Let’s face it, What.cd is probably the world’s best private music tracker. Being born as one of OiNK’s piglets, What has by 2009 grown into one of the largest and most popular private BitTorrent sites in existence. With the site celebrating its 2nd birthday, a major change has been made to the it’s ratio system. This should be good news for many members, especially new ones who found it hard to seed back (and survive) on the tracker. Note that the new ratio system is not live at the time this post is being written. However according to What.CD administration, it’ll be up in about a week (members will be notified when it’s rolled out). Full news post which describes the new system in detail is quoted below:
Ratio system overhaul
This is possibly the biggest change of all. Throughout the course of our history, we have been known as a site on which it is notoriously difficult for new users to maintain a healthy ratio - even if they're trying their best and seeding everything they've ever snatched. As the torrent count has increased to the point that we have 6 times as many torrents as we do users, this problem has gotten worse and worse.
Previously, we tried to control this by implementing the bounty request system, and injecting money into the economy with freeleech. However, as the gap between the rich and the poor has continued to grow, we've decided that it's time for a major change.
Instead of having ratio requirements based on the number of gigs you've downloaded, we've opted for a more complex, but more fair system. In the new system, every user has their own individual required ratio, based on the percentage of their snatches that they seed forever.
Under the new system, a user's required ratio is based on the current ratio requirement for their download amount, and then adjusted by how many of their snatched torrents they're still seeding. The exact formula is as follows:
Requirement = Current requirement*(1-seeding/snatched)
The 'seeding' amount is calculated as the average number of torrents you've seeded over at least 72 hours in the past week. The 'snatched' amount is the number of unique, non-deleted torrents you've snatched. The required ratio is calculated once per day.
What this means is that users who do not seed their snatches will be unaffected by this change, and will have the same ratio requirements as before. However, users who seed everything they've ever snatched for at least 72 hours per week will effectively have no ratio requirement (until they've downloaded 20 gigs - exact details will be made available in the next week).
If a user's ratio is below their required ratio, they will have one week to either raise their ratio, or lower their required ratio by seeding more torrents.
The system is currently recording the data needed to calculate the average seeding value. However, we have seen fit to give the community some advanced warning before we roll out the system. Expect it to be some time in the next week.
As this has made ratio requirements lower for almost everyone, you can also expect us to raise the base requirements in the next few months. Exact figures will be announced well in advance.
Awesome! Isn’t it? Under the new system, you will actually be rewarded for the torrents that are kept seeding forever, even without leechers connecting to them. Anyways we’ll have to wait till the new system is fully functional to see its effectiveness.
How to get into What.CD
No article is complete without a means to get into the featured tracker. There are many ways you can get into What.CD but one of the safest and most reliable means to obtain a free invite is via their IRC interview. If you didn’t know already, What.CD has IRC recruitment and there’s even an official ‘interview prep’ site online. On the downside, there a lot you need to know in order to pass the interview. For a step by step guide on how to get to the interview channel, how to prepare for it, etc please read our article “Free What.CD invite via IRC interview – How to get in”.
