An open discussion on the "lifetime ban" and "pre-banning" policies

I wanted to start a serious discussion about the common policy of lifetime banning someone from a tracker as well as "pre-banning", meaning banning them from one tracker because they were banned from another. Hopefully there won't be too many ruffled feathers about it but here are my thoughts:

I know people will say, it is a private tracker and they can do whatever they want, and yes, that is true. I am merely stating an opinion on the matter in the hopes this will start a serious discussion and rethinking of certain policies because, In my opinion these policies need to be rethought.

To give a little background, I was banned from a certain tracker about 5 years ago for ghost leeching. I didn't know what it was at the time, I just had a horrible internet connection and at the time there wasn't really any mechanism in place for users in my situation. I didn't stand a chance, I tried everything but from the beginning my ratio was in trouble and some kind of administrative action would likely happen anyway. Yes, I probably should have known better and that it was probably against the rules but I was desperate because, as I said, from the very beginning I didn't stand a chance. Anyway, I took my punishment and carried on. I learned my lesson and accepted the fact that I would be banned for life, unless I got another invite under a new username and email and IP and MAC, which I did not want to do because I actually wanted to be a good member. So I basically quit torrenting, or did very little and only in certain trackers where it was easier to maintain a ratio on slow connections. This continued until better speeds became available in my town. I had become a member at other private trackers within five years. Those that asked the "have you been banned anywhere else" question, I truthfully said yes and explained why and most were understanding that it was a mistake a very long time ago and I have strived to rebuild my reputation.

However there were some that were not so understanding. Again, I understand that these are private trackers and they have no obligation to me at all. I joined another tracker a few months ago, one I had been wanting to join for a while. I had joined by invite from the site creator in a class-restricted forum on another tracker. He did not ask me the "question", I just asked for an invite and he gave it to me. So I assumed he already did the "background check" I know they do and didn't care for whatever reason. This site had no ratio requirements after all. I had only activated my account, not even downloaded anything yet, before I was banned. I was told the reason I was banned was because of that 5 year old ban on another tracker. I was told I would have to clear things up with them before I would be un-banned, if at all. As I'm sure you could tell, even though I was forthcoming, cooperative, and polite, things did not go well with either of those conversations. After waiting for days and only getting a few minutes to talk, I got nowhere with either site. Fine. It is a private site after all and even though it was a noob mistake 5 years ago and I have had a good reputation at many other sites since then, they can do what they want.

Apart from the unnecessary rudeness and days of waiting only to be mostly ignored, the part that really got me was when one of them said, "we don't invite cheaters". That really made me angry for a number of reasons which is the crux of this whole thing. Because they do have cheaters on their sites. They do invite them and many of them don't get caught. If you have ever read any of these forums you know that. People just get another invite or whatever. The real cheaters as I call them. Hell, there are even forums dedicated to cheating on elite private trackers. What they don't have is people that made a mistake and want to be reintegrated into the community. Again, yes, it is a private tracker and they have no obligation to do so but I don't think they ever considered the side effects of these policies.

Instead of discouraging breaking the rules, I would argue these policies in many cases have the reverse affect. If you break a rule early in your torrenting "career" either on purpose or by accident, and your punishment is a lifetime ban from not only one tracker but a pre-ban from many others, what does that do? Does that mean that person is just going to say "oh well" and walk away? Not likely. Since they already know there is absolutely nothing else they can loose, more than likely I would imagine it would just make them try to find another way in and keep doing it after the continue to get caught. And that is exactly what happens. I do not know how often it happens as I have never ran a tracker (and I would be very curious if anyone has numbers) but I see people on this forum and others talk about how they got banned and just got a new invite since that is the only option for reintegration. Meanwhile, those that learned from there mistakes long ago and want to be part of the community cannot be. Again, private trackers aren't obligated to re-integrate you, but if they don't then I believe that, more often than not, that would turn someone that wants to be part of the community into a career cheater. It seems to me the lifetime ban and pre-ban policies of many of these private trackers are in fact indirectly encouraging cheating and possibly creating cheaters more than it is trying to prevent it. I think a better policy would be some sort of re-integration policy after a lengthy ban. What are your thoughts on the matter? And please, let's keep this discussion serious and civil.

