How would "You" get good members

There have been a few posts on here about Invites and traders etc etc, so this is your chance to put the world to rights on this.

Put yourself in the position of a tracker owner/staffer that spends most of his/her day checking on members, for cheaters etc.

Now also take into consideration the following.

1: Giveaways

People that do giveawys on public forums, very well might be bringing in a member that the tracker banned 6 months before, you also have no clue who they are, and even ratios and profiles on other sites, can be misleading.

2: Trades

Same as above, they are not doing it for the good of the site, but because they want something in return.

3: Selling

I think everyone agrees this is wrong

4: Cheaters

get lots of cheaters coming in.

5: Hit and Runners

gets lots of hit and runners

6: opening up

See all points above but also dupe accounts, sign up hit and run, get banned, change IP sign up again, rinse and repeat over and over again.

7: Security.

most trackers want security for themselves and for their members, like our members getting letters from their ISP is best avoided at all costs, Security is not just about security of the staff ans the owners.

Remember this is not about just getting as many members as possible, this is about getting 99% good members into the tracker, but lots of them (if that is even possible lol)

So just for 10 minutes, put yourself into a tracker staffers shoes, even the hardcore traders and cheaters, and lets hear some answers, this is just for curiosity purposes, but you may come up with some ideas no tracker staffer has ever come up with.

And staying closed for eternity is not an answer, this is about getting members, but bloody good ones.

at the end of the day, all tracker staff want are good decent members, is that to much to ask in this day and age.

Whatever method you (as a site) adopt to recruit new members it's going to be difficult to assure that the applicant is what they say they are cause lets face fact it's easy to bullshit someone when your not face to face with them.

If it was me I would go for a detailed application form designed to discover a persons attitude on various things (sort of like psychological profiling) if this first test was passed it would be followed by a 1 month trial after which time their account would be reviewed, this would lead to either full membership or an IP ban :)

I think it's even more difficult to select who among your existing userbase should be entitled to bring others to your site. Lets say even if you take the top 10% of your best users and give them invite privileges as you are aware accounts get traded like candy all over the interweb and your back to square 1 again.

I just can't see a foolproof way of implementing this to give you the "good users" every site wants, possibly some kind of "recommend a friend" strategy where both your account and your friends application is scrutinised closely (time consuming I know) which would then lead back into a situation described at the start of post.

Tough nut to crack me thinks :)

Well remember, some (I am not saying all) higher class members, are just pricks with a seedbox.

so even that does not work.

i would like to know the answers myself.
open signups, get 1000 mutes, 500 collectors, 40 who show potential, 400 cheats.

This torrenting stuff is not really rocket science.

when ppl take theyre time an prove theyre worth they can get an invite anywhere, by simply asking.
the ones that sign up, cheat theyre ratio to 4 EB, or trade there way in, whats the rush ?

we all started somewhere. leech, seed, chat be active, good things happen, why the big rush to be on "0-daysitex3644" from the outset ?

Just curious myself, so im only asking.

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Originally Posted by stoi

Well remember, some (I am not saying all) higher class members, are just pricks with a seedbox.

so even that does not work.

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Yeah absolutely mate meant to throw the the whole seedbox thing in there, it's easy to sit in front of your box's gui for a couple of weeks to hit mega-user or whatever, I wouldn't use this as your benchmark to evaluate your userbase as it's destined to fail.

I'd go for maybe number of torrents upladed, contribution to the community (helpfulness in forums, financial donation etc) length of membership & total seed time instead of GB's uploaded. Once all this had been taken into consideration then you would be in a position to decide whether or not this user should be allowed to recommend a friend.

Also I wouldn't advertise publicly what the requirements are to start the process of bringing friends to the site and just say each case will be considered on it's own merit. Now obviously this is quite difficult to implement into an automated system if you take all the above factors into consideration but I think they key to it may be "the personal touch" obviously with a large site like your own this is going to be even more time consuming

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Originally Posted by Time-Traveller

Whatever method you (as a site) adopt to recruit new members it's going to be difficult to assure that the applicant is what they say they are cause lets face fact it's easy to bullshit someone when your not face to face with them.

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this is true.. and it can be very difficult, that why i personally prefer using irc.. you get a better feel for the individual

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Originally Posted by Time-Traveller

If it was me I would go for a detailed application form designed to discover a persons attitude on various things (sort of like psychological profiling) if this first test was passed it would be followed by a 1 month trial after which time their account would be reviewed, this would lead to either full membership or an IP ban :)

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you could do that i suppose, but then your "STAFFING TIME" would end up consumed with going through all them applications you've just received.. and one done with that more time lost would be to follow up on all them people you've approved to join... not to mention, you may loose many possibly good members at the jump simply because they are turned off by filling out an application.. after all it's a tracker, not a job.. lol

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Originally Posted by Time-Traveller

I think it's even more difficult to select who among your existing userbase should be entitled to bring others to your site. Lets say even if you take the top 10% of your best users and give them invite privileges as you are aware accounts get traded like candy all over the interweb and your back to square 1 again.

