Partial Seeding, should it be practiced or unethical?

[tknaught]

Partial seeding is only a symptom of the real problem, which is the broken ratio system on many sites. Address that problem, and partial seeding will go away on its own.

well that is being discussed in the userclass thread now, but how would you fix it.

to me its like re-inventing the wheel, but making it so it still round.

In my opinion, BCG does not have a ratio problem or a partial seeding problem - at least I have never experienced one. Ratio is a problem at other sites, as users have to resort to tricks like partial seeding just to keep a good ratio. There are plenty of methods of fixing this: bonus systems that reward seeding files for a long time, things like BCG seedpoints, free leech on packs, etc. One of the main problems though is that some sites want all users to be > 1.0 ratio (and sometimes > 3.0 for higher classes) and that obviously doesn't work unless you have some sort of free leech mechanism or you have tons of people using pay2leech. There is no single solution to this problem, since there are clearly different goals for different sites (0day sites usually want highest possible speeds while dedicated archival sites want torrents to live a long time).

To be honest, I don't see partial seeding as a big problem anywhere, and I think this thread is over-exaggerating the problem. In fact, I don't think the OP did anything to back up his arguments that partial seeding is actually damaging trackers right now.

The only area where I think partial seeding is currently doing any harm is in tricking new users into jumping into huge pack torrents that look like they have a lot of leechers, however many sites warn new users against doing this, so it's really just weeding out people who don't read the FAQ when signing up.

[bblogs]

well that is being discussed in the userclass thread now, but how would you fix it.

to me its like re-inventing the wheel, but making it so it still round.

....I'm not quite sure how literally you were using that metaphor, but to me it sounds like you consider the system almost impossible to change without retaining the functionality of it.

Really the system can't be compared with the wheel because there are so many aspects to it, and I'm sure there are a lot of ways to improve it. Give me a list of factors and I'd venture to say that I could come up with something

[stoi]

Well you get rid of ratio for promotion.

you will find that torrents that may last months, because members are seeding it for their e-penis, or just to keep the 2 ratio for a higher class, wont seed it after 1, maybe for a few days but not for months and months.

so older torrents will die, a rather quick death i feel, maybe im wrong and members would keep them alive just for keeping them alive, but i have a feeling that would be a minority.

[Duckater]

A lot of trackers are trying diff things and I must admit I like stoi's way of doing things
I doubt we will use that idea as we know have our own established methods and established members that are happy
Every one has an over all ratio but we don't not use that for judging how good a member is or is not as we work on a ratio/seed time per torrent. We do run a warning script for low ratio and this after a while will disable downloads but it is more for the staff to help them to judge members. If a member is found to have a low ratio due to grabbing older torrents (especially mma) and have followed our seed rules we help them out to get rid of any actions taken by the scripts in place

[TP635]

Unethical? maybe, but over-seeding is even worst.

[jasperr]

Well you get rid of ratio for promotion.

you will find that torrents that may last months, because members are seeding it for their e-penis, or just to keep the 2 ratio for a higher class, wont seed it after 1, maybe for a few days but not for months and months.

so older torrents will die, a rather quick death i feel, maybe im wrong and members would keep them alive just for keeping them alive, but i have a feeling that would be a minority.

there lies the dellema with that..

[Jrunna21]

Unethical? maybe, but over-seeding is even worst.

Theres really nothing wrong with partial seeding in all honesty. Its a viable method to upload content. It allows people with slower connections to contribute what they can on private trackers. Bonus systems are nice but as long as people want the content then there isn't an issue. The same goes with "over-seeding". Its all about supply and demand for content. As long as there is someone who wants what you have and you are willing to share than so be it. Everyone does what they can, thats why its a community.