2003/2004 there was no cheaters peeps just glad to be part great sites and because wasn't that many you respected their rules became part some great communities.
Now days depends on how a peep gets introduced to the torrent scene, cheat site...yeah learning their way peeps get banned, trading sites... trading accounts well they get caught banned for trading
If your lucky enough to find open torrent site or invite forum actually learn the correct way to do things from day-one already right path

Personally think peeps get lead astray a little depending on how introduced to torrent world , answer to Question. YES peeps should have a second chance but how to pick the genuine member who sorry past and use second chance.Others would just carry on their wicked ways :-)
I'm sure just easier to leave peeps on the banned list rather then try way through who's good and bad
Would be easier to just change ip new email and username behave from that point on. Good sites have enough open sign ups to get back in, even your site didn't you slow build that good member rep up eventually get invite to the site you wanted.

like extradry says, how can we differentiate between the 2, if we take one persons word for it we have to take everyone elses, and if you give people an inch they will take a mile.

as for global bans, i am not that keen on them (its not global anyway, every tracker doesnt talk to every tracker), some things are warranted for a ban across trackers, Hacks/DDos attacks (if you can find out who is behind them grr), aggressive behaviour to the staff (and i mean death threats like behaviour, not just a fuck off here and there), selling accounts/invites, systematic cheating, what i mean by this is, not just 1 tracker reporting them but at least 3-5.

Other trackers see it a lot differently though, if you break just a little rule, they go on the rampage and want you banned from everywhere, doesnt mean all trackers will ban you for it, but some will.

I actually would want the trackers to stop prunning the account , I lost my BCG account twice and despite being with them since 2007 my running account is from 2011.

O.T - Any chance BCG would be up tomorrow ?

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Originally Posted by stoi

like extradry says, how can we differentiate between the 2, if we take one persons word for it we have to take everyone elses, and if you give people an inch they will take a mile.

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It's simple. If someone cheated at a tracker and is asking for a second chance just a couple days later, then you probably should say no, cheaters aren't allowed.

But 5 years later? A lot changes in 5 years. Filesharing itself changes a lot in 5 years. People change a lot in 5 years. Heck, I've changed a lot in the almost 5 years I've been here. I'm certainly not the same person I was when I first registered on this forum. I'd hope that anyone who's been here that long has changed at least a little bit as well.

Lifetime bans are kind of ridiculous. They should really be done away with imo.

Global bans I think really depend on the gravity of what you did. Traded an invite? Have an awful ratio or hit and run'd too many times? Made a dupe account? Whatever, just ban the account.

Sold dozens of invites for hundreds of dollars? Ratio cheated terabytes of data? The global ban might be justifiable.

Keep in mind I don't really think Bittorrent is really serious business enough to really warrant dramatic global/lifetime bans at all. I only say that I can kind of see someone's viewpoint for the situation I mentioned above.

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Originally Posted by issues

And please, let's keep this discussion serious and civil.

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OK,let us be serious.

It is hard to take seriously the protests of someone who's moral compass only (apparently) suddenly kicks in when he happens to be the one being effected.
Other than that I am seriously missing the part where you were "deprived" of anything as you didn't actually have that thing to begin with.
As for "fairness",I also seemed to have missed the memo where life suddenly became fair.

I think that instead of shaking a fist at the heavens and railing against imagined injustice,a reasonable person merely carries on and attempts to live to best of their ability and tries to keep the whining to a tolerable minimum.

Btw I'm basically a genius when it comes to people and all I'm seeing here is someone who got his feelings hurt because some internet type had the audacity to blackball him from his pseudo-cool pseudo-fraternity.

Is this your first and only account in this forum, issues?

Honesty isn't always the best policy. Most trackers basically don't care....you are just a number to them. Just get a different IP, email and username and start from fresh.

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Originally Posted by absent_today

I actually would want the trackers to stop prunning the account , I lost my BCG account twice and despite being with them since 2007 my running account is from 2011.

