What.cd changes required ratio system

From what.cd:

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We announced a couple months ago that we were going to overhaul the ratio watch system. Well, we've gone and done it now. At the top of the page, beside your stats and ratio, you will now see a "required" value - this is the ratio you are required to maintain in order to keep your account on the site.

The entire system is explained at rules.php?p=ratio. It is not necessary to understand how the entire system works or the math behind it - what you need to know is the following:

What you need to know

This system does not alter your ratio. It alters the ratio we require you to maintain for you to keep your account on the site.

You must keep your ratio above your required ratio at all times. Therefore, you want a high ratio and a low required ratio. Both your ratio and required ratio will change depending on your behaviour on the site.

Uploading makes your ratio go up (good). Downloading makes it go down, which is generally fine so long as your ratio isn't very close to the required ratio. The system was built to reward people who download things (and keep them seeded).

Seeding makes your required ratio go down (good). Downloading makes it go up. Not seeding something you've downloaded makes it go up dramatically (bad), as the percentage of your snatches which you are still seeding is directly factored into your required ratio.

Therefore, seeding and uploading are good for keeping your ratio above your required ratio. Not seeding things you've downloaded is very bad for keeping your ratio above your required ratio. Downloading is also bad for it, and if your ratio and required ratio are getting dangerously close together, you should stop downloading and concentrate on seeding your snatches instead.

Ratio requirements will only be negatively affected by this new system - it's made things easier for everyone.

You can think of it as a dual system. We've taken our old ratio watch system, and lowered the ratio requirements depending on how many torrents you're seeding. If you don't want to seed your torrents forever, don't - just follow the rules of the old system. If you choose not to seed any torrents, your ratio requirements will be exactly the same as they were before the change. If you do want to seed torrents, or if you're having trouble with your ratio, then you can start caring about how many un-queued torrents you have seeding in your client.

Easy, right?

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So, keep your torrents seeding, and you are only required to maintain a significantly lower ratio at a notoriously difficult to seed site.

Good move by what. Should help increase retention while allowing more leeway at an already difficult to seed site. Sounds good.

I think it was a good call on their part. Helps the people who need help, but doesn't toughen it for anyone who just wants to stick to the classic ratio system :)

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Originally Posted by ca_aok

I think it was a good call on their part. Helps the people who need help, but doesn't toughen it for anyone who just wants to stick to the classic ratio system :)

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They had made an announcement/post/something about this a longer while back. Thought it was just smoke, but no! I love it. Seeing that lower required value makes me happy for now, that is until it becomes normal again.

ive been there for a while now, and it has been hard to keep the ration up, but it is doable. the new ratio system doesnt apply to me though.

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To get this range of requirements to a more precise number, what we do is take the maximum required ratio for your download band, multiply it by (1-(seeding/snatched)), and round it up to the minimum ratio if need be.
In the formula, "snatched" is the number of unique snatches (complete downloads) you have made. "Seeding" is the average number of torrents you've seeded over at least 72 hours in the past week. If you've seeded less than 72 hours in the past week, the "seeding" value will go down (which is bad).

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this is sand trap. computer failure or leaving for holidays will leave you with 0 seeded torrents in last week, required ratio will go up and you will probably be banned after that.

goin below maximum required ratio is risky business imo.

woohoo! I have been waiting for this for a long time :P

I'm glad they made it clear it was a DUAL system - pick one or the other or a combination. The other main thing people must realise is how the seeding method only works WHEN they are seeding, so if they stop seeding, their required ratio will climb back up to their raw (maximum) required ratio after a week of not seeding - and if they're under the raw required ratio, they will be put on ratio watch. so people must still TRY and keep above their maximum (raw) required ratio at all times.

good news.

good move indeed.

two thumbs fuckin UP!
good call!

What about people who seed a 1 kb/s????
Should they be aloud to download w.e they want......

Makes me want to go to the greatest recipe site the internet will ever know.

Bon appétit. http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/1619/w2in7.gif

Don't worry, nobody will miss you at what :coffee:

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Originally Posted by Rigel9

Don't worry, nobody will miss you at what :coffee:

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Don't feed him, he probably eat too much waffles :lol:

im seriously fine i hit n run new shit i like my real ratio

i like it :)

Your required ratio has dropped a little(if you seed everything forever). That's all that has changed. The site, I'm sure, will still be a notoriously hard to seed site. So people will still not be able to download all that they want without having to fear their ratio.

