:rotfl: Excellent list indeed :jaj:

BTW: I did edit this list some what

Thanks.   I am very happy with the discussion it has started.

My initial thought about the new guides/FAQs is to go with a wiki. The few active members don't have to do everything. Everyone can have as little or as much input as they like. The main problem with this is how much more work will it be required of the site coder to integrate the wiki into the current site.

The more workable that require less effort for the coder is something like this.

Rules page (and new member welcome page) will feature a welcome message with the 10 Commandments and a short 3-5 line of friendly explanation about why the rules exist, to help the website run smoothly and build a community etc… Final line should say: for more details and explanation of the rules, please check out our Guides and FAQs section.

GUIDES.  Move the guides out of the forum and give each guide its own page, all linked together by a master table of content on the guide main page.  At the bottom of each guide is a link to a forum post in the forum where people can post question and answers.

FAQs.  The current FAQs seem to be very comprehensive and adequate.  Just need some layout cleanup. Either have one page per section (Site Information, User Information etc..) or use scripts to only display one section/question at a time.

FORUMS. Clean up the forum by having less sticky topics. Many of the current stickies in the GT.ru Discussion and Guides forum fit more into the guide section.  Only current and most important topic should be sticky. For example New Ratio requirements is now old news, where as First Time uploader program is alway relevant for new member.

That's all for now.

Why this complication of entering into dead torrents, waiting xx days, writing here and there, giving more and more work to Mods to control this situation when PM them concerning a dead torrent ?
It's dead ? Bye bye then and let the user upload a new torrent.

Although your idea is valid in theory, there does lie one problem with that. Sometimes when a torrent "dies", a user who has downloaded that torrent will re-seed it. If the proposed policy were put into effect, it would inevitably create problems with duplicate torrents. I do see where you're coming from with the including dead, and a suggested revision to that guide is on my to-do list (as of now) to make it easier to understand.

@mgr:

As much as I like guides with pictures: those guides (for example creating a torrent) are rather problematic: I can't create such a pictured guide for Vuze because I use uTorrent myself (and installed Azureus (now Vuze) only once because I had to reformat my hard drive to remove all remnants of  Azureus after un-installing the software ) - and another question has to be answered too: for which clients have we to write such guides?

Maybe I will sound too radical with what follows, but GT being now the best gay torrent side in the world, all his users are glad to be members of the site and will do all they can to stay here, so if a LITTLE effort is asked to a few members (explanations later), they should contribute…or find another gay torrent site as great as GT (believe me, they won't find it and they'll all do the effort)

So if Tom and you created a tool (QTM 1.3) that works perfectly with uTorrent, all users on PC under Windows (and you have this info for each user, their OS) must run the couple uTorrent/QTM, avoiding the daily same questions./answers ("why my torrent didn't seed ?" => "don't forget you have to re-download the torrent !" etc…)

And if a torrent you receive isn't created with QTM, well you could simply decline it and ask the user to install QTM / utorrent, because QTM seems to work only with utorrent, if i read Tom here : "uTorrent is the only supported client at the moment - more clients will be added soon" :
http://community.gaytor.rent/index.php?topic=2643.0

Now I see Uwe and MrMazda just answered while I am typing this, and of course, there's a problem with other OS / machines

• Utorrent website shows they have "versions for Mac and Linux", so utorrent should be the only client that all users should use in GT, whatever is their OS/ machine, especially all of you, Admins and Mods are specialized in uTorrent : that would simplify a lot your daily job concerning the client questions.

• QTM works under Windows, but I'm not sure there is a Mac version or not : until there is one, Mac users will of course have to upload manually (they can't use QTM)

My point is : though it seems "shocking" to force all users to install the same client (utorrent) and use QTM, I find myself "shocking" that a program like QTM isn't used by 100% of your users (if their machine/OS allow it) because it's so simple, reliable, and it's coupled with utorrent : so if you want to simplify the Admins / Mods daily job, use only 1 client (utorrent) associated to your internal program 'QTM)

Dont forget this : you're no more a starting web site who needs to attract more and more users, you became the 1st gay torrent site and it's not too much asking to your users to all use the same client (especially when 75% of them are already using it), this will decrease the number of daily questions you receive (helpdesk) concerning client problems. Of course, you couldn't have had the same approach a few years ago, when you started the site (or if you were no more a free site)

Just a word concerning the number of utorrent users already existing in the site : in the attached pic, you'll see 75% of users under utorrent (this pic wasn't created at all for this purpose a couple of days ago…hey my name is yellowed in the pic, isn't it great ?)

