Let's talk about BT

[sez]

Nice discourse you have going on here

Why do you use bit torrent, and why to the degree that you use it?

On those rare instants that i'll be on a BT client i'll probably be leeching 0-day material.0-day because its what interests me and its what led me to torrents in the first place plus as of recently,it tends to collect more points if am to re-share on warez by upping to a one click host such as rapidshare.

What do you feel is the ideal tracker for you, and are you a member of a site that fills those requirements?

As you can see,my bar isn't set as high so any good general tracker is more than ideal for me,in which case there exists a plethora although fast pres are a necessity especially when am of the intention to share on RS.This coupled with forum activity that actually interests me puts S*C as my camelot and chalisto as the guy who brought it to me for which am thankful of him.

What do you see the politics of BT entailing, and does it affect your actions in this field?

I've seen a couple of people say that the politics isn't of any significance to them.In which case i'll assume that its upto personal interpretation coz in as far as I know,a people who aren't interested in their politics are a people who either don't care or aren't as connected with their community as they are supposed to be.Sort of like young people with elections and yes it does affect how I torrent.

Do you think there is an ethos necessary when interacting, and if so, what does it consist of? By this I mean what do you think the "morals" of BT are, if you think there should be.

Fact is what we do is illegal but its not necessarily a 'crime'.Even the RIAA knows this.Alot of us probably use pot as much as its proscribed yet we still make good people in our societies.So this notion that a code of conduct is fallacious given that piracy is considered to be outside the law(law that is always subject to change and interpretation)is just wrong.

As to what the ethos entail,its pretty much common sense given that the polarity between wrong and right is crystal.
Though i'll put more emphasis on respect as is in being a two way traffic.It works in maximum security lock-ups with murderers and rapists so I don't see why it shouldn't with mere illegal file sharers.

One more thing,if you have the money it really doesn't hurt to buy.$0.99 is not that expensive to pay for music.

But just my opinion.

[onlinetragedy]

I use bittorrent because im too cheap to actually buy all the stuff i want. Besudes this is much more convenient.

S*T is prolly the best for me(tv shows, movies, some games). S*C is basically interchangeable with it except S*T gets some soccer games for me once in a while. For a bigtime action movies ill head over to hdbits for a proper high qual user rip. For most music i use what. BCG, KG, TT and bitme round out my other needs.

I'm lookin for one or two more trackers that have eluded me for some time.

I really don't care what politicians say I don't trust any of em.

Morals of BT? Keep seeding for a couple weeks and don't hide some malware in your ups.

BT will live on forever. Distributed file sharing systems cannot be stopped. It might have to evolve but the idea will be the same. (Such as using http prot)


Love all my torrenters! ;D

[mrnobody]

Fact is what we do is illegal but its not necessarily a 'crime'.

the very definition of 'crime' comes from the notion of breaking a law. So yeas, doing something illegal is a crime.

Even the RIAA knows this.

sure they do. But there isn't a prison to hold 1/2 a billion or so file-sharers, or is there?

[Swepsycho]

So, in light of the discussion going on in another thread, I thought I would start a thread for everyone to express what they think about this big ball of hobby that is called torrenting. I'll post some questions, but I'm not asking for a list of answers, more your thoughts on the way the bigger circle of society revolving around trackers looks to you. The questions are just there as an idea of what focus I'd like to see this discussion center around.

OK

Why do you use bit torrent, and why to the degree that you use it?

safe filesharing....very high degree i need many movies games music etc...

What do you feel is the ideal tracker for you, and are you a member of a site that fills those requirements?

safe tracker...not many know it exist...very hard to fbi and organisitions to find...am not member in tracker with fills the requeirements... i hope one day i can be

Do you feel you are on enough trackers, and what do you think is too many trackers?

no...u can never have to many....

What do you see the politics of BT entailing, and does it affect your actions in this field?

yes politic can be hard sometime...

Do you think there is an ethos necessary when interacting, and if so, what does it consist of? By this I mean what do you think the "morals" of BT are, if you think there should be.

be good member have good moral..

I don't know if this is just too general a subject for discussion here, but I'd really like to get a wide view of what people think about this thing we do, and would only ask that people keep it about BT and stay civil.

law people dont like what we do....but old news lol...

[ca_aok]

RE: the above, BT is one of the most unsafe forms of filesharing since everyone in every swarm can see your IP address, and all of your personal data is stored in giant databases on sites that the feds have most certainly infiltrated

Why do you use bit torrent, and why to the degree that you use it?

Started with torrents because limewire had too many fakes/viruses/etc and terrible quality. Also, my cousin was on OinK and I was dying to have that much music at my disposal.

What do you feel is the ideal tracker for you, and are you a member of a site that fills those requirements?