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how would you decide who is the in the top 10% of your userbase ?? and are you like suggesting making them recruiters?

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Originally Posted by Time-Traveller

I just can't see a foolproof way of implementing this to give you the "good users" every site wants, possibly some kind of "recommend a friend" strategy where both your account and your friends application is scrutinised closely (time consuming I know) which would then lead back into a situation described at the start of post.

Tough nut to crack me thinks :)

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:yup:

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Originally Posted by jasperr

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Originally Posted by Time-Traveller

I think it's even more difficult to select who among your existing userbase should be entitled to bring others to your site. Lets say even if you take the top 10% of your best users and give them invite privileges as you are aware accounts get traded like candy all over the interweb and your back to square 1 again.

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how would you decide who is the in the top 10% of your userbase ?? and are you like suggesting making them recruiters?

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See my second post :)

I've almost burned my hands a couple of times, but if I give someone an invite, I usually ask for his interests... All of my invitees to KG -for example- are sick movie addicts, who maybe arent able to maintain a ratio like all those seedbox users (but around 1), but their place is there, at KG. I think besides invites you should keep up the option for someone to prove, that he really needs the site.

You are related to bcg as far as i know, to check if somebody really a game addict, or at least plays sometimes isnt a hard task. Not for you, but for some folks you trust.

This is only my opinion...

T-T's application proposal is a good one, and has been successfully used on a number of more private trackers (most of whom probably don't want to be named here). It isn't flawless, but it allows you to get more detailed information than just ratios. And to help catch old banned users, though it won't help if they have a dynamic IP or use a proxy, you can set up the application process through a web form rather than through a referral system, allowing you to log IPs and check them against those of banned users.

if u want good member

make big giveaway

and the members

show screen shoot from the games they have

or give u a reason why they want to be members in ur tracker

But as has been said, an application system means work for the staff, and i am not talking about these small sites, that may get 1 every 10 days, i am talking about sites that if they do open up, they get 10,000 new members in 24 hours.

this is also not just about my site either, its just a general question about how to get good members in, with minumul work for the staff, after all, its all done in their spare time for very little reward.

Depends what you mean by "good".

If you just want someone who isn't a trashy trader/cheater/seller, then I suggest scouting through another tracker. This way, you can already verify their "goodness" on one site, and you can check for their name on other trackers, to see if they have some sort of identity. You can also judge whether they might be a shady character; I'm not saying this is true in all circumstances, but I would guess traders would have very little or no forum posts/comments, as they're trying their hardest to stay under the radar.

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Originally Posted by MR.FOX

if u want good member

make big giveaway

and the members

show screen shoot from the games they have

or give u a reason why they want to be members in ur tracker

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Hmm nah won't work just makes it easier for undesirables to get in.

Here's my super duper photo-chopped screen shot of my games &
I would like to join as I'm a console game addict and have been for 15 years.

24 hours later on the FST trade board...

I have a fresh BCG games account but "My Dream" is to join TL wanna trade.

Well, if the application system is not an option, cos of the numbers (which I understand), then there are some sites, which are great imo, and the people who you are talking about (cheaters, pricks with seedboxes, people who don't even try to behave) are just not interested in the content. Yeah, again KG, the content there just selects the members. To be honest, I don't know any way besides application to only let in those members, who would appreciate the site...

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Originally Posted by stoi

But as has been said, an application system means work for the staff, and i am not talking about these small sites, that may get 1 every 10 days, i am talking about sites that if they do open up, they get 10,000 new members in 24 hours.

this is also not just about my site either, its just a general question about how to get good members in, with minumul work for the staff, after all, its all done in their spare time for very little reward.

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Trial membership followed by auto-evaluation after a preset time period, it's not going to stop your DHCP 1 hit & runners though, the only thing I can vaguely think of to circumvent that is something similar to what XP used by generating a unique code from the hardware installed in the users box and keeping a log of it so that if the same user came back with a different IP there would be something else to cross reference it with but I'm guessing this is not easy code to write and users may feel as if their privacy is being invaded, you got me on that one :)

**Edit**

Not specifiacally talking about your site Stoi in any of my posts but just using it as an example of a large site which undoubtedly suffers from these annoying problems

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Originally Posted by integral

Depends what you mean by "good".

