How do you increase activity on a tracker?

If you follow blogs, dozens of private trackers are popping up everyday. Some have many great new innovative ideas, and some tend to be duds that are just as generic as every other tracker. When I was new to BT, I tended to jump on these sites alot, curious to see what they would offer. But now, I'm pretty much ambivalent to any new post of a torrent site. I have rarely joined a new site, and for the most part I just simply just pass.

Why? Its simple. Lack of activity. Many trackers have great new promises: ratio free this, ratio free that, unique bonus system, filling an interesting niche, ect. ect. But one that has always kept me from coming back to the site: I check back, afters days or months, and the tracker is still the same as before: a veritable ghost town of 1 (or sometimes 0) seed torrents. There may be some great and dedicated uploaders, but with no activity, retention will die off within a matter of days. Their seedboxes can only hold so much before they have to cut off the torrent. Even many established trackers seem to have this problem as well. I won't mention any specifics, but when user activity lacks, so does my willingness to use the site.

This effect seems to snowball into a problem that just gets worse. When there is a lack of activity, many other users begin to feel that the tracker is lacking as well. In turn, they don't download from the site either. This spirals into a never ending problem, and is in my opinion the number one cause of failure for a new torrent site.

So how do we solve this problem? Institute a ratio free system in a unestablished trackers and seeds will cut off after the minimum seed time. Establish a strict ratio system and everyone will be cautious of wasting their ratio on a site with few leechers, and activity will suffer even more.

Another interesting point I noticed was from BCG: In attempts to spur even more activity (BCG is certainly isn't short of peers, and with SP system + recycled torrents the site is extremely ratio friendly), stoi upped invites even further, giving anyone over 6 months old 5 invites. Invitees came in by the masses, but activity didn't seem to increase significantly. Stoi though that perhaps this may be due to the concept that increasing invites decreases the "l33tness" and rarity of a site, and due to that, new invitees are less likely to use a a site thats "so easy" to get in to. That provides an interesting point: One could try to open registrations to increase peer activity. But does that make there site seem less "leet" and "exclusive", and as of thus decrease peer activity as well?

So the question is: How do you increase activity on a tracker?

Speaking from personal experience here, I found you have to differentiate your site from other torrent communities. So many trackers pop up all the time with an unmodified or slightly modified Gazelle/TBDev base and the same generic content.

Your site needs to:
-Be accessible, but not open
-Have unique content (i.e. it fills a niche, not the usual 0-day crap)
-Have an active and committed staff team, that actually uploads to and leeches from their own site (generates more activity leading by example)
-Get publicized on blogs like FSF, TF, etc and filesharing forums like this one

I think the biggest problem is the majority of people who hear about and sign up at new trackers are already committed to one or more other trackers.

FWIW I remember IPT and SCC seeming pretty quiet. Sometimes it takes years...

good question. there are a few trackers out there that are certainly not lacking in activity and never will because they are at the top of their game. I'm not talking about leet trackers although all the top tracker's i'm a part of seem to be doing great. I'm talking about niche trackers. For example my mma tracker ;) , my extreme sports tracker, my NHL tracker etc. It seems any new tracker that comes out as a general tracker is destined to fail. Don't even try, the odds are massively stacked against you. I think TF mentioned there are still 40 new trackers a month popping up. All 500 new trackers that pop up in the next year will fail except for the dedicated and if they don't have a nice niche within the next year they will eventually give up when there is no activity.

Great topic.

To survive and be sustainable, there's got to be enough ticks on the list of strategies that can make you...survive and be sustainable, in order for it to work.

There's lots of things on this list, like developing and maintaining a loyal community, being awesome, being unique (content-wise and feature-wise), things like that. Some sites thrive for a different combination of reasons than others.

As for torrent activity itself - in all honesty, torrents has DDL to compete with these days, increasingly so, and *content* really is key to ensuring success of a tracker. If your site is awesome enough, people will keep on seeding your torrents in support of it and because they want to be able to keep on downloading new torrents from your site. (via your ratio/seeding rules).

Simplest fix would be to simply stop creating masses of trackers.
People who do that should dedicate that time to make one of the current ones better instead.
Most of the time some new tracker pops up the admin(s) fits one of following:
1) Someone lost in BitTorrent sad dreams who wants to make some wanted "leet tracker" or whatever and become "famous" (fail, become famous in something real instead...).

2) Someone who is unhappy about some things about current things on certain tracker. Should try to make that tracker better instead rather than ragequit and attempt to make own one...

3) Someone who doesn't really know much about torrents and makes tracker just for practice/lulz and doesn't really care if it dies.

All 3 fail.
Then there's of course 4th that's success and that is people who really just want to make good tracker that fills some uncovered area but it's VERY rare at this point.
Can't see real need for any more trackers, there's way too many already.

It's easy...

Phase 1: Collect Members
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Successful Tracker

:P

It's being more and more difficult to create a successful nowadays. It's not what it used to be a few years back.

