Does going No-Ratio really help peer activity?

I was just wondering, does going no ratio really work, not just in theory? Almost every site that I've seen that went no ratio seems to have been LOSING peers. Just look at SceneRace or the site Scene"live" (not the original ScL). They have both reverted back to ratio systems after "excessive hit'n'runs". Wait a second - weren't minimum seed times introduced to DECREASE hit'n'runs? :blink: On GFT, another popular tracker, although I have to agree that they have some great pretimes, and that the speeds on their 0day torrents definitely can max out connections with the numerous seedboxes on the site, even the staff have admitted that the tracker is more 0day oriented - and isn't as effective in archives or older content. PTM seems to have done something right - they have a decent amount of peers - but is it really a lot compared to how many total users they have? And even if it is - it isn't technically "no ratio" as you can seed to .6/.75 (forgot which one) and then just leave the torrent. This doesn't really "keep" in the spirit of using a no ratio system as an means of preventing hit'n'runs, as you can just leave the torrent soon after. I can't really comment on FTN, the original pioneer of the "ratio free system", as I don't have any experience with it, but from the screens I've seen there seemed to be many 1 seeder 0 leecher torrents as well. There's also the "curse" of no-ratio music sites as well. Almost every single no ratio music site (with the exception of SQN and CE, which are very new and could very well fail later) has managed to collapse. What.cd and waffles, two of the most successful music trackers, have flourished with activity even though it is one of the hardest sites to seed at.

Then there's the problem of limiting upload as well. Anyone can survive on these sites with little to no upload at all, as long as they seed. What's to stop someone from limiting all their torrents to 1kbps upload while they use their upload bandwidth at the ratio sites they have? How do you prevent this from putting a screeching halt on activity as torrents end up becoming slower and slower?

One possible explanation is lack of users. Most no ratio sites these days seem to lack the users necessary to really generate activity. Although some of the bigger name sites, such as GFT or FTN, seem to be lacking activity on older or unknown torrents as well, but in all respects still have small userbases as well.

Could a no ratio site with a larger userbase truly work, and hold its own against some of the more known ratio sites?

It really depends on the users and staff. Most new ratio-free trackers seem to close down or have minimal activity.

Already established no ratio trackers are doing fine I believe, you shouldn't have a problem finding seeds or maxing out your line with mainstream releases. Yes there may be those 1-2 seeds off the beaten path torrents...but compared to say ScT's 5-7, there's hardly a difference.

Although one thing that I have noticed that's different between "1 seeder" torrents on no ratio sites and "5-7" seeder torrents on say ScT or any other 0 day site, is that on no ratio sites the seedboxes seem to drop off in a matter of days. No one wants to waste precious seedbox bandwidth on sites that don't have ratio, while on ScT more seedbox users would be likely to stay on the torrent. So after a couple of days, no ratio torrents turn into beaten path torrents with 1-2 home seeders, while ScT's torrents turn into beaten path torrents with 5-7 seedboxes.

FTN almost doubled the number of peers when it went ratio-free. Today the peer count is even higher.

I can't comment on the other non ratio sites you mentioned in your OP because I'm not a member.

Wow! That's interesting to hear :blink:

I guess another point maybe I should make is how is retention? Not just peer activity on recent torrents. Can FTN claim to manage a steady stream of seeders (instead of one seeder ghost towns) on older torrents?

I have heard that recently they switched to no required seedtime at all. Has that hurt/benefited peer activity at all?

Off topic: Why is it "benefited" and not "benefitted"?

ratio free sites generally succeed or phail depending on the community/userbase they have, and the kind of content they strive to have.

FTN has popular torrents seeded rather well, but unpopular torrents do lack peers or, are dead. Its a fact most ratio free sites have to live with.Loyal members who value their membership, and really want to do something for the community, seed for longer durations.
Members who are genuinely interested in content download what they 'actually need' and find interesting. ofc..the stuff someone grabs out of his own interest is gonna stay seeded for a longer duration.

Ratio free trackers eliminate the need to buffer accounts up (for the purpose of sustenance) by grabbing unwanted stuff which gets removed off Seedbox HDDs in a matter of hours.
Loyalty of members towards a tracker is one of the most important points to be considered while discussing ratio free trackers. It made a lot of difference between survival and phailure of ITN. (The dead polish 0day ratio free tracker)

One of the reasons FTN has scrapped minimum seed time rule is that the staffers felt they could trust their members enough to avoid HnRs. It certainly went a long way in increasing the number of peers. (quite logical, isn't it?)
i would prefer to grab stuff off some site which offers good speeds, is ratiofree with no seed time restrictions to a site which has strict 3 day seeding period and ratio system (or no ratio system for that matter) in effect.


Moving on..No ratio music sites may serve as secondary options for mainstream music enthusiasts. People would actually prefer to grab Britney (lol), LP, Metallica and other mainstream stuff off these sites rather than 'waste' buffer on what and waffles, as they are ridiculously difficult to seed on.

Another very old and established tracker comes to my mind that went all freeleech about a year ago and they're doing better than ever.

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

Another very old and established tracker comes to my mind that went all freeleech about a year ago and they're doing better than ever.

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+1 :happy:

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Originally Posted by n00bz0r

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Originally Posted by polarbear

another very old and established tracker comes to my mind that went all freeleech about a year ago and they're doing better than ever.

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+1 :happy:

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+2

Well seed-points and bonus-system is a good motivation to seed everything what you download forever. There are few examples of movie-trackers which prove it. 0day is 0day it's actauly in a moment. Browse.php saw something intresting - > download it. In fact most of people think only about huge ratio, awesome upload and great bufer on 0day trackers. So they don't care about content. There are few words like 'pre-times', 'good speeds' are typical shit.
Great community + good bonus system is a way to not have 0seeds on any torrent IMHO.