Public, because I’m a lazy bitch leecher with a mobile data cap.

How do you go about getting invited to a private tracker?

I seed all my Linux isos on public trackers but I’m not active in any communities

Will an owl show up someday with a letter?

Private trackers have, always been a bunch of snobby dingleberries

whatever lets me a upload a YouTube video downloaded via newpipe

Only in two minor private trackers and meh, I liked usenet better don’t have to worry about ratios cause I use the *arrs. The private trackers I had to rack up like 5tb of buffer before I felt comfortable having the *arrs automatically grab from em

The newbie blues for each private tracker are a definite thing, but once you get past that it’s great. It also depends on which trackers you’re on: the general trackers tend to have similar content as publics, but it’s the specialty and niche trackers where privates really shine.

I’ve applied for half-a-dozen private trackers, but they’ve all turned me down. Definitely seems counter to the entire idea of piracy IMO.

My home-base is a private forum (DDL). I think of it as a place where people gather the best media from around the internet. We may not get it first but it eventually makes its way there. There are also many exclusive uploads (mostly encodes) but people do some fantastic work with upscales of movies and/or TV series. The user base is also part of the many private trackers the world has to offer. I am part of like 2 private trackers and they are phenomenal as well. I also use public trackers extensively as well as there is actually a lot of stuff out there. I will always try and seed for public trackers but I definitely don’t go as long as I would for private ones (just cause I don’t want to get dinged) (Yeah I could use a VPN but too lazy, even though I am in a place that don’t give many fucks about media piracy). I prefer DDL because I don’t have to maintain ratio, but I do understand that with private trackers there can be some more longevity (but isn’t really guaranteed). There are also other private trackers of the index variety that aren’t built around ratio which can be nice.

There can be a lot of rules with private trackers, and yes some of them are really annoying, not gonna lie. The rules are there for a reason, for the most part. For some it’s about building a community, while for others it’s about making sure stuff survives for as long as possible. There are so many tools for a fellow seafarer to have and private trackers are just one of them and they serve a purpose. I am of the belief that all information should be available to everyone forever, but the world don’t work like that and the long dick of the law can really fuck you life up. I think a valuable lesson from private trackers is that it makes one not just be a leech and makes one give back. There is nothing wrong with leeching, but I always like to think that piracy is about sharing the wealth. (not trying to moralize piracy, to each their own)

But as you said, public trackers have A LOT of stuff. So much media can be found on them. Private trackers help if you want the best of the best with regards to certain media or for hard to find stuff. Each have their place and it all about using the tools available to you

private all the way, only public Torrent that I seed is the Arch ISO.

imo it offers better security, anonimity, and possibly acts as a dummy filter, as uploads get checked. I also like my rank that I get when I’m actively seeding a bunch c:

I am on a few private trackers but they don’t offer anything that the public trackers don’t already have covered for my use case, outside of porn.

I am more of a DDL pirate anyways. I have a seedbox for torrents but I tend to stick to mega links, even if there is a slight delay in getting the media. Typically what I find is that all the re-encoded high resolution h265 content comes later and is more abundant on the mega link forums than on trackers; most trackers will have h264 copies at 720/1080, but they’re often larger than the h265 high resolution re-encodes.

I strongly disapprove of private trackers. I’m forced to take part in some only because the content isn’t available anywhere else. And the private trackers generally forbid re-sharing their content on public trackers, which unnecessarily gatekeeps the content and perpetuates the problem.
If it doen’t help to make everything accessible to everybody then it’s not a valuable part of the sharing ecosystem.

I used to want to get in on some private trackers, esp cult movie related ( karagarga ) but was always put off by elitism of those rules and systems.

Instead i opted to upload to pirate bay and like a trve pirate - no questions asked, download what you will - seeded some very obscure movies that i collected. Had to pull the plug after more than 10 yrs because i was emigrating, was a good time.

I’m kinda in the same boat, except for a specific private tracker. It’s a local private tracker which has a ton of exclusive stuff in my native language, and most of the users also speak it so there’s a communal aspect to it. But otherwise, yeah. I also tend to prefer public trackers, especially for more mainstream stuff.

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I prefer private, but only a few that aren’t to crazy with the rules. Ratio is easy enough to maintain with some freeleech torrents set to seed forever, all other torrents get set to whatever the minimum seed requirements are. The selection, quality, and speed are so much better that I don’t mind putting in that little bit of effort. Public trackers are my last resort.

That said, any torrents are secondary to Usenet. That subscription is worth every damn penny.