I really don't see the big deal.

It is always good to have more alive torrents so I 'm definitely happy :)

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Originally Posted by Funkin'

Your required ratio has dropped a little(if you seed everything forever). That's all that has changed. The site, I'm sure, will still be a notoriously hard to seed site. So people will still not be able to download all that they want without having to fear their ratio.

I really don't see the big deal.

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It seems they have decided not to apply the simple (1-(seeding/snatched)) algorithm to all ratio "classes" - they've put it on a scale whereby the more you download, the less you get rewarded for seeding, until you don't get rewarded at all when you're into the 100GB+ downloaded range.

I think this is their way of dealing with the seeding at 1kb/s abuse "loophole" - so that someone doesn't go off and download 200GB of stuff and then just seed it all at 1KB/s and give nothing back.

IMO, it does not need to be dealt in this way. I would do it all differently - I would have a higher raw requirement than 0.60 anyway, I would have the algorithm apply to all ratio "classes" and just monitor cheating activity - which I've outlined in detail in another forum you're at and can't be bothered to repeat ;).

I also would use a better algorithm as well: (1-total seedhours/total possible seedhours), where "total seedhours" is the number of collective hours seeded by X number of torrents in the past week and "total possible seedhours" is 24 x 7 x Y number of snatched torrents - the most you could possibly contribute seeding-wise.

I've said this on other forums already, but I think this particular element of the system (how much the final ratio requirement for the user will be) is where adjustments can be made, for you to see what works - what matters is how fair the system is to freedom with downloading - yes, much depends on the (downloading) culture of the tracker in question, but that's exactly what what.cd's gotta fix.

This is a practical matter and I think with what.cd we will see how it plays out. If more people are downloading, you'll start to get a better ratio anyway. What it DOES very much benefit, is all those users who haven't dared to download much "yet" - they have a big incentive to download more now, and simply seed it. Those users will likely in turn give older users with 100+GB download some ratio pie.

We need to see what happens...even if this change is simply an "improvement" to the normal ratio system by giving a bit of extra seeding bonus for many of the trackers' users and making more ratio pie be offered up, that's a good thing and that's all I'd want. It will just take a bit of time for the improvements to manifest themselves.

I think what they have done is a good idea. But they should still keep their eyes on this new system and be open to adjusting it for the better good of the site and its users.

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Originally Posted by Funkin'

Your required ratio has dropped a little(if you seed everything forever). That's all that has changed. The site, I'm sure, will still be a notoriously hard to seed site. So people will still not be able to download all that they want without having to fear their ratio.

I really don't see the big deal.

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I do. My required ratio is 0.08. :lol: I don't DL that much from What, but what I do I seed forever.

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Originally Posted by dvdasacd

I also would use a better algorithm as well: (1-total seedhours/total possible seedhours), where "total seedhours" is the number of collective hours seeded by X number of torrents in the past week and "total possible seedhours" is 24 x 7 x Y number of snatched torrents - the most you could possibly contribute seeding-wise.

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Your proposed system (both the seed hours and the higher base ratio) sounds a lot like what my original plan was - set the required ratio to 1-(seeding/snatched), where seeding is calculated an average for a 7 day time period (ie. your formula with the time moved). Thus, someone who seeds 100% of the time would have a required ratio of 0, and someone who seeds 0% of the time would have a required ratio of 1. Mathematically, this system is much nicer to look at and deal with than what we've implemented.

We decided to add the gradual required ratio multiplier and reduce the time to 72 hours for two different reasons. The multiplier was to ensure backwards compatibility and prevent outrage, as well as simply make life easier for the newbies.

The 72 hour thing, while it may look a tad lenient of us, is because we consider someone who seeds 72 hours of the week to be seeding 'enough', and we don't want to place the harsh expectation of seeding 24/7 on them. It also gives them some buffer time where they don't have to be seeding - eg. formatting computer, going away for the weekend, etc. Not expecting people to seed 24/7 is almost exactly like not expecting them to maintain ratios of 1.0. While it may seem unfair for people who seed more than 72 hours per week (and while we do prefer people to seed longer), we feel that it isn't necessary to reward them with the requirement system - they'll be rewarded with the extra upload they get.