So, here's what i think a successful site needs nowadays:

- Dedicated staff and uploaders (and not the kind that are looking just for fame)
- Good coder(s)
- Unique content (like said before, there's enough 0day out there)
- New ideas (focusing on making the users active specially)

Being known in the bt world can be a great advantage or a disadvantage.

Don't know if I'm forgetting something, but these points are essential :)

Edit: As for being small and secretive... that doesn't work anymore. People get curious, they get in, and then they never login again.

Ok here it is in a nutshell. You need to have other activities on your tracker besides just seeding and leeching. The most successful tracker I have ever been on does the following to keep the members hanging around.
1. Uploads releases within minutes of their appearing on the scene.
2. Has a very active Forum with games on it as well as other topics.
3. Has a variety of Arcade games
4. Has a casino where members can gamble their ratio. This includes video poker, Slot machine, roulette and blackjack. In addition members can wager their ratio directly against each other in a 50/50 bet propisition.
5. Has a live chat window open on all pages where members can just chat if they are online. This is open on all the pages and does not require any special downloads or anything else to access.
6. Rewards seeding with a formula system. The speeds on the site are always blazing fast.
7. The Sysop has programmed an exclusive Role Playing Game that he adds sections to periodically for members to play and compete in.
8. Staff is plentiful and helpful and available in the Shout box 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
9. There is always a contest going to fill requests where the winners (those who fill the most requests in a given period win prizes)
10. There are two weekly lotteries for gigs.
11. Questions pm'd to particular staff are usually answered within an hour and rarely later than 24 hours from the request time.

In short, Content, availability of competent courteous staff, easy communication and entertainment to keep folks hanging around the site for other reasons than just to seed and leech. In other words, a community where folks participate and make friends. Now if this sounds like a lot of effort to be successful, well it is. Success does not come by posting a url and expecting people to come flocking to you. You have to work and earn it.

TO me its simple,
If its a good site with lots of people wanting in (there's 50 or so just published in a survey) then have minimum amount of torrents downloaded per month. Make it something like around 6 or so. If your not meeting the minimum then u get a warning. couple warnings then account deleted. Many people are members at 5-15 top sites , yet only use 1-2 of them. If your not using the account someone else should get a chance to use it. I had some other accounts but i wasn't using them so I left them dormant , they gave me a warning and I let them expire.

I think another idea would be to tie into your ratio ( on ratio sites) your activity. THe more items downloaded the more it imporves your ratio. SOme have bonus points but many sites bonus points are useless.

Well there is no real formula to making a successful tracker but I have to agree with most of what has already been said.

Trial and error FTW! Am one of those people who never thought gft was gonna make it past '09.The site lacked activity big time and it basically sucked.Things however changed perhaps with credits to their dedicated team of staffers.

They tweaked things here and there,took the high road and refused to dish out invites on irc at a time when they really needed to and somehow this impressed some people to further dedicate their time and resources to the site.

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Originally Posted by sez

Well there is no real formula to making a successful tracker but I have to agree with most of what has already been said.

Trial and error FTW! Am one of those people who never thought gft was gonna make it past '09.The site lacked activity big time and it basically sucked.Things however changed perhaps with credits to their dedicated team of staffers.

They tweaked things here and there,took the high road and refused to dish out invites on irc at a time when they really needed to and somehow this impressed some people to further dedicate their time and resources to the site.

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Prime example of "whatever works". This concept is closely related to how to survive donation-wise - do whatever works, as long as you're not being abusive about it and are truthfully non-profit. But this tends to be a more debatable issue - some people are staunch anti "pay 2 x" or "pay 4 this incentive" and are "donate purely for love of the tracker" purists, but a more seasoned and experienced torrenter with a greater understanding of trackers, will understand that a site has to do it *somehow* - one should not criticise x method of donation incentive as long as the site is not making profit from it and that it is not grossly abusive (over-successful).

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Originally Posted by megabyteme

It's easy...

Phase 1: Collect Members
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Successful Tracker

:P

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good one megabyteme :lol:...

Great topic , relevant for all the trackers.
But there are several types of trackers , three of the most essential differences they [ open-signup trackers ] & [unopened-singup trackers ] & [ hush-hush trackers ] ..
For each one of types of these sites there is the quandary if this subject ,
Therefore this is unsolved subject yet :P
My personal opinion , most of this issue, contingent upon the friends / users itself and less in the way of carrying on of the site (Social activity) (bouns) (free ratio) etc etc ..

It should have some unique content
Some different rewards for seeding bonus.ex. seedbox, access to invite forums,to have a privledge of making a request for a rare site etc(this will increase activity by a huge amount)

1. Invites should be hard to get
2.All new member should be in "demo" mode for first 3-4weeks. Dowload atleast 100Gb in first month with atleast 150 up(don't be easy) keep the limit decreasing by 10gbs every month.leave for at least 30gb's /month.Just prune the inactive accounts every week.
3.Have a really good, helpful staff.

Have some unlimited invites from some good high level trackers(c y there are huge number of power users on waffles and what)

Don't give invites just upon donation( they should atleast be power users to gain invites by donating)

Things that draw me to a tracker( in no particular order).