If you just want someone who isn't a trashy trader/cheater/seller, then I suggest scouting through another tracker. This way, you can already verify their "goodness" on one site, and you can check for their name on other trackers, to see if they have some sort of identity. You can also judge whether they might be a shady character; I'm not saying this is true in all circumstances, but I would guess traders would have very little or no forum posts/comments, as they're trying their hardest to stay under the radar.

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most sites already have existing invite threads for other sites, that can only be seen by proven members.

doing it in secret "poaching" on someone elses site would be frowned upon, and might lead to some friction between trackers

and takes us back to the whole, theyre already on every site thing.

Torrent users need to stop stressing over this crap, because it hardly makes a difference. Just open signups and have a user limit and if you find users who really break rules, warn/ban.

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Originally Posted by basilhaydens

Torrent users need to stop stressing over this crap, because it hardly makes a difference. Just open signups and have a user limit and if you find users who really break rules, warn/ban.

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This is completely untrue and in no way constructive to the OP's thread.

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Originally Posted by basilhaydens

Torrent users need to stop stressing over this crap, because it hardly makes a difference. Just open signups and have a user limit and if you find users who really break rules, warn/ban.

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You have 2 problems with that though.

Security for the members, anyone can sign up, jump on a torrent, get a list of IPs

Back to the sign up, hit and run, get banned, change IPs, new email, sign up, hit and run, get banned again rinse and repeat.

Also believe it or not, when we used to open, members would just sign up 20-250 times, so when we closed, they had accounts to trade/sell.

just officially offer invites to BCG on other trackers' invite threads/forums (EX waffles, what, hdbits.org). access to these threads/forums is usually PU or higher so at least they're good there. i know this is something you haven't tried yet, but a lot of other trackers have tried lol. you should probably have strict requirements for some of the larger trackers like what.cd.

I'll stick my neck out and say I think a new staff group of solely recruiters is needed for many sites. This goes against much of what some sites are about, but i think it is the best way to get the potentially "good" members into sites. Le me explain:

If there is ever a way to discern what a person is about, its through interaction with that person in a similar environment. Thus, for example, i go to demonoid and other places where I myself started out and interact with people constantly keeping an eye out for the factors that I think make a good site user.

I do this, of course, only for the few sites that i consider myself a good active member of. Who am I to judge what a good user is for a tracker I'm not even active at?

so the trick lies in the picking of those recruiters for your site.

Dare I say that as an active staff member, one should know who would make a good recruiter, and who would not? I'm not talking about talking a certain user class and giving them invite privs, I'm talking about hand selecting a group of people to do the honors.

Make it a pseudo staff class.

But maybe also put a spur in their seats. If they invite x amount of what you discern as "bad users" they lose their privileges. But don't make it harsh enough that they are scared to invite. The idea is to get them to go out and do their research.

Task the team with maybe splitting up the torrent world into sectors. Recruiter A makes himself an integral part of tracker a & b, and recruits mainly from there. He/she picks a couple trackers and becomes active, thus ensuring a better perspective.

Give them a forum section too, where they can discuss potentials, and other staff can chime in at will.

I've been a huge proponent of this sort of recruitment and would love to see it tried out somewhere. Again, the hardest part is getting the right recruiters.

Like i said though, what is so good about PU/SPU basically higher classes.

10gig downloaded, 100 gig uploaded in their first 12 weeks, = SPU, then they do not touch the tracker for the next 100weeks, but they are still the higher class.

Just because they are a higher class does not mean they are a good member.

and again just because i wrote this, dont think i am just on about BCG but everywhere.

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Originally Posted by piratebot

just officially offer invites to BCG on other trackers' invite threads/forums (EX waffles, what, hdbits.org). access to these threads/forums is usually PU or higher so at least they're good there. i know this is something you haven't tried yet, but a lot of other trackers have tried lol. you should probably have strict requirements for some of the larger trackers like what.cd.

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That doesn't work at all.

Who says a PU on any site is a good active member or judge of others? Just b/c they can afford a seedbox?

