Is invite trading really that bad?

[Cabalo]

End with this invite bullshit! Or close the trackers!
This way there won't be any more traders.

[DonkeyPacker]

I don't have any problem with trading. It's just a matter of opinion. The reason I don't trade is because I want to follow the rules of the trackers that I like. I don't think transgressing upon those rules would make me a bad person; I just know that it would get me disabled for breach of the rules that I accept when I join such a tracker. Trading is a bit dishonest, though. If you join a tracker, you basically accept the rules of said tracker. If you do not wish to accept them, you leave the tracker. If you do accept them, and then you trade, I think that would speak to your character. That has nothing to do with the concept of trading; rather, with the rules of a website in general.

[sez]

The author of that grossly oversimplifies things and it's clear that he's trying to bolster his own view by making silly statements. LOL@ traders being "trusted", I can't imagine a system where there's less trust in place. As a general rule you won't know each other, you should both be paranoid that the other guy is actually a staffer baiting you, etc.

The problem isn't so much the whole RIAA/MPAA thing, that's just what people spew out when they have no clue what the real issues are. The problem is that most traders are generally, for lack of a better word, scum. I see trading as the "gateway drug" of the torrenting world. It starts with a simple one time deal for a site you want. Maybe you treasure that account and use it well. Whatever, it was a means to an end. However, it often doesn't stop there. You start realizing that you can't be assed to do things the normal way, I mean, why bother asking for invites when you can just trade yours away. So you start trading more and more. Eventually you've made so many trades and lost so many of your accounts that it's no longer about just getting into that one unobtainable site, it's about spitting in the face of tracker staff, trading for a "buffered account" and then hit and running a place bone dry, etc. Soon enough, if you're cutting corners here, why not throw the rest of the rules out the window? Might as well start selling invites since the torrent sites themselves aren't doing much for you. This is especially great when they donate for invites, sell them, then claim the cash back from paypal and get your account frozen. Hell, might as well start cheating too, you probably have multiple accounts and you need a way to buffer them fast so they're worth more. Eventually it all becomes a game, and you probably don't even torrent much anymore.


Soon you degrade from a simple one-time trader into a scumbag that's a collector, trader, seller, cheater, all rolled into one. And you've forgotten why you even started trading in the first place.

And say what you will, the WTAW/WTO is a huge part of the problem. The reason many people trade is because of the "rarity levels", since they're under some delusion that the high level trackers are the best (and for trade value, they are). Without that stupid shit, it wouldn't be that big of an issue. If there was some other 0-day site like FTN with a comparable number of members, but wasn't on that list, it really wouldn't have many problems from traders.

Public giveaways are just as bad, especially when it's for rep points to bolster your trading power here or try and get an invite to a "high level site" here.

Rules are in place at private trackers for the betterment of the site, swarms, and the community. If you don't want to follow them, just fuck off to public trackers or newsgroups or something, where it's irrelevant and you can leech to your heart's content. Traders love to talk about how difficult invites are to acquire, and yet the entire reason it's difficult for them to get invites is because no one knows who they are. As a trader, you spend your time living in the shadows. You hide behind proxies, have to use different browsers for different sites, have a million emails to keep track of, you have to avoid the forums/IRC because anything that might draw staff eyes to your profile is a danger, and you constantly change your nick. The end result of this is no one has any basis on which to get to know you or trust you. Additionally, they come here and get "Trader Rep" and then expect people to bend over backwards in a giveaway for them, so that they can then trade that account down the road when something "rarer" comes along? Well fuck them.

If I might echo the response of one of the last commentators, join What, through the interview if necessary, hit power user, you now have invites to all the sites you reasonably need. You don't need to worry about all this bullshit, and you'll be happier for it. Unless you're looking for unlimited invites to those "high level trackers", you'll be able to find whatever you need.

Now here's somebody who takes his torrenting a little bit too seriously,you provide so much to shit on that I don't even know where to start.When preparing a list of scum in BT though,it's strongly advised you start with p2pg and some of the people who run these closed BT/possibly kiddie porn swapping forums.
I think you need to rethink how you approach BT,try looking at it the way you do the spam folder in your email account.

100% of torrent sites that have closed thus far aren't there because of idiot staffers not traders.Perhaps you should clarify that 'traders are banned not because they trade but because they are scum' part otherwise you need to produce this scummeter that you are using so we all can see it.

[stoi]

@sez so just because you cant see whats in there, they possibly do kiddie porn? all i can say is of course they bloody dont.

The trading argument will go on forever, and there will be no winner, but you mentioned Oink allowed it, and they got on fine, hmm he got arrested and the site took down, now we will never know if the reason he got taken down was because of a trader or not, but it didnt exactly do the site any favours.

The way i see it, the whole BT hierarchy is fucked up.

Get a seedbox/Cheat = get a higher class, get invites/into the invite forums of the tracker, trade invites on places like FST, who most of the time you have no idea who they are, even if they have 100rep 500 posts and show you speedtests, links to tracker profiles (they could have cheated their ratio as well).

Also giving them only to people you know is bollocks as well, most peoples friends, wont torrent, those that do may just be used to public trackers, you can teach them everything in the book, but if they just dont want to do it, then they wont do it.