1.Design - pleasing to the eye and easy to browse.Their is one site that I would like to use a lot more but it's so hard to find anything and I don't have a lot of patience.
2. Content - can't find it what's the point? Content is also closely tied to retention.
3. Users - a few decent intelligent people that I actually want to hang out with as opposed to merely having to put up with. This relates to forums , irc and even torrent comments
4. Staff - nice to everyone not just their buddies , although that part also applies to users
5. Ratio - I don't know the ideal formula but if given the choice between site A and site B I'm almost always going for the site that gives me the most bang for my buck.
6 . Feeling that I'm part of the site and not a disposable cog in the wheel. Gain my loyalty and I will go through hell and high water for you, forsaking all others and stick with you until the bitter end.

Things I like but don't matter as much.

1. Contests - never going to win one ,many are too specific to skills I( or a lot of people) don't possess ( design a banner/avatar ) , or only relate to people with conformining age and taste ( TV contests-answer Heroes,Dexter,Big Band Theory etc) or don't unfortunately with google reward true knowledge and only who has the best browsing skills.
2. Arcade - I'm not interacting with anyone and not using the tracker so am I missing the point here?
3. Userclasses - nice to be acknowledged even if you really aren't

Things I don't particularity care about.
1. Pretimes - I'm not a Mayfly, I don't live my life in one day so a few hours or days difference has no real meaning
2 Speed - as long as it's not glacial. Like with pretimes what difference does it really make?
3 Being elite.

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Originally Posted by awaited

2.All new member should be in "demo" mode for first 3-4weeks. Dowload atleast 100Gb in first month with atleast 150 up(don't be easy) keep the limit decreasing by 10gbs every month.leave for at least 30gb's /month.Just prune the inactive accounts every week.

Have some unlimited invites from some good high level trackers(c y there are huge number of power users on waffles and what)

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I have a hard cap of 60 Gb total bandwidth so although you may be encouraging a lot of pointless activity you are also negating a good number of committed users with that rule.
People joining for invites are basically going in saying that they are more interested in other sites than the one they are getting the invites from.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

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Originally Posted by awaited

2.All new member should be in "demo" mode for first 3-4weeks. Dowload atleast 100Gb in first month with atleast 150 up(don't be easy) keep the limit decreasing by 10gbs every month.leave for at least 30gb's /month.Just prune the inactive accounts every week.

Have some unlimited invites from some good high level trackers(c y there are huge number of power users on waffles and what)

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I have a hard cap of 60 Gb total bandwidth so although you may be encouraging a lot of pointless activity you are also negating a good number of committed users with that rule.
People joining for invites are basically going in saying that they are more interested in other sites than the one they are getting the invites from.

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I know that many users have this bandwidth cap, and many members come from countries where the affordable connection can't download 60gb's in a month (even if the computer is on 24/7). but as long as the upload is concerned you can always buy it from the shop in return of bonus points.Only thing which counts is ur activity(i kno that 100,150gb thing was a bit too much:blink:). this also draws another point that the users should be given a second chance if their intentions are to use to site, but they can't(due to bandwidth/speed), staff can get their limits off.again this will increase quality users.

and about the invite thing it is just a type of illusion just to get more peers and activity until there is ctually a userbase who use it as their primary site.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

T

Things I don't particularity care about.

3 Being elite.

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Blasphemy, I say. To the gallows with you then!

The thing about an illusion are that sooner or later most people see through it and besides holding out a invite carrot is only going to attract the wrong type of rabbits er members.
No one sets up a site looking for failure but resorting to gimmicks to gain members tells me something about the staff that isn't very flattering .

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Originally Posted by The_Martinator

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

T

Things I don't particularity care about.

3 Being elite.

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Blasphemy, I say. To the gallows with you then!

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Or packs neither.:O

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

The thing about an illusion are that sooner or later most people see through it and besides holding out a invite carrot is only going to attract the wrong type of rabbits er members.
No one sets up a site looking for failure but resorting to gimmicks to gain members tells me something about the staff that isn't very flattering .

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:ermm:

so what about what, waffles? 30% of the new signups are just because of those threads.

anyways just fuck that "activity enhancer"we will do better without it.

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Originally Posted by awaited

:ermm:

so what about what, waffles? 30% of the new signups are just because of those threads.

anyways just fuck that "activity enhancer"we will do better without it.

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Show me the statics and while you're at it show me how many of those people getting want they want actually continue to contribute to the site .
You can get anyone to do anything given the right incentive but some incentives don't translate very well to loyalty is all that I'm saying.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

Show me the statics and while you're at it show me how many of those people getting want they want actually continue to contribute to the site .
You can get anyone to do anything given the right incentive but some incentives don't translate very well to loyalty is all that I'm saying.

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those are not statistics,just assumptions by a "nuub user" (apologies, but i still believe it)

so the only difference i c is that i put it in words as a suggestion(for a yet to be established tracker), but what/waffles are just performing it. their actions are justified cuz they are established?