@mgr:

The number of users who have a look at our offered help files is more than discouraging! (Take as an example the pictured guide how to search for duplicate torrents before uploading only 39 out of currently 268 members with auto approval privilege really read that guide  :cry2: )

Well maybe if this commandment ("3. Thou shou not upload duplicate files") was written on the main page we're talking about, it would be have been read much more often than 39 times  

I never find this page easy ("how to search for duplicate torrents before uploading") but I won't enter in this discussion now. What suprises me are those "dead torrents" we have to search in.

Imho a dead torrent is a dead torrent, it's buried and that's all, it should stay in its grave, not be accessible to anyone, wouldn't it have been much easier for everybody in the site ?

You search for an active torrent and you don't find it ?
So upload it !

Why this complication of entering into dead torrents, waiting xx days, writing here and there, giving more and more work to Mods to control this situation when PM them concerning a dead torrent ?
It's dead ? Bye bye then and let the user upload a new torrent.

Well I hope I'm not too "rude" but now you know it's just my warm way of writing, I just would like to understand why you didn't bury the dead torrents, so it would have been easier for users to search into active torrents only, and it would give less work to the staff, ignoring totally this dead torrent (false) problem.

In fact, it's same in our daily lives : when we're used to do something for years, then comes a newbie (like me, though i'm here for 3 months already, i'm still a newbie) who asks : "why are you doing it that way ? Wouldn't be easier for all of us to do it in a simpler way" ?

As usual, I just wrote a book  
Big Hugs  

@mgr:

I see some problems in "10 Commandments of GayTorrent.ru"

• the different parts (accounts, forum, torrents …) are mixed together.

You are correct, but I think that if the guides are fully in depth and integrated enough, the guides should make the process reletively seamless. It would really all depend on the nature of how these guides are put together. Perhaps establishing a guideline on the nature in which the guides need to be constructed would be beneficial to addressing this potential problem.

@mgr:

• If someone is able (and, more important: willing) to create a structured plan how this page (and the linked follow-up pages) have to be structured: I'm open for discussions but I need active help beside my daily work load on the site to manage such an ambitious task.

I am willing to volunteer for such a project upon completion of my current to do list. I believe I may have some ideas that could be applied to the subject at hand, bringing it from a subject to reality.

@mgr:

• as much as I like guides with pictures: those guides (for example creating a torrent) are rather problematic: I can't create such a pictured guide for Vuze because I use uTorrent myself (and installed Azureus (now Vuze) only once because I had to reformat my hard drive to remove all remnants of  Azureus after un-installing the software ) - and another question has to be answered too: for which clients have we to write such guides?

I have a solution that I use, and perhaps I could upload to the tracker for just this very thing. Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 will enable you to create a "Virtual PC" within your current PC. If I (or whoever is creating such a guide, providing the availability of the hardware) were to create a virtual PC file, I could use it for the purpose of creating these tutorials, knowing that in order to remove remnant of the programs, I can simply just delete the Virtual PC file, and replace it with the image of the fresh to go version. This solution may also be useful in other applications, aside from just the creation of such tutorials. As for the question pertaining to the clients supported, statistics may be able to offer a good idea on where the best place to start may be. For example: If the statistics show that Torrent Clients X, Y, and Z seem to be the most commonly used, it would be logical to say those clients may be the best place to start. If other clients become in demand, or are requested, perhaps at that time using the magic of Virtual PC (or through other means), staff and users alike could submit the guides when there is a request placed for them as well.