Stoi beat me to the punch. See my previous post for a better method.

we're dealing with thousands of anonymous people here. different age groups, different ethnic and cultural background, different wealth etc. all they have in common is internet access and a demand for free games.
it's extremely difficult next to impossible to make a preselection.

you'll always have a certain percentage of bad users. with such a large userbase there's no way to keep them out.

i'd rather make up my mind how to detect them and kick them more effectively.

take cheaters as an example. why is it that so many trackers have poor scripts against them or don't use any scripts at all?

until now oink is still unreached when it comes to that point.

same goes for hit and runners, ip changes etc.

if the statistics say that 90% of an ip range are bad users, blackhole filter it. period.

of course bad users can sneak back in with a new ip. but if they misbehave again, they'll be kicked again.

develope an fully automated, working seek and destroy system. this is the internet. the sociological approach doesn't work. technical solutions are successful.

well, if they're invited thru another tracker, there's a better chance that they're unlikely to cheat/trade to avoid getting a bad rep. as for the inactivity thing, just have a system in place, but you already have that.

edit: whatever, it's better than OPEN sign-ups.

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Originally Posted by piratebot

well, if they're invited thru another tracker, there's a better chance that they're unlikely to cheat/trade to avoid getting a bad rep. as for the inactivity thing, just have a system in place, but you already have that.

edit: whatever, it's better than OPEN sign-ups.

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Not at all. then you just get people who sign up at a site, become PU just so they can get an invite to site z.

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Originally Posted by stoi

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Originally Posted by basilhaydens

Torrent users need to stop stressing over this crap, because it hardly makes a difference. Just open signups and have a user limit and if you find users who really break rules, warn/ban.

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You have 2 problems with that though.

Security for the members, anyone can sign up, jump on a torrent, get a list of IPs

Back to the sign up, hit and run, get banned, change IPs, new email, sign up, hit and run, get banned again rinse and repeat.

Also believe it or not, when we used to open, members would just sign up 20-250 times, so when we closed, they had accounts to trade/sell.

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How often are ips actually reported and action taken? Rarely. Even rarer do they amount to anything.

I've got or have had several accounts on several sites. Technically I've been a fairly good member on each account, so there is no harm done. Some may get banned a few times, but big deal, they are not really taking anything from the tracker.

I'm protrading, I just don't think the problems with security are so serious. And the more open signup periods, the less likely people are to trade accounts.

Regarding cheat scripts.

A: they kill servers or you need a bloody good server/s to do it.

B: Oinks average size of torrents was 100meg say. other trackers its 4 gig+

C: even Oinks was not fool proof, I know people that cheated on Oink and got away with it, I also know people that did not cheat and got banned.

a perfect cheat script would be fantastic, but whatever a human makes, a human can destroy (or bypass) so we will never ever have a 100% foolproof script for cheaters, so if that is the case, i would rather have it, 20% auto 80% human intervention.

Expanding on what I said before, I don't think there is some magical unchecked userbase filled with innocent users who don't trade/cheat and always seed to 1:1. Every place, no matter how small, is going to be tainted in some way.

mamacita touched on a point I was trying to express in my previous post in this thread. The process of getting new users should be personalized to some degree. Unfortunately as I said before every place is going to have some taint (some places more than others), but the more personal the recruitment process gets, the better chance you'll have of getting good people.

Whether this comes in the form of asking another tracker to accommodate you a thread on their forums, or enlisting trusted members to scout for new blood, you're going to have better luck the more personal you get.

Also, the severe misconception where people feel they _have_ to recruit other to torrent sites from other torrent-replated places should be stopped. Many trackers' FAQ pages tell you everything you need to know, so tracker userbases feeding off of each other shouldn't be the only option.

want good members at good trackers? then delete all threads connected with trackers levels and leave only description of em. sure, what the point to anybody to get ftn/sct/etc if he even cant tie together with two words in the paper (at the forum in our position). so after that step well have at least a bit little collectors. old members ofc saved those threads but new who came at this torrenting world and dsnt know much about it will keep in their mind that they need any tracker by his description/stories abt it/etc. i hope so

i dont also think that the forum is the best place for making judgement about ppl. some of us came at forums for fun. in this point of view forums > irc, cuz we can see the posts that were made today, yesterday or weeks ago. and nowadays they are like chat for ppl, im not an exept in this case but i dont care. forums are forums and were made for long posts where u can be expressed and explain ur opinion. one post for one thread. if its not a big topic of conversation then 1 post is enuff. all we knew how some thread were blowed out with the shit and have no sense more. and i was there to help em, heh

if some1 needs a help - 2-3 posts (not offtopic ofc) and waiting for his reply. not nuff, then go next. summat

otoh if wed like to know the man we must go at irc. its the place where the gtm zones are still making some rules but the countries, skin color, religion arent important. im talking abt keeping a civil tongue. there are too many idiots those days, and thats why ircs better then forums cuz u can very fast learn whos who. as for me i can make my desicion about somebody at least with month. usually its about 40-50 hours of chatting with him

atm im done cant put here more then my .02 but id like to discuss more abt that and will make big post when ll have enuff time

i pretty much believe in the theory of "external recruiters".
i was talking with this with a RL friend of mine that was thinking to open a tracker and wanted me to share some knowledge.
after a very long discussion, mostly as i playing devil's advocate, we reached a common sense that recruiters would be the way to go.
recruiters that not necessarily had to be staff.

