taken to court would evaporate if you were seen as profiting off piracy.

[sez]

In order to address this topic thoroughly I think we need to start from the beginning.
To y'all who've been around long enough,when and from whom did you first hear of trackers/staffers selling leech slots and which trackers were doing it to be precise?

[Cabalo]

I would agree on that if we also started getting paid at FST, for dealing with pricks who think they are elite.

[deadalive1]

Salary for staffers?
Last time I checked, people (who eventually become staffers) get involved with sites coz they enjoy interacting (and helping peeps along the way) while feeding their piracy needs and taking time off their busy (or not?) RLs.

Being paid for a job facilitating piracy of copy righted material and eventually profiting from piracy is absurd. It'll create more problems than it'll solve. so, 'nuf said.

Hope common sense continues to prevail, for its an entity which is getting rarer by the day..

Well said, absolutely agree.