Does dl free (freeleech grr) significantly improve peers on trackers?

As most people know, i hate freeleech, i think its more the actual term freeleech than anything else in all honesty, so from now on lets call it DL free (just to satisfy me lol).

I am not a member of any other tracker, and we have never had dl free periods before on BCG, i have never experienced DL free apart from on public trackers lol

So im just wondering if trackers that have DL free periods (as long as its not on everything, and all the time, but sparse ones) significantly increase the peers on a tracker (downloaders/seeders) or does it just not have any effect at all in downloading habbits.

and i am talking DL free even though you still have to seed back to 1 either with uploading, or seeding time (our SP system, and the like), Not total freeleech where you can hit and run everything you download, just your download does not get added to your global ratio for the period of the dl free.

as you can tell i have lived in a cave for 5 years lol but im just curious as to whether it does/does not have a dramatic effect.

I'd say it does improve peerage. I'll tell you about some DL Free systems I've experienced in my torrenting since you've been in that murky cave all this time. :)

There's global DL Free, where download amount, or ratio altogether, is disregarded. It's kind of progressive, and is now being used in a few different trackers. I doubt you want this, as it is hard to do on a tracker with a large amount of users.

There's DL free period. This is where all torrents on the tracker become DL Free. This will of course increase peerage; people will not be afraid to damage their ratios. People will also want to stay on the torrent longer to get the most upload they can, since they know the torrent will be popular. Yes, there will be overseeding and potential hit'n'runs, but with your great SP system, the smarter and arguably more desirable user on your tracker will be able to get a 1:1 ratio.

And then there's DL free torrents. Specific torrents can be designated as DL free (packs, for example). It has the same phenomenon as DL free period, but in a much more controlled way.

Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to tell you that DL free can be good. I think it'd work well on BCG, but it's up to you to choose what you'd like to do, of course. :)

definitely, it brings more activity.

i think you get a lot more hnr with uncounted download which i guess is why some sites have double upload to entice people to seed much longer, although a lot do just out of goodwill.

well if we do, do this, and its a very big if. those that hit and run will find themselves in KL before the DL free period is over, so i dont think we need to worry about that.

Dl free all the time has been discussed, i brought it up just before or it may have been just after a well known 0 day tracker brought it in last year, lets just say other staff hated the idea, and they still do, so i do not think we will be going down that avenue any time soon.

DL on everything for a certain period, will be how we do it, if we do it.

we have just put the packs on the tracker, so that is a possibility in the future.

I think the problem with us is, we are a very specialized tracker, most members have what they want, there is not a lot of new games coming out for anything these days (xmas it will pick up) we have an average of 10 seeders per torrent 6000+ torrents, 60,000 seeders. (I know it does not exactly work like that but it sounds good lol) but only .5 leechers per torrent, 6000 torrents, 3000+ leechers.

but are the lack of leechers because.

Ratio and promotions/demotions (scared to download) in which case this will help.

Nothing new coming out, so no one wants anything (this wont help)

Our downloads are that fast, even a year old torrent you can get at over 1MBs, that leechers are just not leechers for long on the torrents. (if its this it wont greatly improve leechers, but it will improve seeders).

so its a quandry lol

I think that it helps by increasing the activity at a tracker. Also, people will seed their torrents longer in order to increase their upload amount. Hence, everyone is happier. Though, some hnrs are inevitable but we have to look at the bigger picture which is more activity and more peers in the tracker! :)

I think the increase in peerage during a free dl period is most significant in the older torrents myself, as it gives people a chance to grab stuff that they feel would hurt their ratio under normal conditions. At the same time, it allows the people that sit there seeding torrents for long periods of time due to being unable to seed back, because of the age and hidden nature of old torrents, a chance to hit 1 to 1 on those torrents.
All in all, I consider free dl to be an asset to a trackers activity, as long as it is distributed sanely, and is in line with the tracker itself.
I'm not sure what kind of activity the older torrents on your site have, but I do know that alot of "dedicated" trackers end up having to do free dl periods just to get a shuffle of who is seeding older torrents and to promote at least attention to the back end of the torrent index, if you get what I'm saying. I am of the opinion that the majority of users on most sites rarely look through the back end of the index, because they know that they will have to seed for a lot longer than they might like. Compounded with the buffering addiction that a lot of newer users have, it leaves the old stuff neglected except for those periods of free dl.
At the end of the day, I guess it would have to come down to how active the back end is, on a normal basis, regarding whether free dl would be beneficial to your site.

Well on the last 65 torrents on browse (i have it set to 100 per page) we have 12 leechers, so its not great, but its not bad either.

But like i said previously, i dl a crappy PC game the other month (for my wife and daughter), it was on the back end of browse and i got over 1MBs on the thing, so thats over 16 months ago it was uploaded originally. and it took me 15 minutes to download.

I do know not every torrent on the tracker will be like that though, but if most are, then that may be the reason for lack of leechers, they just get the games so bloody fast, its a false positive type thing.

we are still very much undecided whether to go for this or not in all honesty, hence this post, and the poll on our front page and thread in our forums.

we will see!

Are those leechers leeching, or partial seeding? It seems to me that those speeds may be a direct result of good members in all honesty.
On a lot of sites, you may see a bunch of seeders, but all of them have their upload speed capped at like 2kBs, especially on sites with any kind of seeding bonus implemented.

I think yes, but the effect of DL free is much stronger on small trackers (ScL had one and there were more peers on torrents). For me BCG has great system and I thing there is no need for change (if I want some old game SP points will help me achive 1:1, DL free would incrase activity on new and popular torrents). Of course it could be good thing for actual ratio. Maybe for packs only. There a lot of great sites that never had DL free, KG for example.

Every single one of them is leeching, and yes i have just went and checked on them all lol

its against the rules on BCG to partial seed, unless its a pack.

just to add for your edit, everyone is downloading at over 20KBs, some are downloading at over 200KBs