O.T - Any chance BCG would be up tomorrow ?

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We have just turned pruning back on, Super PU and above are immune (so get downloading and using the site if you are not that class, its not that hard), and its set to 3 months unparked and 6 months parked.

1/2 of our memberbase hadnt logged in for 3 months or more, the pruning got rid of i believe 21,000 inactive members, and then I opened straight away, but 10 minutes later we got another DDos, so best laid plans and all that...

as for will we be back online tomorrow, i honestly do not have a clue.

for the 5 years thing, if a tracker says its a lifetime ban, then thats what it is, i cant be arsed to keep track of shit like that though

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Originally Posted by stoi

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Originally Posted by absent_today

I actually would want the trackers to stop prunning the account , I lost my BCG account twice and despite being with them since 2007 my running account is from 2011.

O.T - Any chance BCG would be up tomorrow ?

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We have just turned pruning back on, Super PU and above are immune (so get downloading and using the site if you are not that class, its not that hard), and its set to 3 months unparked and 6 months parked.

1/2 of our memberbase hadnt logged in for 3 months or more, the pruning got rid of i believe 21,000 inactive members, and then I opened straight away, but 10 minutes later we got another DDos, so best laid plans and all that...

as for will we be back online tomorrow, i honestly do not have a clue.

for the 5 years thing, if a tracker says its a lifetime ban, then thats what it is, i cant be arsed to keep track of shit like that though

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But hasn't your website been down for the better part of 3 months? I haven't been able to access BCG for a long time now, I don't know how long exactly. But if your website is down every time that I try in a 3 month period (not necessarily that you were down all 3 months, just when I've tried) I may have been pruned and not even know it still since I still can't access the site.

This is more of a question really, because I think its been around 3 months since I've been able to login to BCG. Not because of lack of trying though.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

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Originally Posted by issues

And please, let's keep this discussion serious and civil.

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OK,let us be serious.

It is hard to take seriously the protests of someone who's moral compass only (apparently) suddenly kicks in when he happens to be the one being effected.
Other than that I am seriously missing the part where you were "deprived" of anything as you didn't actually have that thing to begin with.
As for "fairness",I also seemed to have missed the memo where life suddenly became fair.

I think that instead of shaking a fist at the heavens and railing against imagined injustice,a reasonable person merely carries on and attempts to live to best of their ability and tries to keep the whining to a tolerable minimum.

Btw I'm basically a genius when it comes to people and all I'm seeing here is someone who got his feelings hurt because some internet type had the audacity to blackball him from his pseudo-cool pseudo-fraternity.

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This is why we can't have nice things.

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Originally Posted by stoi

like extradry says, how can we differentiate between the 2, if we take one persons word for it we have to take everyone elses, and if you give people an inch they will take a mile.

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In a lot of cases such as mine it is fairly easy. I have kept the same username among a number of other trackers and a lot of them as we know share information. In my case they saw that I was in good standing at those places for a number of years since that incident but were only interested in the ban.

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Originally Posted by ghurka

Honesty isn't always the best policy. Most trackers basically don't care....you are just a number to them. Just get a different IP, email and username and start from fresh.

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That's another thing I forgot to mention that bothers me. Many trackers tout that as their mantra of sorts but it is completely false. They say "lying will only make things worse" but in reality the choice if a lifetime ban or at least try to lie about it. I chose to be honest about it and am still paying for it. Which is another reason why I think these policies need to be rethought.

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Originally Posted by anon

Is this your first and only account in this forum, issues?

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No, it is not. My main account is not banned or anything. I just wasn't sure how this conversation would go and didn't want my main account associated with it. I did not see anything in the rules against this so my apologies if I am breaking any.

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Originally Posted by issues

I just wasn't sure how this conversation would go and didn't want my main account associated with it.

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Well, I'm afraid that doesn't do you any favors.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

As for "fairness",I also seemed to have missed the memo where life suddenly became fair.