Content-wise it's What, and yes I'm a member there Community-wise it's probably somewhere I shouldn't mention.

Do you feel you are on enough trackers, and what do you think is too many trackers?

I feel like I'm on too many, especially 0-days. I'm active on maybe 9 of my trackers and download occasionally from a few more.

What do you see the politics of BT entailing, and does it affect your actions in this field?

Having been directly invovled in the BT world's politics, I'd say it does shape what I do. However, I feel like a ton of people have this ridiculous sense of entitlement being members of certain sites, and need to learn to stfu and get back to sharing files among themselves, which is the entire point of BT. However, the politics are sort of like a train wreck, and it's great fun to watch it all play out when you aren't involved in the particular matter.

Do you think there is an ethos necessary when interacting, and if so, what does it consist of? By this I mean what do you think the "morals" of BT are, if you think there should be.

This really depends on what your goals are in the BT world, and the site in question. I've found that if you simply be yourself, good things will come to you. Talking to people in IRC and helping out with the site you're on is a good way to get noticed for VIP there/invites to harder-to-get-into sites/etc. Most of my "rare" sites that some people here seem to idolize were simply spontaneously offered to me in IRC, I didn't expect them or ask for them. In most cases I didn't even know they were members of that given site. There's no need to e-dick suck, though some members here seem to believe any time you aren't acting like a total asshole towards everyone else you're kissing their asses.

Deviated a bit there. For the ethos in general, I see filesharing as a try-before-i-buy type thing. I have ~300 CDs and a few LPs in my collection. The vast majority of these albums are from artists and genres that I never would have discovered without What and other music torrent sites. This collection is much larger than that of everyone else I know my age, including those who don't fileshare. So the record labels have profited handsomely from my filesharing habits, and I think they need to wake up and smell the free advertising. When Wolverine was leaked early, the studios thought it would be a disaster for ticket sales. Instead, it was one of the best selling movies of the summer.

[IdolEyes787]

There's also the tendency to allow this hobby to interfere with RL. If you can't find that balance then get out now. Nothing on torrents is worth sacrificing a second of real life for.

People always make that distinction and therein lies a lot of the problems.There is only one life this is just another aspect of it .
Act accordingly.

Bt wise I could live without everything and not feel the least deprived - 'pecially the politics.

[sez]

the very definition of 'crime' comes from the notion of breaking a law. So yeas, doing something illegal is a crime.

Ok maybe I fumbled up the words a little and lost you in translation(though i did put crime in quotes).What I meant to say was that piracy isn't as much of an illegality as to the point where we need to check our own self decency before we engage in a dialogue about ethos as regard the BT community as a whole.

If you are disagreeing then its you trying to equate speeding to bank robbery since in as far as you are concerned a crime is a crime.See what I mean?

[The_Martinator]

Why do you use bit torrent, and why to the degree that you use it?

What do you feel is the ideal tracker for you, and are you a member of a site that fills those requirements?

Do you feel you are on enough trackers, and what do you think is too many trackers?

What do you see the politics of BT entailing, and does it affect your actions in this field?

Do you think there is an ethos necessary when interacting, and if so, what does it consist of? By this I mean what do you think the "morals" of BT are, if you think there should be.

I don't know if this is just too general a subject for discussion here, but I'd really like to get a wide view of what people think about this thing we do, and would only ask that people keep it about BT and stay civil.

To me BT was a means to an end at first. Those were the times when I only used open signups trackers as I thought noone would invite me anywhere without knowing me in RL.

A tracker where you dont' have toworry about your ratio when downloading (doesn't mean no ratio, there are other ways), helpfull staff, a chill out community enviroment. I'm a member at a couple trackers like this. However there's one thing I'd like to see but I don't think it'l ever happen for obvious reasons: a 0day tracker where all the files are unrared. I just hate it when stuff takes up twice the amount of space on my HDD. Maybe that's just me.

I'm a member at enough trackers, maybe at a tad to many general ones, so I'm planning to do selection at some point. But as far as specialized trackers go, you can't have too many, imo. No tracker is perfect content-wise.

The politics as you call them are really a PITA of FST. Fact is most people on invite boards are nice, too nice for some people's liking. Having have spent over a year at a couple such boards I can say most people are genuine in that. Of course some are faking just to get invites, but they show their true colors eventually. FST is a discussion forum, so there's nothing wrong with flaming trackers here (according to the staff here). In my experience the trackers' staffs will listen to your complaints if you present some arguments and you still remain ''normal'' (saying BMTV sucks coz they have a bad header and they banned me isn't really gonna cut it). The more arguments, the better. By normal I mean the approach, which is more important on teh interwebz than most know. After all, there's no way of knowing that you're an 18 year old blonde with huge knockerz on the net (even with pics one can't be a 100%).

