“Regulation is controlling human or societal behavior by rules or restrictions.”
An ever prevalent occurrence on private trackers. Something that may be necessary for a tracker to work, but in excess is nothing but detrimental.

Ratios are a big part of private trackers, argued as one of the most important aspects that keep a tracker from falling apart, but we’ve also seen some absolutely astounding trackers arise with a complete lack of ratio rules. These trackers ignore a users ratio, and simply rely on the good nature of the members, the nature of reciprocal altruism that I addressed in a previous blog entry. This isn’t a statement that can simply be brought undone, these trackers do work, we can see them. They don’t force their members to download popular torrents that are assured seeding time, instead running off a download what you like policy, and like a workforce, the happier it is, the more work it does and the frequency of absenteeism drops. Something which has brought about questions over the importance of ratio rules in private tracker communities.

Hit and Run policies are another huge part of trackers. This is definately one of those necessary regulations that prevent trackers from completely falling apart, ensuring users don’t simply buff their ratio with freeleech and quickly download and abruptly delete torrents they truly want. A necessary regulation, but excessive regulations upon it seem nothing but detrimental to a tracker.

Some trackers enforce a rule of three days worth of upload in a seven day period to be clear of any hit and runs and automatic pruning. 72 hours worth of upload in a 168 hour period may not seem like much for those with access to Seedboxes, which fall under the same group who have the means to simply leave their systems running continuously for weeks at a time but sadly, this is not the majority of the Bittorrent community and for me, seems like a truly restrictive rule. I have no problem seeding for weeks, if not months, on torrents I download, only backing them up and deleting them when I run out hard drive space, but this largely isn’t in a successive 72 hour period – although as of late I’ve made a due. By excessively regulating such, a tracker becomes nothing but a lifeless pool of little personality collectors, seedboxes, set up with automatic download. A recession of community.

Again, Hit and Run regulation is a necessary rule, but being a private tracker, the true test should be that of being seen worthy enough to be invited, to be a part of a community, but sadly, community isn’t counted as activity. I don’t believe one should not be judged on his or her access to resources, but on what they add to the tracker. I know of many people who don’t have the means to download hundreds of gigabytes worth of data, but have excessive collections of e-books or some standard definition television series, but sadly, these aren’t the most giving torrents when it comes to upload data.

This also leads on to minimum activity rules. Governing how much members must download within the monthly period without being automatically pruned. This effectively forces members to be active. Even those with bandwidth restrictions and download caps, who may be active members of the community in their own way. Forced to download torrents they don’t want, so they can continue to be part of a community and tracker they may love. I see this as a simply foolish restriction. Some members are more than happy to download what they don’t want to seed, while others don’t have the means necessary to do so, especially if they’re members of multiple trackers which enforce this same rule. This same group of poorly resourced peers may have a month of activity where they found countless torrents they wished to download, which may or may not reach the potential activity cap, by maybe downloading e-books of interest, and although having more activity in the amount of downloaded material, would still be pruned because someone with access to a seedbox, or the money to afford a better connection, was able to download a file worth tens of gigabytes. One file, compared to a member who genuinely loves the tracker, only able to download those which fall under his cap.

As we see in day to day life, regulation stifles innovation. In the tracker sense, excessive regulation breeds lifeless trackers with a smaller, possibly elitist, sense of community. I feel it’s time to follow suit with real life and deregulate a lot of these excessive restrictions. Forcing activity may seem like a way to make a smaller tracker work and be more full of life, but what they’re really doing is removing the little guys, the majority of users, who may be future, or are already, active members of the community. Deregulating would see a lot of struggling trackers, which have great potential, do nothing but grow and flourish into large, living and well meant communities of both diverse or like minded, depending on the tracker, individuals.

-McHoodlum

Everyone’s heard at one point or another that Humans are naturally greedy. Fueled by possessions, the pursuit of wealth and overall power. I’ve always been one to disagree with this view. To me, Human altruism trumped greed, and I’ve gone far enough to say many a time that “human beings have only gotten so far by being naturally altruistic”, but therein lay the irony.

We all have our reasons for piracy. Albeit a lack of legal alternatives, a voice of protest to big corporations, or just plain not wanting to spend what little money many of us have. But why do we seed? What makes someone want to risk attending expensive court cases against a foe with seemingly limitless resources? I always brought it down to sheer human altruism, but given thought, I am beginning to doubt this is the case. People seed because we realise it benefits not only the peers who are downloading, but ourselves. Given time, we too inevitably become the peers. It’s a simple case of the ethic of reciprocity.

“Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others.”
– Isocrates

Looking back at what I said earlier; Human beings have only gotten so far by being altruistic. Looking at that now seems like a huge contradiction in itself. It says our society has only gotten so far by helping each other, which is definately true, but it also brings about the obvious point that we do this solely to benefit ourselves, helping a society we too are a part of. Realising by helping our neighbor, they in turn will help us. This may seem like quite a corrupt and deceitful means of motivation, but it also lay in truth, and I believe nature. Helping someone with a seemingly small task ensures that given the chance in the future, they too will help you. This same principle can be applied to bittorrent and piracy.

The same fundamental reasoning can be seen throughout different facets of nature. Meerkats designate members of their group to keep a watchful eye on the surroundings and to alert the rest of the group to any dangers in the area. It might seem exceedingly simple, they just want to help keep their relatives safe and alive, but meerkats are also territorial animals, and it’s a lot easier to fight off another tribe when you have the numbers. Protecting the tribe protects yourself. Cleaner fish have a similar mentality, by helping bigger fish and what could be considered their predators, they get such benefits in return. Hosts of the cleaner fish don’t attack them, even after the cleaning has concluded, and often chase away predators of the cleaners.

This, of course, is a generalisation. I do not question that indeed quite the number of people seed for prolonged periods of time, not for some tracker bonus, but out of sheer help for thy fellow man, with no sought after reciprocation. I would like to think I am one of those few, but I do not deny, taking this into account, that it may all be a facade for which even I can not admit to fully advocate, but may be just as much a part of my human nature as anyone else’s, something we do not fully condone, but is there.