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Yeah I mean seriously, hasn't this guy ever been screwed over before? I can hardly make it out of bed without life giving me a hard kick in the balls! :pinch:

But more on topic, in my experience if a person has a good account at a tracker and gets disabled due to inactivity, 99% of the time they will enable it if you just go ask for it. But perhaps if you were so inactive and uninterested in the site that you failed to log in for 1-3 months, you don't really like the place that much to begin with (excepting certain life circumstances that might prevent one from accessing a computer or something).

Also, there's pretty much 2-3 (or 10) decent trackers for every popular medium of entertainment anyway. Just go find another place to hang your hat.

I can't really speak for the policies of certain trackers in particular. That's what the staff of the site in question is for.

As for "fairness", I never said anything about it not being "fair" at all. My purpose was to point out that these practices are likely to foster and cause the very behavior that they are trying to prevent. Although, I could see how it could read that way.

If it's been 5 years you probably have a new motherboard and a new IP address. I don't understand why you pride yourself in some bullshit online honesty, you should have just started with a clear slate and a new identity.

For a staffer to make an exception for you, would be opening the door to possible future headaches by not following a pretty clear and standard rule. There is nothing for the site to gain by giving you the benefit of the doubt.

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Originally Posted by 1000possibleclaws

If it's been 5 years you probably have a new motherboard and a new IP address. I don't understand why you pride yourself in some bullshit online honesty, you should have just started with a clear slate and a new identity.

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Last time I checked honesty wasn't something that can be neatly compartmentalized.You either are or you aren't and setting or circumstance doesn't enter into it.

Basically,if I'm understanding you correctly, then a person should be fine being " dishonest" when it "doesn't matter" or when they assume they stand a reasonable chance of getting away with it.

Since this seems to be the prevalent opinion that is nurtured "online" then I'm going to just go ahead and assume that we should start building more prisons right now as obviously we are going to need them.:mellow:

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

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Originally Posted by 1000possibleclaws

If it's been 5 years you probably have a new motherboard and a new IP address. I don't understand why you pride yourself in some bullshit online honesty, you should have just started with a clear slate and a new identity.

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Last time I checked honesty wasn't something that can be neatly compartmentalized.You either are or you aren't and setting or circumstance doesn't enter into it.

Basically,if I'm understanding you correctly, then a person should be fine being " dishonest" when it "doesn't matter" or when they assume they stand a reasonable chance of getting away with it.

Since this seems to be the prevalent opinion that is nurtured "online" then I'm going to just go ahead and assume that we should start building more prisons right now as obviously we are going to need them.:mellow:

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How I see it, someones online identities can be separate and independent from each other as well as from their real-world self. (OlegL could be me or some other active user trolling on a joke account.) If the OP abandons his old persona and nickname, he gets the fresh start he wants. The cost is that he loses whatever identity he has developed under that nick, which in this case might be a positive thing?

If he creates a new identity I see it the same as if he was a brand new user to private torrents. All the hoops of being a new user, if there even are any, are still there for him. To get back on topic, having these IP and/or MAC bans is something I agree with, because its a barrier that discourages disposable tracker accounts for cheating purposes.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

Last time I checked honesty wasn't something that can be neatly compartmentalized.You either are or you aren't and setting or circumstance doesn't enter into it.

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What follows is an anecdote I will offer to counter that.

I'm a ridiculously honest person, but you better believe I'm going to lie and manipulate when put up against a system (e.g. IRS, police). For all relationships that are relatively level, and I'm including employer/employee in that formula, honesty is a net gain, which is why I have been so dependent on it. However, when there's a significant disproportion of power, let's say at a traffic stop, is there any real merit in letting the officer know you had a couple beers a few hours earlier. If you're sober, then your sobriety is itself convincing; why add doubt by admitting to consumption in the past 24 hours? The circumstances are such that you have no regard or sympathy to the system that will callously bend you over and rough fuck your ass.

Please take this as a general analysis that is not at all related to torrenting. For that aspect, I'll say this.

Torrent sites do not matter, at all. They are trivial, and by the nature of merely being populated, they are inhabited by a bunch of self-serving twats. Manage all your interactions with them under that generally true assumption. You can act with complete honesty or complete deception, it won't fucking matter what the result is.