As for morals, I like to think there is ''Honor amongst thieves.'' here. TBH, I'm torrenting only because everything is way too expensive and even with the recession that's not gonna change. No matter what the music artists say, for instance, I still won't think of myself as stealing money from them, but from some fat people in suits in a record company who earn way too much compared to what they do as it was. So I really don't consider myself a criminal and even if I did a set of moral rules is vital if we are going to survive (as a BT community) and should be above any laws.

C'mon when you're walking down the street it's not that you don't start killing people because you know it's against the law. It's because you know it's ''wrong''.

[IdolEyes787]

The politics as you call them are really a PITA of FST.

I like pita ,true story, although I try to avoid carbs with a high glycemic index as much as possible.

[Intr4ns1t]

I want to make a comment about the illegality of torrenting. It has been a running theme that BT is illegal, and I need to point out that this is a patently wrong assumption. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the act of torrenting is not illegal anywhere. It's what you choose to share that makes it illegal.

Quite a few things get shared perfectly legally by people using the BT protocol, and the underlying belief that the act itself is against the law is misleading. I personally know, in real life, several bands who have chosen to use torrnets to get there music out there as it's far cheaper to put your album on a tracker than pay for a bunch of albums and trying to hustle them on street corners or your local pub. Linux has been released via the torrenting protocol for years.

Granted, the VAST majority of files we share are infringing on a copyright of some sort, but the act does not.

This really depends on what your goals are in the BT world, and the site in question. I've found that if you simply be yourself, good things will come to you. Talking to people in IRC and helping out with the site you're on is a good way to get noticed for VIP there/invites to harder-to-get-into sites/etc. Most of my "rare" sites that some people here seem to idolize were simply spontaneously offered to me in IRC, I didn't expect them or ask for them. In most cases I didn't even know they were members of that given site. There's no need to e-dick suck, though some members here seem to believe any time you aren't acting like a total asshole towards everyone else you're kissing their asses.

I fully agree with this as it parallels my own experiences and I know it to be truth. Hell, I've even passed on offers of a couple of those "dream" trackers as I just don't have the time or energy to be a part of another site that invariably contains many of the same members that I will talk to at several of the other sites I'm on. The observation of that fact in the past is what really cemented the whole idea of a "greater bt community" in my mind tbh, and I know many people use that factor to help advance their knowledge and influence.

I also have seen that last statement in action many times, and it irks me every time I see it.

There's also the tendency to allow this hobby to interfere with RL. If you can't find that balance then get out now. Nothing on torrents is worth sacrificing a second of real life for.

People always make that distinction and therein lies a lot of the problems.There is only one life this is just another aspect of it .
Act accordingly.

Well said. As was alluded to earlier, the line between rl and the internet is fast becoming blurred, so people have to realize, there isn't the well defined separation that used to exist between the two. It's fast becoming necessary to be the same person in both worlds, for good or bad.

The politics as you call them are really a PITA of FST. Fact is most people on invite boards are nice, too nice for some people's liking. Having have spent over a year at a couple such boards I can say most people are genuine in that. Of course some are faking just to get invites, but they show their true colors eventually. FST is a discussion forum, so there's nothing wrong with flaming trackers here (according to the staff here). In my experience the trackers' staffs will listen to your complaints if you present some arguments and you still remain ''normal'' (saying BMTV sucks coz they have a bad header and they banned me isn't really gonna cut it). The more arguments, the better. By normal I mean the approach, which is more important on teh interwebz than most know. After all, there's no way of knowing that you're an 18 year old blonde with huge knockerz on the net (even with pics one can't be a 100%).

I like this. I like it because it makes clear what should happen to better the bigger community I see around me. For all it's pains, those discussions, heated as they can be, help draw the lines of what entails the "universal rule" of BT, and how we deal with people that don't follow those rules. As technology advances, the rules must change, and as accessibility increases, the rules must change. The only way to reach a common set of rules, is to hash them out in as large a common interest group as possible.

About the people being nice part, isn't that just human nature? We almost universally get taught to be nice to the people around us till given reason not to. It's the people that require a reason to be nice to others before doing so that create the most problems imho, and ther is a HUGE difference between being nice and sucking up.

In my staffing experience, I have found that, as time progresses, it gets harder to make that distinction. In the staff frame of mind, it's our job to be paranoid. With that job comes an inherent level of distrust of people you don't know, and to try to determine if a user is trully just being friendly rather than seeking something beyond just conversation can be a task indeed. I think that often the effort to try to make that decision is secondary to the effort to keep the site that staff member is on in running order.

A complication of that decision process comes in the form the range of languages spoken in this field.