Bad news - another case of a missing admin with the only keys to stuff.

From a reddit post:

Just seen this on IRC:

"the TLDR is basically: Best case, site comes back up we continue and change things in the backend, okay case, site is down for a little bit while we rebuild backend with likely a new domain, and worst case we close out and refugee you all elsewhere (we might still do this last part too hook up the community even if we are working on the backend"

ETA: IRC admin wrote "I'm currently trying to set up a place where refugees can go to"

ETA2: As far as I understand, someone went away and I quote "without the return of (this person), AR's continued existence is up in the air, we are attempting to work on solutions but he unfortunately seemed to hold more keys to the castle than we were fully aware."

TL has been returning 1004 errors all day, however their staff are aware of this looking at a discussion thread on a certain site.

Hopefully it gets fixed soon - posted here just in case others are having issues with the site and its mirrors

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/11835090

I decided to share this here too since sailors don't seem to visit [email protected] and the murky waters of the orange sea should be seldom visited anymore.

Links to more info about private trackers here:

• https://opentrackers.org/
• https://hdvinnie.github.io/Private-Trackers-Spreadsheet/
• https://inviteroute.github.io/sheet/
• https://ripped.guide/Scene/PTs/
• https://ripped.guide/Scene/Scene-Glossary/

for the brave

if you dare a journey that might lead you to the Davy Jones’ locker, the once locked down waters of r/OpenSignups and a newcomer r/trackersignups are places for the brave to check out

Taken from the orange seas wiki which we don't seem to have here?

► What is a private tracker?

Private trackers are loosely defined as private torrent sites where a membership is required in order to download their torrents. An accurate description would separate private trackers into 2 parts: the tracker itself and the website that accompanies it. A torrent tracker is a server that tracks peers in a torrent swarm and assigns/connects peers to each other based on its own internal criteria. The tracker then reports to the website which, on top of providing a download link to the torrent file, will display all relevant info for that torrent, including peer/seed counts and optionally a peer list if the website operator chooses to include it.

Unlike public trackers, these are not a free-for-all buffet. You need to contribute back (by uploading) a certain amount proportional to the amount you have "taken" from the tracker. This arrangement can vary a lot from tracker to tracker. Private trackers track this balance of contribution by a "ratio", which is simply a ratio of uploaded data, divided by your downloaded data. If you downloaded a total of 2GB and uploaded a total of 4GB, that would make your ratio a 2.0. Trackers will sometimes have different methods of maintaining an acceptable ratio, either by offering bonuses the longer you keep your torrents seeding, to providing "half-leech" or "freeleech" content. Freelech content is the most commonly used method, which means the torrent that is marked as freeleech is free to download, meaning it does not count against your Download stats, giving you an opportunity to gain upload from it without sacrificing any "download buffer". Some torrent trackers are "ratioless", meaning they don't require you to maintain any sort of ratio in order to keep using the site, they just require a minimum seed-time on all downloaded torrents (which is usually also a requirement on ratio pure trackers, but typically the seed-time isn't as lengthy as on ratioless trackers).

Disclaimer: We've been getting a lot of basic questions about trackers so this is just a primer for people wanting to see what it's all about. Skip if you are already well versed with trackers, unless you want to read just to contribute or correct me on anything.

What is a private tracker?

Let's start with what it isn't. Chances are you are familiar with infamous torrent trackers such as The Pirate Bay and 1337x. These trackers are what's known as public trackers. "Public" means anyone can visit them and download whatever they want to their heart's content. This is all fine and dandy, but it does introduce some problems.