Feel free to bitch about it though, for we all go through bouts of utter disappointment in realizing that our surroundings are much more awful than previously conceived.

In the case of the IRS or the police a bit of self preservation instinct kicks in and supplants the honesty.In situations when your well being is not at stake though,I think it's more of a question of respect.

In the case of bt even though I basically agree with your point of "self-serving twats" and would even add infantile to the mix,I still think as people and as yet unproven to be terrorists or pedophiles or something equally heinous like Rush Limbaugh they deserve the minimal of respect,which to me would be being honest with them.

Btw being twats, I don't except the same level of integrity back from them.:mellow:

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

I basically agree with your point

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When it comes down to the time in the future when you realize that you agree with almost everything I have ever said, ever, how exactly would your suicide proceed?

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Originally Posted by mjmacky

When it comes down to the time in the future when you realize that you agree with almost everything I have ever said, ever, how exactly would your suicide proceed?

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I suppose if I agree to everything you say,I would probably want to ask you what you think and then just do that and save myself the bother of trying to come up with something myself.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

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Originally Posted by mjmacky

When it comes down to the time in the future when you realize that you agree with almost everything I have ever said, ever, how exactly would your suicide proceed?

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I suppose if I agree to everything you say,I would probably want to ask you what you think and then just do that and save myself the bother of trying to come up with something myself.

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I recommend the blaze of glory scenario, for why do it yourself when you can coerce an entire police force into doing it for you?

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Originally Posted by 1000possibleclaws

If it's been 5 years you probably have a new motherboard and a new IP address. I don't understand why you pride yourself in some bullshit online honesty, you should have just started with a clear slate and a new identity.

For a staffer to make an exception for you, would be opening the door to possible future headaches by not following a pretty clear and standard rule. There is nothing for the site to gain by giving you the benefit of the doubt.

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I could very easily do that which is exactly my point. These trackers are very adamant about only one account a lifetime and tie all these strict rules and consequences to them. But it is very common knowledge that you can easily just get around that. I'm not saying they should make an exception for me. I am saying they should rethink the consequences to breaking certain rules. Because if it is just a long term ban you get, then you can do your time and come back and play by the rules, contribute, be part of the community, whatever. If you are immediately and permanently banned, well then all bets are off, who gives a shit about the rules just get another account and identity. By having such strict consequences, it may deter people from breaking the rules, but if you are in that demographic I mentioned in the OP, someone that just made a mistake, is just learning, basically not someone that trying to be a "career cheater", well then that just kind of teaches you that it is easier and better to break the rules than to follow them. Essentially having such strict and permanent consequences to those rules will in some circumstances actually make the punishment less severe.

Or here is another way of putting it and this is just my point of view on how I think things usually work:
User A is the kind of user that likes to just cheat and break the rules. He get caught and permanently banned. He gets another account and this cycle continues.
User B just messed up because he is an idiot. He get caught and permanently banned. He's not likely to just walk away but find out that it's easier to just get another account and keep doing so like user A.

Now if the rules were changed:
User A gets caught and banned for 3 months (or whatever). Does it again, gets banned six months (or whatever). Then gets permanently banned.
User B get banned the first time. Maybe a second time even. But he gets his shit straight and learns how to play by the rules.

I do understand though from a staffer point of view, who cares really, that is just more work (headaches as you say) and it is just a torrent site that doesn't really matter so if you break the rules you're banned. I get it. I'm just saying, I think there is a better way of doing it.

Along time ago in a galaxy far away I was actually a staff member of a fairly well known torrent site, but more to the point I was a fairly low level staff member and got some of the really fun jobs. At one point there was an interview system set up and so I got to do the interviews, lucky me..... There really is only so much capacity for being lied to before you tend towards anger yourself, and about a third of the interviewee's were previously banned members another third were those trying to create dupe accounts, but almost every single one of them lied to me....

There are really only two choices, the private trackers have rules and remain private trackers or go fuck it let's just have a free for all and all become public trackers.