@mgr:

• The number of users who have a look at our offered help files is more than discouraging! (Take as an example the pictured guide how to search for duplicate torrents before uploading only 39 out of currently 268 members with auto approval privilege really read that guide  :cry2: )

While you are quite correct on the statistics of the matter, I believe there is more to that statistic than it just the statistic itself. After a brief scan of the number of users on the site with active contribution vs the number of users that visit the forum, it would appear that a portion of this could be caused by the users simply not opening the forum period. While the reasons for users not entering the forum vary from technical problems (such as PEBKAC) to users just not being interested in forums, there is another observation that I've made, which perhaps could be useful if implemented as part of the process of creating such guides. Research conducted by the Microsoft customer experience improvement program suggests that most users are more inclined to read content such as guides, help files, tutorials, etc. when they are more easily accessible. Based on this observation, it seems it would be logical and more effective implement such a system where for example the FAQ section contained reference to these guides, and the option(s) for the guides/tutorials were somehow made easily available directly from the upload page. From my personal experience, the "easy" integration so to speak has always proven to be quite effective.

…

• as much as I like guides with pictures: those guides (for example creating a torrent) are rather problematic: I can't create such a pictured guide for Vuze because I use uTorrent myself (and installed Azureus (now Vuze) only once because I had to reformat my hard drive to remove all remnants of  Azureus after un-installing the software ) - and another question has to be answered too: for which clients have we to write such guides?

…

IMHO: for 3 clients:

• µTorrent/BitTorrent on PC

• Vuze/Azureus on PC, Mac, GNU/Linux

• Transmission on Mac, GNU/Linux with Gnome GUI

According to a statistic (on a random trorrent with many peers) I've made some time ago, it should cover more than 90% of the users.

• the different parts (accounts, forum, torrents …) are mixed together.

• If someone is able (and, more important: willing) to create a structured plan how this page (and the linked follow-up pages) have to be structured: I'm open for discussions but I need active help beside my daily work load on the site to manage such an ambitious task.

• as much as I like guides with pictures: those guides (for example creating a torrent) are rather problematic: I can't create such a pictured guide for Vuze because I use uTorrent myself (and installed Azureus (now Vuze) only once because I had to reformat my hard drive to remove all remnants of  Azureus after un-installing the software ) - and another question has to be answered too: for which clients have we to write such guides?

• The number of users who have a look at our offered help files is more than discouraging! (Take as an example the pictured guide how to search for duplicate torrents before uploading only 39 out of currently 268 members with auto approval privilege really read that guide  :cry2: )

  But as I said before: I'd be glad if some members would help with a redesign of our collected help informations which are in fact way too wide spread over the complete site.

  Don't forget though: there are many members (about three quartes) who never bothered to visit our forum :cry2:

Well posted

I've just gone through the site Rules and FAQs and I think they need some cleaning up for easier reading.  Perhaps a simpler set of rules that's presented to new member at the first login would help fix this and other problems.  The GT.ru 10 Commandments I made up below cover most of the important points of the Rules section. Each rules can be link to another page with full explanation and examples.  The main things to avoid are center format everything and walls of text.  Numbers and letters are easier to refer to than dot points.

Hi all  
I totally agree with thangcuoi's reflexion concerning the complexity of how rules, FAQ and crucial Forum informations are actually found here and there on GT's site.

It's a very ambitious project to rewrite and concentrate all crucial informations in ONE (and only one) main page (each line of it being a "commandment" that links to one (and only one !) other explicative page (diagrams and pics are welcome in the linked pages, much more than words !)

I'm not sure 10 commandments will be enough in the main page, but it's important that everyone here would participate in the development of this new concept, bringing his own ideas in a friendly way, forgetting all ego problems in the conception of all this (sorry if the words I use aren't very explicit but english is not my 1st language)

What's difficult in our world is to be able to think in the place of other persons, like if you were them : think you're a newbie and you access the site : you'll be lost with all those terms seeding, leeching, connectable (connectible ?), ratio, upload speed, etc… etc... and you'll be lost in all links as they exist now, trying to find the good info.

