Talk:BitTorrent tracker

Private Trackers

Come on. Pyramid scheme? I think that whole paragraph should be completely removed, because I don't think it accurately reflects the situation of most private trackers. You may get added benefits for donating, in the same way you would on many other websites, but reputable private trackers rarely just hand out upload credit like that, and donating is by no means the only way to maintain a ratio.

I agree. Donations aren't mandatory to keep a 1:1 ratio. Whoever wrote the pyramid scheme part is either very misinformed and/or not experienced in private trackers or is a worthless leecher with a grudge against private trackers —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thenutman69321 (talk • contribs) 21:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup

I think it needs a software to establish a tracker of bittorrent, doesn't it?

what are the programs??

well... i know except trackerless connect..we need to connect to certain trackers whose site addresses are provided in the torrent file before we can start to download.

well... i don't know how to establish a tracker.

any references or tutorials?

i suppose we need a program to set up a tracker don't we? anybody? Davince (talk) 08:36, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

who wrote this crap?? needs a lot of cleanup 67.172.139.154 (talk) 00:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

• I have marked this page for cleanup, and have begun the process myself. It definitely needs some expansion. Also, while I kept the list of trackers in for now, I feel like that is not necessarily within the scope of this article. However, the article should definitely contain references to specific trackers (both historical and current) in a more encyclopedic context, i.e., discussion of legal troubles. --Kinu 07:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll start cleaning up this site now. One thing that the creators don't seem to understand is that BitTorrent trackers are totally different to BT indexes, although many sites perform both.

ISOhunt, for example, is NOT a tracker, although it is listed as such here. splintax ^(talk) 12:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've finished cleanup and removed the message. If there are still any reasons it needs to be cleaned up, please let me know on my talk page or leave a message here.. splintax ^(talk) 14:17, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The ipv6 section is out of date. NIIF/HUNGARNET links to only two torrents, and both are now returning forbidden errors and appear to be unavailable. The sixxs tracker hasn't been working for a while and clarification is needed if they're still running it. OTOH there are now a number of ipv6 capable clients available now (although I'm not aware of any trackers other than those two) and either a list of these or a link to the sixxs page that lists them (if it's sufficiently up to date) would be helpful. 146.87.6.75 (talk) 16:32, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Illegal?

Any discussion of bittorrent/filesharing/etc. has to be quite careful about using the word "illegal." This paragraph:

Trackers illegally tracking copyrighted content are often the targets of cease and desist lawsuits from copyright bodies such as the MPAA and RIAA, despite the fact that they do not actually supply any copyrighted data themselves. Usually these websites are located in countries that have lax copyright laws. The Pirate Bay (located in Sweden) is famous for publishing and making fun of legal threats.

... doesn't really make sense. it starts saying "Trackers illegally tracking copyrighted..." yet later says "these websites are located in countries that have lax laws"... thus what they are doing is not illegal (in the countries in which they operate). By opening with the word "illegal" it obscures the whole argument. It is, at present, very much debatable whether tracking copyrighted material is illegal or not. What is factual is that these websites have received cease and desist orders. The legality of what they are doing, however, is not so clear cut. I don't want to turn this into yet another filesharing-legality debate. However I believe the current wording is not valid.24.202.31.227 05:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Yea, true that's just like saying Wikipedia's file servers should be blamed for the input of invalid information rather than the IP address of the user or the user who did this contribution :P... --☯µWiki☯ Talk / Contributions (YouWiki) 14:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

@YouWiki: Yep, although what you said made me laugh.

Links to Trackers

I restored the link to Ogg Frog just now, which had been deleted. Several others were deleted too, without comment. The only tracker link left was the Pirate Bay.

While Ogg Frog is not a large site, it is one of only a few offerring undoubtably legal, licensed content, which is otherwise hard to find. While I'm sure legal content can be had on some sites that also permit copyright infringement, the legality of a torrent is generally not made clear. I think that Wikipedia would do a service to the community by clarifying this distinction.

Again, while Ogg Frog isn't very big, it's important in that it's been MSN search's #1 hit for "music torrents" for almost two months now. This is likely due to the fact that many competing music sites get taken down when served with DMCA notices.

If one can make a rational argument for deleting Ogg Frog's link, I'm happy to debate it, but I think wholesale deletion of links, without comment, that favor just one prominent pirate site is Not Appropriate. MichaelCrawford 01:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I removed the links without comments but with edit summary:remove private trackers and non notable links.[1] Ogg Frog falls under non notable. And it is a non fuctional work-in-progress site. --Dodo bird 07:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I took the liberty of removing the whole External links section. It consisted only of links to individual BitTorrent indexing sites. Wikipedia External links sections are for linking to external material delving deeper into a topic than what the Wikipedia article itself does, for those readers with a special interest. It is not to act as a kind of mini link directory; there are other sites for that. Feel free to add any links explaining in greater detail how BitTorrent trackers work, etc. Haakon 17:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

We should add a link to an external website with all those links to torrent trackers. It is a really good information and I use it a lot when I need to find a new tv episode, or something like that. 83.253.31.196 (talk) 02:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

---

Well if there is a need to have a link to a list of all the bittorrent trackers, instead of favoring a few in the article it self, it is possible to use torrentking.org, currently i do not know of any other site that categorize and list so many bittorrent trackers. - Chris 2:31AM, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

