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What is considered a "polite" ratio?


cyclopticgaze

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Hello.

I'm kinda new to torrents. Right now, I'm using uTorrent to manage 5 or 6 torrents. I've downloaded all the files, and I'm currently seeding them back to people. These aren't terribly popular files, so I've left uTorrent going for a while. (All the seeds are listed at 0(3) or something close to that, all the peers at 5(30) or the like.)

Currently, my ratios for these torrents are sitting at 2-6, with most on the high end of that scale. That's a lot of bandwidth considering the files are 300-600 MB in size. My question is, what do people generally consider a "polite" ratio? At what ratio is it cool to say, "OK, I've given enough back to the community now," and close down the torrents?

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I would put what Kazuaki Shimazaki said in a slightly different way: anything below 1:1 is pretty bad.

Your ratios of 2-6 are considered polite, but with µtorrent's low memory usage, I see no real reason to remove a torrent unless it is dead.

You can always cap your upload if the seeding takes too much of your bandwidth.

You can also prioritize other torrents as high if you wish.

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I just leave things alive. Sooner or later new members to torrent sites will want that upload.

Even if they don't, a scrape every 30 minutes or so uses no bandwidth to speak of.

Eventually, I will drop one or two things to make room for newer stuff, but I figure that "I got it for free so why not keep it available"

:)

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What's "polite" is a relative thing, and I don't know what the common consensus is on that, if there is one. Personally, I judge it by the seed/peer ratio. In the situation you presented (3 seeds and 30 peers), I'd seed till my ratio is at least 1 (that depends on the size of the torrent, but 1 is the absolute minimum). For the popular torrents with hundreds (or thousands!) of seeds, I just download and leave. Generally speaking, use your common sense to determine how much the swarm needs you and how much of that need you can fulfil, and act accordingly. :)

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I always aim for a 1:1 ratio or more. I think it's only fair I give back as much as I take and would like to think others would do the same... give or take.

I just set uTorrent to "Seed While: Ratio is <= 100%" in the "Seeding Priority" options, then use "When Torrent has reached the seeding goal: Limit the upload rate to 0" to stop when done (when 1:1 is reached).

If it's an uncommon/unpopular file, maybe struggling for completed seeds (low "Availiability" value), then I'll just manually "Force" seed the file beyond the normal 1:1 limit for a while.

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My rule-of-thumb is this:

Anything that has lots of seeds and peers doesn't really NEED me seeding indefinitely after I reach 110% ratio. (110% is to give back a little extra to make up for lost packets, failed hashes, etc)

But there's LOTS of torrents that me hanging around on as a seed can decide whether someone else can get those at all!

Ideas are fighting for bandwidth...but not all ideas are equal. Save the good ones!

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^^I do exactely like u do. I DLed a file where it was 54 seeders on it. So I left after I got to a 1.5 ratio. Like right at this moment, its 2 ppl connected on a torrent: me (the seed) and 1 peer. Then its another torrent right now where im the lone seed with 9 ppl connected. What happened to the other seeders, I dont know. There are times when its alot of un-connectable ppl and I just cant upload to em. So I bounce if I see no uploading after 1-3 hours. If only more folks were connectable......

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There is a seriously-bad problem that's not talked about openly about BitTorrent/µTorrent connectivity.

If someone's firewalled, chances are you will have a very hard time connecting to them -- actually you have to wait for them to try to connect to you. Also you probably won't stay connected to them for more than 5 minutes. This is assuming you're not firewalled but you have a router.

Knowing the approximate firewalled rate from BearShare...of about 70-75% firewalled, I'd say BitTorrent client firewalled rate is actually about the same amount. This means as many as 3 out of 4 peers/seeds are initially unconnectable. If you're firewalled, that means they're NEVER connectable.

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