Why do people go after l33t trackers?

[Fishy2]

Just a thought ....

Still don’t quite know how to feel about people going after trackers they only know about by rumour as opposed to being told about the pros and cons by people they know/trust ( sorry to use the t word in public)

There are so many trackers little known and less l33t out there doing a fantastic job it does make me wonder what drives newbies to torrenting (or old heads for that matter) to go after levels? Apart from the “sport” or “challenge” in subverting the courteous protocols of earning ones stripes to borrow a phrase, what does the newcomer actually want and why???

Answers please on a postcard to ......

[Quarterquack]

Well, in my case it's pure curiosity. I joined both ScT/FTN for that exact same reason, and I wouldn't say I necessarily regret either decision/curiosity fulfillment. The thing is, trackers are barely hyped up with just a level number. UK-T was never hyped up as level 10 site, join nao! The same applies(d) to FTWR/FSC/Skittles so on and so forth.

Usually trackers have other great incentives, like "awesome community", "1337 packs", "100% fulfilled request section", and the rarity and misplaced pride in being an elitist is an additive. People seek what they perceive as hyped/are curious to experience it for themselves, and when you tell them that they also can't have it, because of how awesome they need to be to get in, that only serves as reverse psychology; people want what they can't have.

Par exemple: The only tracker I would care to join now is PTFiles (perhaps KG, too). They're not 1337 at all, but given the fact about how the content/features of both were hyped up so much to me, and how it has been cordially asserted to me that I can't join either at the moment because of stringent invite rules (and inviter choosing habits of mine), I want them even more.

[Tutela]

*sigh* this thread again. there's plenty of threads here that ask the same question.
what we want we can't have. you want to join FTN because people tell you that you won't get it. The only thing it has going for it is it's "level", trust me. Speeds-SCC, ratio free-GFT (or scc again, it's not that hard if you download 2 or 3 tv releases at release and leave them for a day or two, or download them from TL or RevTT and leave them seeding on scc), packs- Why in gods name would you want a pack of films grouped together because they have the same actor in them, ohter than an excuse to join an elite site. Community-FST has a more active forum than FTN does, and there's the same threads in both, "count to 1000000, why join this, favourite this that and the other"

Join RevTT/Tl/SCC for 0day,. and a niche tracker if you need it, but that's all you need. at the end of the day, it's the same content, except you get it 5 minutes faster at the 0day sites like TL, and it downloads faster at them too...

[Fishy2]

Fair point with regards to reverse psychology of the need for the unobtainable, and without regard for the old standbys of “community” “packs” “requests” “hypes” etc, I’m thinking more of simplistic terms ie for what reasons would a “newbie” want any tracker?
I suppose the question maybe, leaving all the crap out what does an individual get into BT for in the first place?

[Tutela]

what someone should want out of a tracker is:
speed, ease to seed it back.

noone cares about pretimes if there's a 30 second difference. Fuck, your RSS feed won't even notice which one is faster.~
"Newbies" come on to FST and read threads. they see trading as a good thing "giving what I don't want for somethign I do" and then see this levels thing, take a glance, see FTN. see all the hype about it, then find out trading isn't good, but noone says you shouldn't want high level trackers,so they still want what they've seen as a high level, because a high level means good. maybe it's just me, but I don't think a site that only lets 5000 people in is worth being in for that reason, when you can have the EXACT same files from 50000 people on another private site. Anyone tell me why?

[Quarterquack]

For the same reason people would pick Sennheiser over Beyerdynamic, Lamborghini over Range Rover, and chase after Mensa memberships.

Tell someone that something is the best, the most exclusive to get into or own, and you're only offering them up on a silver platter to the gods of the hunt.
It's a simple thought process really. "Both are apples, one is green, one is red. I don't know what either taste like, but I see all the rich people choosing the green one, so I will pick the green one". It's basic conformity to rules of elitism/belonging/supremacy.

[1000possibleclaws]

First time I saw your avatar was on a 'l33t tracker', what's your story?

[1000possibleclaws]

ps: this should prob get moved to bittorrent before it gets torn to shreds

[Cabalo]

ps: this should prob get moved to bittorrent before it gets torn to shreds

Right on time!

On topic: some want them out of curiosity, others for bragging rights. Unfortunately, the latter is outweighing the former.
Many resort to trading, as they don't have the time or the will to social network their way there. Add a language barrier on many cases, and you have the formula.

Not long ago it was trendy to request those trackers "for the community". We would often see requests at FST and at many other places (some pretending to be leet) from people who weren't even active on those same communities. Now, how hypocrite is that?

[A]

For a newbie:Bragging rights.
For a Veteran:Extending their e-peen and Bragging rights.

Curiosity is an excuse really.When you hear a "l33t" tracker sucks and there is nothing special in there,why do you care to join?Because you wanna see for yourself how much the tracker sucks?
Curiosity is not joining a tracker when you very well know what the tracker offers and how it "looks like" but it is when joining a tracker when you dont know anything about it other than rumours,like how people wanted to join CN back sometime when it was a rumour producing factory and when "it dint exist".