So really, if you run the math, your formula and our formula are exactly the same - it's just that you consider "good enough" seeding time to be 7 days, and we consider "good enough" seeding time to be 72 hours.

Running the math because I'm bored:

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let SE = number of torrents seeded
let HS = number of hours seeded (SE*HS = SeedHours)
let GE = good enough
let SN = number of torrents snatched

Our formula:
(SE*HS)/GE    SE*HS
---------- = ------
SN            SN*GE

Your formula:
SE*HS
----------
SN*GE

Therefore, your formula is the same, just with a different GE value.

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Very good news. Now it easy to keep a good ratio and acc in what. Thnx staff of what. :)

Thanks for your explanations dvdasacd(always a pleasure to read, if not somewhat confusing some of the time :P) and whatman.

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Originally Posted by WhatMan

Your proposed system (both the seed hours and the higher base ratio) sounds a lot like what my original plan was - set the required ratio to 1-(seeding/snatched), where seeding is calculated an average for a 7 day time period (ie. your formula with the time moved). Thus, someone who seeds 100% of the time would have a required ratio of 0, and someone who seeds 0% of the time would have a required ratio of 1. Mathematically, this system is much nicer to look at and deal with than what we've implemented.

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Now that sounds pretty good. As long as your not saying that everyone has to seed 24 hours of every single day to receive a required ratio of 0. As I'm sure that's just not practical for most.

I guess all we can do is sit back and wait to see if this system really does promote more leeching. If it does, and maintaining a positive ratio becomes just that much easier for everyone, then bravo for implementing something different that actually works.

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Originally Posted by WhatMan

Your proposed system (both the seed hours and the higher base ratio) sounds a lot like what my original plan was - set the required ratio to 1-(seeding/snatched), where seeding is calculated an average for a 7 day time period (ie. your formula with the time moved). Thus, someone who seeds 100% of the time would have a required ratio of 0, and someone who seeds 0% of the time would have a required ratio of 1. Mathematically, this system is much nicer to look at and deal with than what we've implemented.

We decided to add the gradual required ratio multiplier and reduce the time to 72 hours for two different reasons. The multiplier was to ensure backwards compatibility and prevent outrage, as well as simply make life easier for the newbies.

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Yeah I think I'd have the ratio requirements gradually rising like what.cd anyway. Although in truth it depends on what your site is. The Pedro's community is mostly fine with 0.8 across the whole community at all times, but they're just a different bunch of people, and up until recently, and even still now, have had nowhere near as many seedboxes in the community so it's been far easier to seed than at what anyway. The ideal is to work out an implementation which could work for seedboxes coexisting with normal users and everything still being fair, and I think it can be done that way - but in what.cd's case it's a matter of transitioning - what you've done is probably the best way to have scaled the algorithm for the time being. I think we're all going to see how it plays out at what and if things need to be tweaked further (to make it even fairer to download at what.cd while not making any other part of the system less fair) - I hope they will be.

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So really, if you run the math, your formula and our formula are exactly the same - it's just that you consider "good enough" seeding time to be 7 days, and we consider "good enough" seeding time to be 72 hours.

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Are you sure? Isn't it that mine was rewarding users small amounts for a torrent if they seed less than 72 hours in the last week and and larger amounts if they seed that torrent more than 72 hours? And yours is only rewarding people a set amount for each torrent seeded in each week, so long as it is at least 72 hours?

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The 72 hour thing, while it may look a tad lenient of us, is because we consider someone who seeds 72 hours of the week to be seeding 'enough', and we don't want to place the harsh expectation of seeding 24/7 on them. It also gives them some buffer time where they don't have to be seeding - eg. formatting computer, going away for the weekend, etc. Not expecting people to seed 24/7 is almost exactly like not expecting them to maintain ratios of 1.0. While it may seem unfair for people who seed more than 72 hours per week (and while we do prefer people to seed longer), we feel that it isn't necessary to reward them with the requirement system - they'll be rewarded with the extra upload they get.

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The reason I thought of my particular algorithm was because someone pointed out that seeding 10 torrents for 144 hours ought to be rewarded as much as 20 torrents seeding for 72 hours, but under the current what.cd system, it would only be rewarded half.

