as most of you probably know, most tracker staff spend a lot of their free time with hard work for their sites.
should a part of the donations be used to pay them?
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as most of you probably know, most tracker staff spend a lot of their free time with hard work for their sites.
should a part of the donations be used to pay them?
and what about uploaders keeping the site alive?
and people being active on IRC and forums keeping the community alive?
should we all get paid? don't think so otherwise it would be ever simpler to sue a tracker :(
all donations should first go to server cost and keeping the site running. if there is anything left over after a month then maybe but it would probably be smarter to keep that leftover money in case the next month doesnt go quite as well. bottom line is if you cant pay to keep the site running then there wont be any staff.
And whatever the pay would be it wouldnt be worth have a paper trail
from the tracker to you incase something would happen.
If there really is excess money, staff can get money.
I'm not talking about mods, I'm talking about SysOps and especially Coders
Running a large tracker can take a tons of times, almost as much or possibly more than a full time job
I wouldn't mind letting the two aforementioned groups get some of my donations
Of course they shouldn't get tons, this isn't a "get rich quick" scheme or a real job, and running a torrent site shouldn't be about profit, but just a small amount of money to award them for their hard work
Why not? Staff generally works hard..so it would be nice some cash for their time..
my exact thought :)Quote:
Originally Posted by aysomc
People running trackers should do it because they want to, not because they want to make money from it. Sure, the staff spends a lot of their free time on it, but if they don't enjoy it, they should step down imo. Their wish to help the development of the site should come from a genuine interest rather than seeing it as a job with a paycheck.
Like yayyyyyy said, uploaders, fls and some regular users also spends alot of their time and/or money trying to contribute.
Impossible to say where the line is on this one, that's the problem.
At what point do they stop taking a little pocket money for their efforts and start profiting from piracy?
Probably best that we all just keep doing it for the passion eh.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by aysomc
Brandon you cunt. :O
hahaha, nice post to Brandon )))
anyway, it is very simple ) should or not should - who cares.. there is natural balance.. everybody is doing what they can and getting what they want.. if staff is okay to work and being satisfied without any money - so no problem.. if not - okay, pay them money until your tracker goes bankrupt.. can't see no philosophy here, it's just a kind of business, and you have to find a balance for the business to stay alive.. not only money, of course...
anyway, what kind of remuneration are we talking about, maybe 20$ each a month maximum? unless a site manage to get a couple 1000$ each month with pay2leech. But this isn't exactly a model we like to see
Considering the legal troubles it could bring, don't think it's worth it at all
but paying fst staff is a must, still waiting for my paycheck :whistling
:lol::lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by KFlint
In all honesty, i feel really guilty that i cant pay my staff, and not even $20 a week, thats not to say that if they are ever in the shit i wont help them out if i can.
1: a couple of years ago one of my coders got made unemployed, 6 months later he owed his ISP 6 months connection, they just did not get in touch with him for those 6 months, well as you can guess, they did give him a phone call and said pay it or else. Well he is one of my coders ffs, if he does not have the internet, most of the work on the site does not get done, so i helped him out.
2: Another staffer, his grandma died 2000 miles away and he could not afford the plane fare to go to her funeral, he also had to go to the dentist and that was going to cost him a fortune, so i helped him out a little, I didnt give either of these 1000`s but i did help them out a little, then when all the shit blew up last year, this one turned it against me, saying he should not have accepted it, it was wrong for him to accept it and made me out to be a right git.
well i did just do it to help him out, i didnt want anything out of it, so since then i have not helped anyone out, mind you i cant bloody afford to.
you would think that with 50,000 members i would be rolling in the cash, and the media would probably say i was if i ever got caught because they are bastards like that, but i dont. about 0.5% of my memberbase donate, which equates to 250 members, now you may think 250*5 = 1250 very nice, but most of those just donate 1pence or 10pence or £1.
but as long as i can pay for the servers every month im happy.
I'm a member of several trackers and I try to donate to the ones that I think need the money. I know of a couple where the founding admins have to dig into their pockets at the end of the month - and they don't complain. That is dedication considering that the admin is usually putting in the most time and risk as well.
Tracker staff earning money? I think this is a joke at the moment as most trackers are run on a purely volunteer basis. Back in the day you didn't get paid for setting up a BBS. It was done for the fun of it. Then everyone who did it made money later on because the skills they learned are useful in real world settings. It's just too bad you can't put this kind of stuff on a resume.
There are perks though to being a staff. Some funky recognition, being able to modify and improve your site, etc. For some it's being able to smack down people on the forums - get that little power trip. Regardless, it's all part of a collective effort and an awesome hobby to boot.
No. This is downright wrong. The only good staff do their work for free. Those that want any reimbursement should fuck off.
lol,,you want a slice of the pie as well thenQuote:
Originally Posted by _coder_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.Quote:
Originally Posted by aysomc
Brandon you cunt. :o
If there is excess funding left over after all bills paid, then reimbursement of any previous costs incurred by owners setting it all up many months ago is not a prob.
If the donations improve, then sure, better equipment and a site seedbox, or 2, could be justified.
What I find distasteful is making a killing out of it, or a living out of it even, as "perks of the job", however, what could be argued is that usenet server staff get paid, and very well and legitimately, why therefore shouldn't BT server staff, same thing right? Just files on the interwebz being downloaded by users, it's just their choice where they get them files from.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by _coder_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.Quote:
Originally Posted by aysomc
Brandon you cunt. :O
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?
No, it would change the motivation of the staff and you would get people being there for the wrong reasons.
The sites run by "get quick fast" people are fairly easy to spot. Note the massive PM's and news items begging for donations. Otherwise site owners should not be paid if they are smart.
question is, do trackers having pay2leech policy , t-shirt selling etc... use the extra money to pay themselves already or not...
if they say they don't, we still be really sure of that...but if they do, i wouldn't want to be in their shoes the day the police take down their site
SuperTorrents:
December, 2007 $15385
That was all used only for server bills of course!
Is that right? :OQuote:
Originally Posted by integral
torrents are free so why not staff be free , i`m not against but it`s not a good ideea to pay staff
It's all hidden, which stinks.Quote:
Originally Posted by KFlint
Anybody running anything where money is involved have to show ins/outs balance books at the end of a financial year, torrent sites don't, so we /never/ truly know where anything goes.
Until we get full transparency, there will always be a bad smell of something isn't quite right.
moeny is corrupt the scene
In most cases tracker staff do deserve to get paid, but they are volunteers after all so they shouldn't expect it. If the trackers do get silly amount of donations (FTN) then yeah, hand some out to the staff!
It's a volunteer job. Volunteers don't get paid do they?
i don't see why staffers should be paid :unsure:
/me wears glasses.
na-uh, still don't see it.
/me gets mechanical microscope.
nope, nothing.
/me gets electronic microscope.
nois, nothing still.
perhaps it's farther away...
/me gets telescope
damnit, i don't see anything.
editZ: ops, i had my eyes closed all alone :mellow:
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!
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by ftnftw1) 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by _coder_
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?
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
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).
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....
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.
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.
well, tl and sct sucks, why would you sell invites and offer pay-to-leech.....profit.
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...
depends on how much the tracker is making in donations if they make a shitload of money sure hand it out.