i'll try to keep this short, but what we'd do is to talk with some people that we know as of trustworthy at several places, not all BT related, and some very country specific, and recruit members to become "recruiters". I know a few, hardcore good torrenters, that would fit like a glove.

they would necessarily be compensate in the short and medium run with whatever we feel like it's their motivation (perks on site, seedboxes, invites for other sites, and other stuff).
Of course all of them would run a 2 month trial period, mostly one month for recruiting members and 1 month more to see how those recruits behaved.

some will say that this might create the recruiter figure as a very important one, and that he can profit along his way (not talking monetarily), but hey, if he is doing a damn fine job, why should i care if he is "the guy to talk to" :idunno: consider it as one of the "payment" for his services.
i also don't believe in trackers that only allow members to enter after too long scrutiny . I know so many good ones that almost never will get a shot at being members of some harder to get into sites.

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Originally Posted by integral

Also, the severe misconception where people feel they _have_ to recruit other to torrent sites from other torrent-replated places should be stopped. Many trackers' FAQ pages tell you everything you need to know, so tracker userbases feeding off of each other shouldn't be the only option.

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Good point, meant to mention that myself. I'd love to see recruiting done in active forums that have nothing to do with torrenting. Of course, those people recruited from these places would need a little "hand holding" at first.

what respectable, non-filesharing related forums would allow something related to piracy?

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Originally Posted by basilhaydens

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Originally Posted by stoi

You have 2 problems with that though.

Security for the members, anyone can sign up, jump on a torrent, get a list of IPs

Back to the sign up, hit and run, get banned, change IPs, new email, sign up, hit and run, get banned again rinse and repeat.

Also believe it or not, when we used to open, members would just sign up 20-250 times, so when we closed, they had accounts to trade/sell.

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How often are ips actually reported and action taken? Rarely. Even rarer do they amount to anything.

I've got or have had several accounts on several sites. Technically I've been a fairly good member on each account, so there is no harm done. Some may get banned a few times, but big deal, they are not really taking anything from the tracker.

I'm protrading, I just don't think the problems with security are so serious. And the more open signup periods, the less likely people are to trade accounts.

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actually, m8 you're a bit off on that m8... ips are actually reported and acted on much more than you think... don't be fooled by fellow trader's campfire stories who say its false simply because they havn't been caught... yet!

and i agree about the open signups... they would deter a lot of trading ... then again. so would a flood of invites.. who actually would trade if they river of invites flooded right over you... :01:

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Originally Posted by piratebot

what respectable, non-filesharing related forums would allow something related to piracy?

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you seem to be assuming that recruiting is done through some sort of "thread" or post. I'm not condoning that at all. In fact, i don't think public recruitment like what is done here at FST sometimes is a good thing.

I'm talking about inviting people that you get to know on an individual basis. Recruitment of members should be a slow and steady thing, not a sudden influx.

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and i agree about the open signups... they would deter a lot of trading ... then again. so would a flood of invites.. who actually would trade if they river of invites flooded right over you.

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hmm wrong

we had over 350,000 invites in our db ready to use, every member had about 15 of them, and people still traded and sold them.

So quantity means nothing.

Mind you if the WTAW thread had been updated and we went down to lvl 1-2 at the time of having that many, it may have been different, but as we were still lvl 3 they were still worth something.

shit, took me 15 minutes to write my post, and mamacita almost took all my ideas :(
buhaaaa i'm no longer original...

but hey, it's good to see that some people share this view, it's the first time i am seeing a debate about it.

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Originally Posted by stoi

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and i agree about the open signups... they would deter a lot of trading ... then again. so would a flood of invites.. who actually would trade if they river of invites flooded right over you.

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hmm wrong

we had over 350,000 invites in our db ready to use, every member had about 15 of them, and people still traded and sold them.

So quantity means nothing.

Mind you if the WTAW thread had been updated and we went down to lvl 1-2 at the time of having that many, it may have been different, but as we were still lvl 3 they were still worth something.

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I think you've hit upon another paradoxical problem how do you take the value out of your invites pre-membership and still get your users to treasure their account post-membership, the good users will of course appreciate the content & knowledge in the site but traders will always be motivated by supply and demand

That WTAW list has a lot to answer for.

Indeed, abolishing the WTAW thread, and then giving it time, would greatly help things too.

But that will never happen.

I have tried lol