However, I just realised that to be even fairer and more accurate on rewarding a user's seeding contribution (which is what it's all about), you should reward them according to how many bytes of torrents they are seeding in those seedhours. Someone could download ten 20GB torrents and ten 5MB torrents and then just seed the 5MB torrents and be rewarded exactly the same amount as if they seeded that other 200GB worth of torrents that they snatched.

So an even better algorithm would be: Requirement = Current requirement*[1-(total sum of each torrent's seedhours multiplied by its size in bytes)/(total possible seedhours multiplied by the accumulative size of all snatched torrents in bytes)] where "each torrent's seedhours" is the number of collective hours seeded by that torrent in the past week and "total possible seedhours" is 24 x 7 x the number of snatched torrents - the most you could possible contribute seeding-wise. "Hours" being calculated by the minute, ofc.

I'm trying to think of how you would implement a "good enough" value (an equivalent of the "minimum bar" 72 hours thing in what what.cd algorithm) into this different algorithm which measures bytes being seeded, not how many hours being seeded. I don't think it can. There's only one variable in my latest algorithm, and thats the percentage of total possible seeding contribution of all your past downloaded bytes, in the last week. So then to set a "good enough" measure, perhaps you could just set some percentage (50%, which would be pretty dang good for someone who's downloaded a lot) and if you reach that, you are taken to 0.0. Depends what you'd consider as good seeding contribution and how much you wanted to reward the user for it.

I think doing it this way would be much better because currently if someone seeds a torrent for 71 hours they're not rewarded at all - yet just one more hour and they're rewarded the same amount as if they seeded for the whole 168 hours in the week. All you'd have to do to make the more literal approach fair, is scale it gentler by setting a lower bar and a faster upscale of how much you reward their seeding byte size contribution.

All in all, this entire concept is merely the same old system we've had, but now with an extra seed bonus system on top which the user can make use of if they find they need it (which many sure do). It's a very smart automatically-managed bonus system which all you have to do is scale it to how much you want it to help the user.

Actually, the way we explained the 72 hour average is oversimplified and doesn't quite reflect the actual math. If a user was seeding for less than 72 hours, it's still counted - however, when we calculate the average, we still divide it by 72. So if someone was seeding 10 torrents for 36 hours, the site calculates them as having seeded 5 torrents for 72 hours.

The seed byte idea sounds quite interesting, and I can see what you're trying to do with it. But the goal of that system is different from the goal of the one we've implemented. Our goal is to guide the user towards correct behaviour - downloading, seeding their snatches for at least 72 hours per week, and gradually letting their ratio rise over time. We don't consider someone who's seeding rosetta stone to be contributing any more, or exhibiting any more correct behaviour, than someone who's the sole seeder on a rare 1950's single. However, the seed bytes system would.

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Originally Posted by WhatMan

Actually, the way we explained the 72 hour average is oversimplified and doesn't quite reflect the actual math. If a user was seeding for less than 72 hours, it's still counted - however, when we calculate the average, we still divide it by 72. So if someone was seeding 10 torrents for 36 hours, the site calculates them as having seeded 5 torrents for 72 hours.

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Ahh now I see that my previous "original" algorithm was indeed the same as yours - excellent - I think the actual way it works should be communicated somewhere on the site, as some people think it's a literal minimum 72 hours per torrent.

So I take it that you currently award the user according to the total seedhours per week divided by 72, whose resulting value is divided by the total *possible* seedhours per week divided by 72 which can be written as 168N/72 where N is total number of snatched torrents...and THAT resulting value is multiplied by your "normal" required ratio (after being scaled according to how many GBs you've downloaded, of course) to get the actual required ratio.

So if you seed half your downloaded torrents for 144 hours in the past week, you're considered to have been seeding ALL your torrents "forever" in that week. So if you've downloaded 100 torrents and seed 50 of those torrents for exactly 144 hours each, the required ratio at the end of the week (before adjustment according to how much you've downloaded) is (50x144/72)/(100x168/72) = 100/233.33 = 0.43, I think...in other words, the raw amount is simply, in this case, 72/168 or 0.43.

Hmm so you must then scale how much you reward that raw amount - according to how much the user has downloaded (the results of which is the table on the ratio rules page). You scale it lower for newbies so that they're rewarded more, but higher for the higher classes until the very top for which they don't earn anything for seeding...and 0.428577551107873 must be the lowest "raw" amount honored by the algorithm before the scaling is applied. Is that all correct? (My terminology is probably a bit un-technical.)