• While you are downloading your file, you are known as a leecher. Once the download is finished, you become a seeder, which means you are done but will continue to upload the data you just downloaded to other downloaders who come along after you. The problem here is that on public trackers, most users stop the torrent, remove it, or close the BitTorrent client as soon as their download is complete. The end result? You have many more leechers than seeders, which equates to slower download speeds and a longer time required to download your files.
• A peer is another term that can be used to refer to either a seeder or leecher. The swarm is the sum of all peers on a particular torrent. Since anyone can effortlessly access and download files on a public tracker, it leads to unwanted parties gaining access to the swarm and its data, such as copyright holders or their agents. Why is this bad? When you are part of a swarm, you can see the IP addresses of other peers within it. Unless you use a service such as a VPN to mask your identity, your IP address uniquely identifies you on the internet. With this data, parties representing the interests of the people whose content you are pirating can monitor the downloads and issue copyright infringement notices to your ISP, resulting in you receiving nasty letters, having your internet shut off, or possibly facing worse consequences depending on your local laws..
• Torrents are decentralized, meaning the data isn't downloaded from a persistent, dedicated location; instead, they rely on the users, particularly the seeders. As mentioned earlier, if you abandon a torrent after finishing, you are no longer a seeder. If enough people do the same, the torrent could end up with zero seeders left, also known as a dead torrent. This means it becomes impossible to complete the download, as the entirety of the data isn't available in the swarm. Unless a previous seeder decides to return and seed again, nobody will ever be able to download the torrent again. Consequently, a significant amount of niche or older content is lost with the passage of time.
• So, where do these torrents originally come from? The uploader is the initial seeder of the torrent. On most public trackers, uploading content is almost as easy as downloading it. This large volume of uploads makes moderation difficult. The result? Poor-quality content, fake/mislabeled content, or even viruses.

Private trackers seek to solve these problems by restricting access to the site. Not just anyone can waltz in and download or upload a torrent; you have to be a member. Think of it as the VIP lounge of the pirating world. Here are some of the advantages of this approach:

• Users are incentivized to keep seeding torrents they've downloaded. This means the seeder/leecher ratio is much higher than what would be found on a public site. On a good private tracker, you'll notice that a majority of the downloads will utilize the full speed of your internet connection and download in the shortest amount of time possible for their size.
• For the most part, the companies and interested parties mentioned above, who would love to spy and tattle to your ISP about what you download, are completely absent on private trackers. I've been using them for over a decade and haven't encountered a single issue. This means you don't have to take risks, spend time configuring and updating IP blocklists, or invest money in a VPN.
• Due to the number of dedicated seeders on private trackers, torrents tend to stay alive much longer, if not indefinitely. This makes private trackers a treasure trove of content. There is a lot that you will only find here. Want to watch some obscure indie film you saw once when you were a kid back in 1989? They've got you fam.
• Due to the controlled nature of private trackers, the content tends to be very well moderated and curated. You can be sure that what you are downloading is exactly what it claims to be, and the quality is excellent as well.
• Private trackers are more than a download site, they are a community. Many are packed with helpful forums, and members who generally care about the scene and helping one another. Managed to find something that's actually no on the site already? Many trackers have request systems built in where you can ask the community to find it and upload it for you, and believe it or not, chances are pretty good that someone will!

Ok, but what's the downside?

Just one really. Your ratio is the amount of data you've downloaded on a site compared to how much you've uploaded. So, if I've downloaded an 8 GB movie but continued to seed it after finishing until I had uploaded 16 GB to other peers, my ratio would be 2.0 (16 ÷ 8). If I downloaded a second 8 GB movie but didn't upload any data, my ratio would fall to 1.0 ((8 + 8) ÷ 16). Most sites have rules about the ratio you must maintain to encourage people to keep seeding torrents they've downloaded. This means, unlike public trackers, you will want to keep seeding after your download has finished so that you can maintain a good ratio and continue to download more content as you please.

So how do I get in?

Private trackers recruit in a variety of ways:

• Open Signup - The easiest trackers to get into are the ones where you just have to sign up to become a member. Some trackers have what's known as limited open signup, which means you can't sign up anytime, but they open signups intermittently when they see fit.
• Official Recruitment - Some trackers have official representatives who recruit in the forums of other trackers. To qualify, you often have to be a power user on the tracker where the recruitment is taking place. The requirements to achieve this rank vary from tracker to tracker, but typically include uploading a certain amount of data at a minimum.
• Invites - On many trackers, members who meet certain requirements are given invites to pass out to whomever they want. If you can get someone to give you one of their invites, you're in.
• Interviews - There are trackers that conduct official interviews. If you interview and they like you, they'll let you join.
• Additionally some trackers will let you buy your way in. I don't encourage this because for one it's usually unnecessary, and second because it's the shadier trackers that usually offer this route anyways.

