Whom are the new Hero's?

[RealitY]

As for that request you got if you give an invite youll be banned from manker ice cream party ftw and that. As for torrent just no...

Hey, did you get invited to be a mod at the poxy torrent sites, in return for the stars? Or did you send rossco in lieu, you know, just in case literacy was a prerequisite.

Got a booket of ice cream loike and goona have my own party...

[tesco]

As for that request you got if you give an invite youll be banned from manker ice cream party ftw and that. As for torrent just no...

Hey, did you get invited to be a mod at the poxy torrent sites, in return for the stars? Or did you send rossco in lieu, you know, just in case literacy was a prerequisite.

I don't see what the big deal is that everyone has to bitch about this.
They probably shouldn't have special stars but there's no reason why they shouldn't...
All the stars do is help you to notice that they're bt site owners/admins which is the same purpose the mod and admin stars have...
These 'community reps' don't have any special privileges that member accounts don't have...

[Agrajag]

Hey, did you get invited to be a mod at the poxy torrent sites, in return for the stars? Or did you send rossco in lieu, you know, just in case literacy was a prerequisite.

I don't see what the big deal is that everyone has to bitch about this.
They probably shouldn't have special stars but there's no reason why they shouldn't...
All the stars do is help you to notice that they're bt site members which is the same purpose the mod and admin stars have...
These 'community reps' don't have any special privileges that member accounts don't have...

I agree. I really don't give a fuck about the colour of people's stars. I never look at stars or post numbers, I read what people say.

However I'm a BT site member (see your last). In fact I'm lots of BT site members. So how are these lads different, I think that's what your members want to know. It's you chaps who created the differentiation, not your members. It's you who gave them a perception of being somehow special, not your members.

It really isn't appropriate for you to get all sniffy when people who have been here for years get a bit pissed off when they see new members being given special treatment.

I know it's pathetic, however please bear in mind it was you (plural) who caused it. Not the chaps here who were just going about their business.

[tesco]

First of all, I made a mistake and meant to saw bt site admins/owners.
But anyway like I said they're NOT getting a special treatment it's purely just there so members know they own/run a bt site (some day it will include mroe than just bt but that's all so far afaik).

[Chip Monk]

First of all, I made a mistake and meant to saw bt site admins/owners.
But anyway like I said they're NOT getting a special treatment it's purely just there so members know they own/run a bt site (some day it will include mroe than just bt but that's all so far afaik).

Ross, it's not about reality (pardon the pun) it's about perception.

[wanderlust]

Well, guys, thanks for the friendly welcome !
I didn't ask for special status, except to say on TPG what my staffing positions were.
As far as I can see, the 'rank' gives me no special status otherwise, except to indicate that I am staff on one or more trackers.
I do have experience in giving help and advice on the forums of these trackers, and discussing popular topics and thorny topics on these forums and forums such as this one.
With such a reception, however, I'm not exactly encouraged to post here, and hope that your posts are not an expression of the majority.
I do think some of you have missed the point : When you see 'Community Staff', wou will know where the posts from these guys are coming from, and have an idea of what they do, especially where they are posting about specific trackers, invites, etc..

And to answer the other query, some sites have community forums where those who are staff at other sites have special access to discuss common problems and ideas. Many also have a community staff marker on the tracker, but no community staff get any special treatment on any of the trackers of which I am a member, and are expected to abide by the same rules as everyone else.

You also seem to miss the point of this whole move, in that a lot of us are trying to bring the community together in a common cause, and this kind of drawing together also helps to prevent disagreements between sites, giving a forum where any such disagreements can be discussed and defused before they reach any serious level. That is one of the things TPG is about, and also what a large part of this site is about.

[zapjb]

Well, guys, thanks for the friendly welcome !
I didn't ask for special status, except to say on TPG what my staffing positions were.
As far as I can see, the 'rank' gives me no special status otherwise, except to indicate that I am staff on one or more trackers.
I do have experience in giving help and advice on the forums of these trackers, and discussing popular topics and thorny topics on these forums and forums such as this one.
With such a reception, however, I'm not exactly encouraged to post here, and hope that your posts are not an expression of the majority.
I do think some of you have missed the point : When you see 'Community Staff', wou will know where the posts from these guys are coming from, and have an idea of what they do, especially where they are posting about specific trackers, invites, etc..

And to answer the other query, some sites have community forums where those who are staff at other sites have special access to discuss common problems and ideas. Many also have a community staff marker on the tracker, but no community staff get any special treatment on any of the trackers of which I am a member, and are expected to abide by the same rules as everyone else.

You also seem to miss the point of this whole move, in that a lot of us are trying to bring the community together in a common cause, and this kind of drawing together also helps to prevent disagreements between sites, giving a forum where any such disagreements can be discussed and defused before they reach any serious level. That is one of the things TPG is about, and also what a large part of this site is about.

Well your points above seem to make sense. The only post from one of you that has so far.

Having said that. You all should come here & start with one star. Like the rest of us. If you want to have a special title like BT Specialist. Fine.

But none of you earned or deaerve 5 stars.

Build your reputations. Don't come here crowned. It's ridiculous.