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The seed byte idea sounds quite interesting, and I can see what you're trying to do with it. But the goal of that system is different from the goal of the one we've implemented. Our goal is to guide the user towards correct behaviour - downloading, seeding their snatches for at least 72 hours per week, and gradually letting their ratio rise over time. We don't consider someone who's seeding rosetta stone to be contributing any more, or exhibiting any more correct behaviour, than someone who's the sole seeder on a rare 1950's single. However, the seed bytes system would.

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As for correct behaviour, I think it is good behaviour to seed the large torrents you've downloaded and not just the small ones you've downloaded ;). But yes in principle it is no different.

Actually, rewarding even more for a torrent with not many seeders is an idea I've thought about for some time and would be another way to make sure there's good seeding tracker-wide, while still rewarding every user according to how many bytes they are seeding. You could really experiment around with the algorithms in this way in accordance to what you want in your community. Anyway I'd say large torrents need more seeders than small torrents in general and that's why packs/large torrents are freeleech at many trackers.

Well keep up the pioneering work, and I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you for coming up with this great hybrid ratio system which I hope will be also adapted in some form or another at other places where seeding is also hard or at least downloading is to be particularly encouraged.

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Originally Posted by WhatMan

The seed byte idea sounds quite interesting, and I can see what you're trying to do with it.

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from what i understand, the beauty of the system is that it doesn't add or steal traffic which is the main currency from the system... rosetta stone problem - can't see no big deal about it in currently adopted system, but if it will be modified towards seed bonuses, then maybe it would be wise to use some simplier modifications of what chinese HD trackers are using, basically - no rewards for well seeded torrents (maybe only for 3 oldest seeders or smth). there's a lot of things that could be implemented in making seedboxes less dominant or rewarding uploaders.... don't know if there's enthusiasm to implement new ideas :)

ps oh, and seeding percentage on current system definitely should consider seeding size cause there's an easy way to leech a lot of ebooks - to seed them forever while not seeding on bigger torrents

Required ratio: 0.00 :D

does it means that the tracker has become almost ratioless for those who seed things forever?

I'm not talking about abusive seeding (like limiting things to 1kbps) but instead, seeding with what you have (when you're upload connection is not great).

and I read someone questioning the possibility of being banned in case you stay away for one week for example... this could be easily avoided if the tracker offers the users an option to park accounts for a time.

It's dependent on your download amount. Therefore it helps newer members get a base of torrents to seed, while forcing heavy users to maintain ratio. After you download 100GB your required ratio stays at 0.60 regardless.

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Originally Posted by ca_aok

It's dependent on your download amount. Therefore it helps newer members get a base of torrents to seed, while forcing heavy users to maintain ratio. After you download 100GB your required ratio stays at 0.60 regardless.

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Not in my entire life I would download 100gb of music :lol:
I just like listening to music, I'm not a fanatic :P

There are also apps on what. With Final Cut and some Rosetta Stone torrents you can get over 100GB easily.

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Originally Posted by Rigel9

There are also apps on what. With Final Cut and some Rosetta Stone torrents you can get over 100GB easily.

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Rigel, I used to be a happy member at OiNK... lots of musics and lots of apps... so "What" is something like that or you just have lots of musics and just a few apps?

well I don't know if you were an OiNK member to compare but someone else could respond that I think...

I've got far more than 100GB of music, and have listened to every track :D It's all a matter of what you enjoy. Some people watch movies in their free time, I usually prefer music.

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Originally Posted by ca_aok

I've got far more than 100GB of music, and have listened to every track :D It's all a matter of what you enjoy. Some people watch movies in their free time, I usually prefer music.

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I enjoy listening to music too (not much as I said before) and the problem is that I'm always listening to the same things :P and those things are far from achieving 100gb :blink:

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Originally Posted by ca_aok

I've got far more than 100GB of music, and have listened to every track :D It's all a matter of what you enjoy. Some people watch movies in their free time, I usually prefer music.

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I am the same there. Where some people might sit down and watch a movie in their home theater, I usually listen to an album - in surround sound and high resolution if possible :D.

And I give it all my attention too - I don't distract my eyes or mind, I prefer the lights off if possible - and just live in the music.

Now that's called living. (to me)

They know better for sure how to run their tracker, but I don't think it's such a good thing to do