Which user is more deserving of an invite, and which user will probably get one.

A: Ul:400 gig DL 400gig helpful in comments/forums/IRC
B: UL 1TB DL 20gig Never seen in comments/forums/IRC

Without user A there is noone for user B to upload to.

Traders usually are collectors, you dont "need" to get into any tracker, but if the chance comes along, then take it, you dont "need" to trade to get into anywhere, you dont need to arse lick either, just take part in the communities you are a member off (which will make those communites even better) and the offers will come.

This is just my take on it, I am not one of these and I have never heard any staffer say this, but its about competition, how many private trackers are there 1000`s, but lets take the ones in the WTO, guessing off the top of my head 100 in there. now level 1-4 have 100,000+ members, lvl 10 have 2000 ish members, how many of the lvl 8-10 members, are in a few 1-4 trackers, i would say 99% of them, so we are all fighting for their "custom", now whether that is Tracker activity, community activity, Donations or whatever, its still competition, so its more, if you go there, you are going to leave us, so we are going to loose a good member, even though we do everything tracker lvl 8-10 does (and maybe even do it better). Or, why were we not good enough for you, why didnt you like is etc etc etc.

as for the traders, most start out with the curiosity of a cat, hmm TL wonder what thats like, oh great i can trade my BCG invite for it, next its, oh, lvl6 tracker, i can trade my TL invite for it, just because i want to see what its got, then lvl 6 invite to get a lvl 7 etc etc, and then like anything, it gets addictive, its like pokemon "gotta have them all" and usually at any cost.

My take is, as long as trackers are closed, and they have invites that are based on ratio (which is a lot easier now than it was 5 years ago, just with the advent of seedboxes, and not 32KBs upload for most), then you will get traders, and even if they give invites to everyone, they will still get traders, if you make it harder/more involved to get invites (like IRC participation, not just idling, forum posting but not just in the "what music are you listening to"/"the girl next door thread") then maybe you will get members that actually care something for the tracker, so have no need to trade.

I dont really care about invite traders, but i do think "why, are we not good enough or something?" when i see our referrals getting traded, I have ran a tracker for 7 years now, and have put a lot into it, so when someone decides to trade to get into somewhere else, I am going to think "why". OK its just the net, and the net is full of strange people, but it still gets to me sometimes, other times its just, fuck you then lol

I am not sure if i answered the OPs question there, or just went off on one, but its 3am and thats all you are getting off me tonight (and no i am not drunk lol)

[Funkin']

I'm not reading all of that since I'm sure it says nothing that hasn't been said here a ton of times already. But my opinion, no...of course not all invite trading is bad. Stoi has given a great example in the past of invite trading that doesn't harm anything.

[bigdaddydude]

I believe stoi has given a great example of the different type of users. I never traded before but I look at it this way. Trading will get you burned in the end. It's just not worth it. You should have to earn your way into a tracker that you want by helping out others with their questions, obeying the rules, respect the staff, being active on forums, hanging out on irc and actually downloading/uploading torrents while maintaining a good ratio on all of them. That's just my $0.02.

[amirji]

yesno, simply put. there are two sides to everything, like your butt, it has two cheeks, when you get tired of sitting on the right one you switch to the left one. Or if your butt get's tired in general you stand. It will never end.

Let's discuss undercover bittorrent agents, and exposing them, they need to die. It's a bunch of bullshit when you say you don't have to lick ass to get known, it's quite the opposite. Mod's do it all the time to see how much more irritated they can get their e-penis, and regular users do it to become mods because they see by example and think they are going to get a bigger e-penis. haha.

So my 2 cents is I feel that you should do it, try it for fun, trade a demonoid invite. I did it just to see what responses I would get and who was responding (hello, isn't that the same shit you mod's do to ban people, oh yeah, but you get new user names), yes I did get banned from two trackers, only because a small punk was kissing ass, but it's ok, I have moved on, hell, I may even be back with those trackers, but I leave that for that punk to figure out and my signature to love always. :-)~

@bigdaddydude - how the f**k do you even have the patience to sit in front of a computer? Shouldn't you be at the gym lifting weights, getting pumped up, watching your muscles grow? LOL.

[n00bz0r]

Again this drama.

^^ Best post so fa.
Ya guys are simply wasting time arguing about something which won't lead to anything conclusive. Traders will keep trading. Anti traders and others will keep doing whatever suits their immediate interests. Nothing is going to change that. Period.

[stoi]

well i am probably one of those staff that hates anti traders more than traders (or at least with equal measure lol) I cant stand ass kissing, and you can see it a mile off, we are not all gullable you know, we have got minds of our own, and can see a prospective good staffer without them falling over backwards to help (with finding traders etc).

The bottom line is though, the rules of the tracker say no trading, and you trade, and they catch you, then you are going to get burnt, the trick is not to get caught lol

[bigdaddydude]

@bigdaddydude - how the f**k do you even have the patience to sit in front of a computer? Shouldn't you be at the gym lifting weights, getting pumped up, watching your muscles grow? LOL.

I see you like my avatar picture. Lol