And of course Mods/Admins have to manage with this daily, answering the same questions over and over, it becomes routine to them and I truly admire them for being so patient, especially they do this for free. If they were paid for that, we'd say : "well it's their JOB and they have to do it to be paid" but as they do it for free, it truly means they like to HELP people, thanks so much to all of you, Mods/Admins  

Now will this project be useful or will it be a waste of time ?
Who can answer that now ? I can't.

But it seems interesting to think about it all of us and discuss if there's a need in doing that or not.
Of course the selfish users will think : "why should I care with this project, I manage my own torrents very well and I won't spend one second in helping anybody here !"

Some other users will think : "what will be the use ? Some guys just don't READ anything, no matter how you will condense your commandments in one main page !"

Well...each one has the right to think his own way, but other users who like to help would maybe interested in this new project and bring their own ideas and criticism during the development of the commandements and linked pages.

Just an example : I spent a couple of hours this night, trying to help a user (in the french section) who can't upload. I did a complete successfull test for him, using the "manual upload" in GT because I NEVER uploaded anything manually until now (as I only use QTM associated to Utorrent and all goes fine each time), but as this user doesn't use QTM, I wanted to see if it was difficult (or not) to upload something in this manual way.

I won't ask you to read the french post I write, but please, have a look at the 7 pics attached at the end of the post, that's imho what should be found in most of the link explicative pages we're talking about : diagrams and pics, instead of endless sentences (as I'm writing now lol) . Here is the link where the 7 pics can be found :
http://community.gaytor.rent/index.php?topic=13015.msg55419#msg55419

Well I already wrote too much (we, latins, write too much usually, compared to other cultures who are more direct and concise in their sentences). It would be great to have your comments on all of this  

GayTorrents.ru 10 Commandments

1. Thou should not use multiple GT.ru account on the same Internet account.
2. Thou shall not upload GT.ru torrents to other trackers.
3. Thou should not upload duplicate files or banned materials.
4. Thou should not seed more than 20 torrents at a time.
5. Thou should not post clickable link to external website.

6. Thou should meet or exceed minimum ratio requirement.
7. Thou should provide appropriate title, descriptions and preview images when uploading a new torrent.
8. Thou should treat other members with respect.
9. Thou should check into GT.ru forum regularly and participate in the community.
10. Thou should search and read FAQs before posting new inquiry.

:rotfl: Excellent list indeed :jaj:

BTW: I did edit this list some what

Of course 1000 is exessive, the torrent client will spend too much in communicating with the tracker and peers.

Exactly the point I'm trying to make.

Soon after my initial post, another seeder came online and the torrent was flying at 100 kB/s+.  This person has <600 seeding torrents and a big upload pipe (160 kB/s+ average upload speed).

Back on topic.  I've just gone through the site Rules and FAQs and I think they need some cleaning up for easier reading.  Perhaps a simpler set of rules that's presented to new member at the first login would help fix this and other problems.  The GT.ru 10 Commandments I made up below cover most of the important points of the Rules section. Each rules can be link to another page with full explanation and examples.  The main things to avoid are center format everything and walls of text.  Numbers and letters are easier to refer to than dot points.

GayTorrents.ru 10 Commandments

1. Thou shou not use multiple GT.ru account on the same internet account.
2. Thou shou not upload GT.ru torrents to other trackers.
3. Thou shou not upload duplicate files or banned materials.
4. Thou shou not seed more than 20 torrents at a time.
5. Thou shou not post clickable link to external website.

6. Thou shou meet or exceed minimum ratio requirement.
7. Thou shou provide appropriate title, descriptions and preview images when uploading a new torrent.
8. Thou shou treat other members with respect.
9. Thou shou check into GT.ru forum regularly and participate in the community.
10. Thou shou search and read FAQs before posting new enquiry.

@MontanaJones:

Do I just have bad taste or is there that many more seeders than leechers?