I'm making an ongoing series of posts where we discuss something as a community, then I add it to the mega-thread for future reference. This has been an reoccurring question so figured I'd cover it next.

Where do you guys go for news and updates regarding open signups?

The two places I'm aware of:

Opentrackers.org - Updates have seemed a little lacking lately with many open signups being posted with a long delay or not at all.

OpenSignup Telegram Channel - Much more up to date but with the downside that sometime it gets flooded with junk/ads/spam.

Hey yall, just for fun I had the idea of making our own community tier list for trackers. Lumping them all together regardless of category, just rating them on how well they do what they do.

Commit if you have any changes or additions and I will update!

S-Tier

• HDBits (HDB) - Movies/TV
• PassThePopcorn (PTP) - Movies
• BroadcasTheNet (BTN) - TV
• Redacted (RED) - Music
• GazelleGames (GGn) - Games

A-Tier

• Anthelion (ANT) - Moives
• Nebulance (NBL) - TV
• BeyondHD (BHD) - Movies/TV
• Blutopia (Blu) - Movies/TV
• MoreThanTV (MTV) - Movies/TV
• Orpheus - Music
• AnimeBytes (AB) - Anime
• Bibliotik (BiB) - eBooks
• TorrentLeech (TL) - General
• Empornium (EMP) - P0rn

B-Tier

• Aither - General
• Alpharatio (AR) - General
• FileList (FL) - General
• IPTorrents (IPT) - General
• MyAnonaMouse (MAM) - eBooks

C-Tier

• Bit-HDTV - Movies/TV
• Nyaa - Anime

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/6722126

Invitation Code: FLREFUGEE

Nothing more to add, ptp is back up after about 2 months offline.

Highly recommended general tracker AlphaRatio now open for signups for a limited time!

alpharatio.cc/register

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2661680

After a discussion and co-operation with PTP senior-staff, We would like to extend a limited time opportunity to all PTP users for a chance to apply for an MTV account. We fully expect PTP to come back stronger than ever, but we understand this may be a difficult time. PTP holds a special place in our hearts as it does for the community as a whole, and we are excited to see their return :ptplove: :mtvlove:

We are extending this as a courtesy to the community. Please do not abuse this or it will disappear :(

The more information you include, the more likely your application is to be accepted. MTV is in no way to be a replacement for your PTP usage upon their return. Just add it into your rotation as they will compliment each other. Don't forget after getting accepted, to view your security page to add your 2 factor authentication and/or create an API key for direct input into your *arr instance.

Note: Ensure you use the same exact email address you use with PTP

Apply at https://morethantv.me/application

We expect you to act as you would on PTP they are watching ( ͡◉◞ ͜ʖ◟ ͡◉)

Hi folks, recently I've been contemplating the idea of an AV1-only tracker. Just out of curiosity, do you think you'd find use in something like this? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

• I remember when Demonoid was my favorite tracker ever (RIP)
• I remember checking constantly to see if there was a new post on the FileShareFreak blog (also RIP)
• I remember when it was a fad for private trackers to be extremely exclusive and hard to get into, then you finally got in and found out they just sucked
• I remember there was that one "uber" site that loaded up to generic looking white pages search, and you had to search for a specific dude or something to unlock entrance. The content was so bad I forgot the name.
• I remember when invite forums were all the rage, and there was like a "secret" second tier invite forum that recruited in private from the places everyone knew about. Basically everyone there had every tracker they wanted, even the dumb hard to get into ones lol, and they ran out of things to ask for. Think it was called inviteZone or some shit??
• I remember when x264.me used a browser exploit to check peoples histories and banned everyone who had even visited an invite forum (glad that place is dead).

Anyone have an update?

Posted on https://ptp.trackerstatus.info

What’s your favorite general use tracker and why?