If you follow blogs, dozens of private trackers are popping up everyday. Some have many great new innovative ideas, and some tend to be duds that are just as generic as every other tracker. When I was new to BT, I tended to jump on these sites alot, curious to see what they would offer. But now, I'm pretty much ambivalent to any new post of a torrent site. I have rarely joined a new site, and for the most part I just simply just pass.
Why? Its simple. Lack of activity. Many trackers have great new promises: ratio free this, ratio free that, unique bonus system, filling an interesting niche, ect. ect. But one that has always kept me from coming back to the site: I check back, afters days or months, and the tracker is still the same as before: a veritable ghost town of 1 (or sometimes 0) seed torrents. There may be some great and dedicated uploaders, but with no activity, retention will die off within a matter of days. Their seedboxes can only hold so much before they have to cut off the torrent. Even many established trackers seem to have this problem as well. I won't mention any specifics, but when user activity lacks, so does my willingness to use the site.
This effect seems to snowball into a problem that just gets worse. When there is a lack of activity, many other users begin to feel that the tracker is lacking as well. In turn, they don't download from the site either. This spirals into a never ending problem, and is in my opinion the number one cause of failure for a new torrent site.
So how do we solve this problem? Institute a ratio free system in a unestablished trackers and seeds will cut off after the minimum seed time. Establish a strict ratio system and everyone will be cautious of wasting their ratio on a site with few leechers, and activity will suffer even more.
Another interesting point I noticed was from BCG: In attempts to spur even more activity (BCG is certainly isn't short of peers, and with SP system + recycled torrents the site is extremely ratio friendly), stoi upped invites even further, giving anyone over 6 months old 5 invites. Invitees came in by the masses, but activity didn't seem to increase significantly. Stoi though that perhaps this may be due to the concept that increasing invites decreases the "l33tness" and rarity of a site, and due to that, new invitees are less likely to use a a site thats "so easy" to get in to. That provides an interesting point: One could try to open registrations to increase peer activity. But does that make there site seem less "leet" and "exclusive", and as of thus decrease peer activity as well?
So the question is: How do you increase activity on a tracker?
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