The general rule is that the torrents with the most exposure get the most downloads. At the top of the list is the new torrents on the first few pages, then the server top 30 list on the front page, then the 3 recommended torrents at the top of every page.  The really popular torrents will also have many seeders so the leechers won't necessarily download from you. If your goal is to seed and keep your ratio up then get in early on new torrents or upload some yourself.

Of course 1000 is exessive, the torrent client will spend too much in communicating with the tracker and peers.

There are many other factors which can make upload rates low: being not connectible, super-seeding (initial seeding), ISP traffic shaping, …

In fact, I'm wondering if one should be allowed to quote his own message in the same topic, depending on those 2 conditions :

1. Precedent message is from the same user
2. Precedent message is still editable (written less than 2 hours)

If these 2 conditions are true, one shouldn't be allowed to quote his own precedent message (as soon as you click on "quote" , an alert should appear to block you, so you can only modify your precedent message written less than 2 hours ago, when noone replied in the interval)

Please Mods, feel free to delete this last message, thx

Imho, there are icons that should be replaced in the Forum, and even if you choose another "Current Smiley Set" in your Forum profiles ("look and layout preferences"), there's still something missing, explanations :

Default smiley set :
Classic smiley set :
Sarcasmic smiley  : no thx lol

Wouldn't it be better to have this in the Forum : or (last one seems to be the same as in torrents comments or email boxes)

And it's same "problem" for most little Forum smileys : they could be changed for something more expressive, I'm talking about those ones :   :-X etc…

My guess is most of the basic smileys in the Forum were chosen because they are SMALL   compared to bigger ones who would maybe take more place with bigger line intervals in a post but well, that one is small too…though it's "very yellow" lol

And this ends this post...which has nothing to do with this topic :

I am sorry for the misinformation  ???

If you are replying to my question, it doesn't answer it, because it was addressed to leatherbear….
(ho started to speak about a limit of 15 "connections" by our tracker.

My bad

In your uTorrent or BitTorrent, when you open the options window, there are two options to look for. Look in the "Queueing" section for the maximum number of active torrents. This setting sets a cap on the maximum number of torrents that your client will let you upload/download combined at one time. So if you've set the maximum number of active torrents to 5, even if you have 30 torrents seeding, your client will only allow up to 5 of them (4 if you're downloading 1 torrent) to be actively uploading/downloading at a time.

The second option is under the bandwidth section. I generally put a maximum upload rate cap on my BitTorrent for the simple fact of if you don't cap the upload just under the throttle point, my ISP likes to use traffic shaping to make everything slow to a crawl until you disconnect your active P2P sessions.

If you are replying to my question, it doesn't answer it, because it was addressed to leatherbear….
(ho started to speak about a limit of 15 "connections" by our tracker.

The second option is under the bandwidth section. I generally put a maximum upload rate cap on my BitTorrent for the simple fact of if you don't cap the upload just under the throttle point, my ISP likes to use traffic shaping to make everything slow to a crawl until you disconnect your active P2P sessions.

@leatherbear:

The system at GT.ru will only allow 15 connections regardless of how many torrents are available to seed in any users list.

Thank You for the information. You learn something new every day.

That is new to me as well, I was aware of a downloading limit of 15 max. depenting on ratio / upload / user status (unless donator), but not of a uploading or active limit. For example my (hidden) Profile shows 33 active torrents while uploading a new.

What do you mean with "connections", active torrents?

The system at GT.ru will only allow 15 connections regardless of how many torrents are available to seed in any users list.

Thank You for the information. You learn something new every day.

Perhaps a polite PM asking him to suspend some of the other uploads would work in your favor. He can only seed at his max whether 1 torrent or 15 are seeding.

It may also be possible that the number of active torrents that the user is seeding may drop, depending on network traffic demand, so there is a possible light at the end of the tunnel. As well, once the download process is complete, it could prove to be an incentive for traffic to be directed to you instead, as the tracker will generally take preference over the fastest available connection.

What does this mean for you? If there is still (or there is future) demand for the torrent in question, it would mean the majority of traffic would likely be directed to you, resulting in a great ratio booster for yourself. Although it may be frustrating, it does open a world of possibilities for you to boost your ratio in the end.