[wanderlust]

A MORE IN-DEPTH EXPLANATION :

Bit Torrent differs a little to other file sharing methods in that it REQUIRES wholehearted sharing and giving back what you get.
While the larger trackers, and public trackers may put little importance on ratio, (simply because there are so many users it is not necessary to police ratio so much), the smaller private trackers need people to give back and if possible seed as long as possible.
This is where the problem of hit and running comes in. Someone downloads a file, then breaks the connection without seeding that file back. Because of the limited membership, there are soon not enough (or any) seeders to keep that file alive and it dies.
Uploaders, whether a special class on the tracker, or general users as on some trackers, upload a file and seed it until there are two or three seeders. Once seeders have taken over, the uploader can then go on to upload new files. However, if seeders don't take over, the file has a very short life, thus cutting down the choice of files on the tracker over all.
Trackers used to concentrate solely on a person's overall ratio, and as long as they kept this at a healthy level, they were left in peace. (Ratio is arrived at by dividing the amount uploaded by the amount downloaded). Of late however, it had proved more useful for the life of torrents and for the total number of torrents staying alive on the site, to insist on a good per torrent ratio.
This is one of the main reasons for there being staff on a tracker. These are normally experienced bit-torrenters who are given access to special tools to analyse members' behaviour, and show them who is not seeding back on individual torrents, and on the site in general. First offences of not keeping up to ratio are normally treated with a simple reminder to the person that they need to seed. Subsequent lapses are treated more seriously.
In a sharing COMMUNITY, we cannot tolerate people who just take, and these people need to be weeded out, converted if possible, or banned if not, so that the rest of the community can get on with the process of SHARING equally.
We also have people who try to cheat, either by using ratio making tools, tweaked clients, or hacking. We therefore have staff experienced in spotting this and who then warn and in most cases, summarily ban these cheaters.
One of the benefits of community forums, and sites such as TPG is the ability of staff to discuss these problems, and pass on information concerning persistent bad users. This helps to discourage cheating and hit and running as a person banned from one site can also find himself very quickly banned from quite a few other sites too before even trying to join them.
As I said, the Bit Torrent community relies on SHARING, and if you are not willing to share you have no place in the community. Staff make sure that this is so.
All BT tracker staff work for free, giving up their free time due to loyalty either to a particular tracker, or to the BT community as a whole.
For this reason, we are glad of sites where we can exchange information between ourselves and also with other community members who may not be staff or owners.
A lot of us, also, are interested in helping people out with problems in BT, such as client settings, port forwarding, software used for file conversion, hardware problems,literally anything to do with getting and using the files available from BT trackers, and again give up our spare time to help out newbies and experienced peeps alike with such problems. No one can know everything about IT, and there is always someone who has come across a problem before you and may be able to give you a pointer to solving a particular problem. Some people simply enjoy giving this kind of help and normally become at least support staff on BT trackers if not mods or admins.
Admins, Sysops and site owners mostly do their bit for BT by providing servers and trackers to the community for the love of it. Supported by donations and the pocket money of these individuals these private trackers are made available, and it is expected that the users will respond in kind by at least sharing the files they obtain. The world being what it is, there are always those who want something for nothing, and so the Admins, Sysops, or Site Owners need the help and assistance of moderators and forum moderators to help give a good service to their members, and to police the tracker and forums and get rid of undesirable members.

So, I hope that explains why these people have been give a special identifier here and on TPG and other community forums. It can mean that they will be able to help you, or if you have something to be guilty about, to be careful what you say to, about, or in front of them, or if you need a particular service, they may be able to provide it for you, even down to a simple thing like you feel you were unfairly banned from a site, or lost your password and have been unable to get the password recovery system of that site to work, or you are having problems because you use a proxy, or your IP has been included in a general blocklist, whatever. Most of them will at least give you a polite acknowledgement, and normally a bit of help or explanation.

There ! I DID warn you about my wanderbooks. Please don't flame me for this post. I am just trying to help explain the idea behind the identifier a little......

EDIT :
I should add that I don't think this identifier is solely associated with TPG, nor would it be meant to. I would think it would apply to any member who is staff on a BT tracker, and as intimated elsewhere, on other kinds of file-sharing sites/methods, and once they have been vetted, they would receive the same marker. The reason for the sudden influx from TPG is that this site has joined TPG and asked to make closer ties with it, and we have responded out of curiosity, and out of support for this idea. Some of us, (although not I) were already members here, some joined recently (I did). - I don't care what kind of marker I am given, only, I think it fair that folk have an idea who they are dealing with, but would have had no problem whatsoever with remaining anonymous, so to speak, either.......

[wanderlust]

Sorry, I sort of got the BiT between my teeth there, but I hope it is clear. It would in some ways have served my purposes to remain anonymous, but the staff here thought it only fair we be 'marked', for a few different but good reasons, and as you can see, I have no problems in making posts !

[Agrajag]

I still don't really care if you get different coloured stars, or a different title. To me it's all about what people say, not what they are wearing.

The chap who said someone was being overly paranoid and laughed at him. That means more to me and tells me more than the colour of the stars he has. That tells me if he's the sort I want to go to for help or advice.