While that is true, it does need some close examination. Your inclusion of it was removed awhile back for technical grounds, and because of the somewhat obvious Conflict of Interest, where you seem to be associated with the site. If it is indeed the only such site listing torrents, it may be useful in the article. But, it's notability is lessened when it's viewed as an ad-based server that is added to Wikipedia by someone who may be its owner. Rurik (talk) 05:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

After review and monitoring of how active the site is, how often new sites are added, and how unique the indexed sites are, I think that this site does serve a useful purpose and should be included here. I've re-added it to the article. Rurik (talk) 00:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Simplify

Can someone explain in plain English why 'many torrent trackers have been the target of cease and desist lawsuits from copyright bodies'. No technical jargon - please!--CharlieP 07:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The page targets people who already know what a tracker is and know how to set one up for new torrents. Can someone kindly provide a HowTo? --202.70.157.9 07:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)Hussain

Trackers/Indexers

If we will be calling trackers "trackers" (as everyone else does) then we should also be calling "indexes" "indexers", reflecting purpose and not function.f

Also, I have put in a list of Tracker scripts. This list took a while to put together, please don't delete it like the list of tracker sites got deleted.

--expert01 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.18.53.172 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Crossposting from my talk page:

I realize now that you are adding the titles of software trackers, but at first I thought you were going to list public tracker sites. That was my misunderstanding, but it's really a better idea to initialize a section with content, not placeholder messages. At any rate, as I said in my edit comment, I was only going to revert your edit once and then step back.

-- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 04:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Function

Trackers contains list of peers for each torrent they tracks. Does tracker must have a .torrent file, which it tracks? (Is it 100% necessary?). What information is exchanged between client and a tracker (there obviously is data about other peers, amount of transferred data since last update), but is there data about which pieces (of a given torrent) were transferred ? -Yyy 08:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, there is not. (Torrent is being successfully tracked even if tracker itself does not have a copy of .torrent file). This information should be mentioned either here or in main bittorent article. (This is about protocol). -Yyy 12:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert but my understanding is that the .torrent file contains the details of the tracker and a unique hash for the torrent. The server then uses this hash to locate other seeds/leechers using the tracker for that specific torrent. his information is then relayed to the client. The client periodically updates the tracker to a) confirm it's still here b) get an updated list of peers and c) report individual upload/download stats. Torrent files also include comments from the creator. I'm less certain about this but _believe_ the torrent also includes details of how the file is torrent down into "chunks" (e.g. 50 chunks @ 1MB). I believe it also includes a hash (MD5?) of each chunk to allow the client to verify the integrity of data it is sent. These last 2 may be supplied by the tracker on the first connect, however. Basiclife (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

UKNova

Why does it redirect here? --Jamie 23:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Incomprehensible gibberish

This page is completely incomprehensible. I can't tell what they are talking about. Using links to help define basic ideas every five words is not the answer to having to come up with clear definitions. Can someone who can actually write please adopt this page now that a link to it is on the Main Page today? 72.209.11.245 (talk) 13:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

First the page is not overlinked. Second the article needs references and a lot of work to help explain the technology. I used Google which is usually helpful with computer related topics to try to find some refs. The search results were mostly news about legal action to shut them down (that would be best used on Legal issues with BitTorrent), as well as articles from unreliable sources and the trackers site themselves. I did find out that the EU funded P2P-Next project will soon launch its own BitTorrent tracker and Norwegian state TV has launched one already. These are not mentioned in the article at the moment but may covered by a reliable source. - Shiftchange (talk) 14:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The article still needs work. In particular, what is a tracker? If it is too hard to define it in the lead section, a section called "Definition" would be nice.--greenrd (talk) 12:59, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

We could use clearer terms. A lot of jargon is used together, which makes it hard for non-technical users to parse the page. 173.66.39.100 (talk) 07:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

a list of trackers

I think this article would be greatly improved if it included a list of bittorrent trackers. It could be divided up by language or region, or topic, or however we think that trackers are best categorized (my vote is for language). Thoughts?

I agree! SF007 (talk) 05:07, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. WP isn't a list of items, and such a list would be a heavily contested, debated, and controversial section. We can just link to an index of trackers, like one mentioned earlier up on this page. Rurik (talk) 18:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I Agree. And I'm removing the link http://torrentscene.freezoka.com/index.php/List_Of_Torrent_Site_Abbreviations since it's linking to a spam/scam commercial site. --R2cyberpunk (talk) 03:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. We might choose to list a few notable ones, but this is a bit questionable since most of these will track illegal content as well. It's better to leave these websites unmentioned. 173.66.39.100 (talk) 07:02, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Sources for Legal use of trackers

I've removed the citation needed tag on the legal use of trackers section since the use of "private" trackers for some content is relatively public knowledge. 173.66.39.100 (talk) 07:00, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Link not working

Following link does not work, I guess it should be removed http://www.trackon.org/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by The100rabh (talk • contribs) 06:23, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

most popular?

I think that sentence needs to be removed as 1) there's no reference to that statement and 2) two of them have been down since last year. I'm going to leave it for a second opinion though. --98.24.99.70 (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2015 (UTC)