Why don't music sites like what/waffles offer upload credit to donors?

Hello everyone,

Why don't music sites like what/waffles offer upload credit to donors?
I know each site has their own policy but what's the reason for not offering gigs?

It's as if these music sites expect members to donate out of goodwill but we all know that torrenting is,for the most part, a business. You download a torrent and seed it back to the required ratio, no exceptions.
So why do sites expect a favour in the form of money? :unsure:

Why not offer gigs to members who can get out of a ratio-hole by donating? The site can pay their server bills and the donor can increase his ratio. It's a win-win situation!

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by soulreaper

Why don't music sites like what/waffles offer upload credit to donors?
I know each site has their own policy but what's the reason for not offering gigs?

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Retention concerns. It's not really possible to build a music "library" if you have the option of donating and getting upload credit without uploading data yourself.

Otherwise, many people would just donate and then hit & run on their snatches, given both sites' seeding difficulty. Of course, you always have the option of renting a seedbox and auto-downloading everything just to buffer up. :eyebrows:

Fair point but a lot of torrents on both sites have 0 seeds and the inactive torrents are deleted so it's not essentially a library(KG doesn't delete inactive torrents).
Maybe the concern is that people might stop uploading and prefer donating to up their ratios? But other sites like SCC,TL etc may have the same concern but they offer gigs and members haven't stopped uploading.

I don't think offering gigs to donors would hurt what/waffles too much?

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Originally Posted by soulreaper

a lot of torrents on both sites have 0 seeds and the inactive torrents are deleted so it's not essentially a library(KG doesn't delete inactive torrents).

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Good point, also. I suppose they see little point in keeping zero-seed torrents as they're almost useless, anyway.

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Maybe the concern is that people might stop uploading and prefer donating to up their ratios?

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Personally, I think this is the reason.

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But other sites like SCC,TL etc may have the same concern but they offer gigs and members haven't stopped uploading.

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True, although those sites are at least somewhat easier to seed on.

You don't really need to seed on 0day sites, retention isn't really a priority. If I owned a big 0day site, I'd personally rather make some cash at the cost of worse retention. The upload they sell gets equalized by the hardcore seedbox RSS-ers, who do most of the initial uploading and will never 'cash in' their huge buffers because they are just too huge.

If retention is so critical to What/waffles then why don't they have strict hit n run rules?

And if retention is so important to them then why don't they have a bonus point system ? Torrents would surely be seeded for a long duration and would benefit members from "points to gigs conversion", isn't it? Just wondering..

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Originally Posted by soulreaper

If retention is so critical to What/waffles then why don't they have strict hit n run rules?

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Because you'll eventually have to seed/upload if you don't want to lose your leeching privileges/get banned for low ratio, anyway.

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And if retention is so important to them then why don't they have a bonus point system ? Torrents would surely be seeded for a long duration and would benefit members from "points to gigs conversion", isn't it?

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Same reason they aren't ratio-free. Many/most people would just seed the minimum necessary to be in good standing, and then delete torrents altogether.

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Originally Posted by anon-sbi

Because you'll eventually have to seed/upload if you don't want to lose your leeching privileges/get banned for low ratio, anyway.

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And if retention is so important to them then why don't they have a bonus point system ? Torrents would surely be seeded for a long duration and would benefit members from "points to gigs conversion", isn't it?

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Same reason they aren't ratio-free. Many/most people would just seed the minimum necessary to be in good standing, and then delete torrents altogether.

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:)

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Originally Posted by soulreaper

If retention is so critical to What/waffles then why don't they have strict hit n run rules?

And if retention is so important to them then why don't they have a bonus point system ? Torrents would surely be seeded for a long duration and would benefit members from "points to gigs conversion", isn't it? Just wondering..

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Whatcd is hard to seed on, and that is the 'benefit' to its core members. There are only so many ways you can abuse such a simple ratio economy, and for your information Whatcd does have a seedtime based alternate to ratio, which works much better on a million small torrents than the 'cap your upload but seed for X hours and you'll get ratio points' you are referring to.

The only big site that does 'points to gigs' successfully is blackcatsgames, and that is because their snatch count/torrent count ratio is huge in comparison to whatcd. If BCG had a million small torrents, some of which get snatched once in a blue moon, there's no way they could operate on their generous conversion system and maintain those million torrents.

I guess uploading is the only way to go OR rent a seedbox(which I can't afford).

Seedbox doesn't guarantee a decent ratio either, unless you still UL stuff/ there is a FL/ You RSS 100% FLACs like the lame OVH Hit squad.

I'd also assume that there's a legal angle to it. Allowing $$ > gigs wouldn't be the most stellar thing to boast about when the site is targeted and taken down and they're headed to court. (This is one reason I love the What mods, they're reasonable and understanding, and expect this to happen in the future. Most staffers/members think this will go on forever; then again, it's the curse of people being on their first FS protocol.)

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Originally Posted by n00bz0r

You RSS 100% FLACs like the lame OVH Hit squad.

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That's what I meant with my first post in this thread :)

Get a seedbox, autosnatch every 2010 FLAC that hits the tracker and you'll buffer up in no time.

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Originally Posted by ringhunter

I'd also assume that there's a legal angle to it. Allowing $$ > gigs wouldn't be the most stellar thing to boast about when the site is targeted and taken down and they're headed to court. (This is one reason I love the What mods, they're reasonable and understanding, and expect this to happen in the future. Most staffers/members think this will go on forever; then again, it's the curse of people being on their first FS protocol.)

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Every torrent site faces legal threat, nothing new there. However 'file retention' is probably why what/waffles dont offer gigs to donors.

The charges are raised considerably if profit from piracy was proven to have occurred. This can be in multiple forms such as gigs for donations, proven donation scams/schemes etc.

If the site doesn't have extremely tight rules and above 1 ratio, then ultimately there will be terrible retention, just as you see at what.cd and waffles even though they have so many torrents.

The only solution is to force people to hold onto the torrents for months at least, only being able to stop seeding it based on certain criteria (ie if hit 2.0 for the torrent, AND global ratio is >1.5 for the torrent AND you personally are above 1.5 ratio, THEN it will let you stop seeding). That will mean there will ALWAYS be people seeding unless they have extremely good reasons not to (ie, if you fail to announce for 24 hours it will not warn you), and those who fail to do it get a point. Too many points, and it increases the seeding rules (ie, 3.0 for the torrent), until you suddenly will just get banned.

TBH a paid site is a much better system, it is MUCH easier to just keep the files on a seedbox, but the problem with that is all the legal issues, hence why it probably doesn't happen.

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Originally Posted by Thelen

If the site doesn't have extremely tight rules and above 1 ratio, then ultimately there will be terrible retention, just as you see at what.cd and waffles even though they have so many torrents.

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Can you give an example of this?

I don't think they have a terrible retention, that's an exageration, they have tons of really old torrents still going; For more obscure stuff though, retention is very lacking unfortunately but it's really because almost no one grabs it and eventually the OP leaves.

Would've been nice to get some gigs for 5$ !