[Poll]BitTorrentTrackers Staffers to be paid or not to be paid ?

[dvdasacd]

Money should be as far removed from acts of piracy as possible.

If you look at the Allan Ellis case, one of the main reasons he got off is because he was accused of making a profit from Oink, but when looked into further, it was clear he did not.

This is just a general statement. If it's a large site, you have no choice but to often be sitting with large sums of money, and even if it's a smaller site, sometimes you might have built-up spare funds for upgrades and so forth, but the less money the better, just on common sense grounds. I say, if you can avoid it, it's good, because it can only help in legal situations. But if you've done nothing wrong (in terms of raking in money), and the court does a fair inquiry of it, then yes, you're fine even if youre dealing with huge sums of money...such as alan ellis.

The other reason for me is just that money corrupts, and the less of it around the better (this is a very broad statement and not inferring anything like 'i wouldn't even trust myself'...lol). For me it's like something a site owner has no choice but to deal with, a necessary evil and a dirty part of the job. I'd rather that nothing cost anything and thus no money had to be handled.

[1000possibleclaws]

I think a salary would be really questionable, and I doubt any of them would want that anyways due to legal complications. Regarding selling upload for money and keeping extra donations for themselves, I don't have a problem with that.

If the site is good, I'll use it regardless. I'm not some sucker that is gonna donate to every site just for the hell of it though, and if I was one of those people I might feel different.

[eldiesel]

Respect to funfile , other trackers should do the same .

[zerulez]

My answer is no.

Money should be as far removed from acts of piracy as possible.

Piracy should remain within the realm of 'hobby', ALWAYS.

And ya know, sometimes hobbies cost money . Ever thought of it that way?

Totally agree with this.

[DWCreeper167]

I think they should, depending on the tracker, size, content and work required on a day to day basis.

And yes, there would have to be different pay rates for the amount done by individual staffers. A place I use to staff at for example, a few us spent damn near every waking hour working on somethings while others would only show up for a few minutes at a time to flaunt their so-called authority on the poor members.

It really is a job, just without pay. You have deadlines, irate "customers" and some of the same stress you get from a normal 9-5 job and in the end, you're not compensated at all. Most of the time you don't even get a thank you from members.

Do I think a tracker should only be in it for the money? No, of course not but a few do exactly that and the owner is the only one profiting from it while other staff work for nothing.

Not to mention when you retire or quit or whatever, it's not like you can use it as a reference.

[Slickerey]

If they were to be paid, all hell would break lose.

It is unfair to all those who have retired and stepped down from staffing teams as well. When somebody staffs at a tracker, they should do it because they're willing to contribute their time to a place they love and download from, not because they expect to be rewarded in cash.

[buggyfresh]

No.

[sear]

Fuck no ... staffing is a hobby just like torrenting you do it for the love of the site and the lolz with other staffers and members. If it gets too much step down or become inactive for a while. Getting paid for torrenting is evil shit ... it pretty much makes everything the MPAA/RIAA says true. Which is why p2l and p2i is horrible as well.

Sites that make money that isn't used for the betterment of the tracker don't deserve your patronage. Remember it's the members that make the site not the staff. Yes staff work hard but they do it for the <3 in their spare time.

Besides as truesounds pointed out the higher you go on the staff ladder the riskier it becomes IRL taking money for it would be madness as far as I'm concerned. That's when it turns from a civil case into a criminal conviction.

[Disme]

No.
I agree 100% with Sear (and many others that voted NO) on this one.

Besides, I believe there is already a lot of ass-kissing, backstabbing, lying and dishonesty amongst a lot of tracker-members to try and get hold of a staff-position, without money being involved.

I can only imagine what will happen when $$$ are involved. Some people would literally 'kill' for a staff-position.

[DWCreeper167]

Besides, I believe there is already a lot of ass-kissing, backstabbing, lying and dishonesty amongst a lot of tracker-members to try and get hold of a staff-position, without money being involved.

I agree that there is a LOT of ass-kissing going on but that is why I agree that some trackers, some positions, some people SHOULD be getting paid. I don't agree it should be something that is advertised but some trackers already pay external coders on occasion. Take a look at some trackers where you see 20-30 staff yet only 3-4 do any work there whether it be coding, forums or helping in IRC. Also, power hungry newbs with attitude would less likely to be promoted and put in a position where they can flaunt that power and make members life a living hell.

IF there was a cash incentive on occasion, there would be alot less USELESS staff hanging aroung. At least in theory anyway.

Let's have a look at a few places like IPT and TL for example. Let's face it, they are raking in the money like there's no tommorow. How many of their staff do you see active? It's obvious that the owner/sysop is making a bit of money while you have tons and tons of mods and what not that do nothing and are never seen. IF a few of those staff that bust their ass(if they exist) were to get rewarded in any way, the site and activity and in turn the quality of the site would get better.

I'm not going to argue this too much more because there are valid points on both sides.