Do you prefer private or public trackers?

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?

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.

Private is so much better, availability and speed wise. For most, as long as you build ratio with freeleech torrents, you're fine.

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'm the occasional pirate, I don't download more media than I watch and therefore never saw the appeal of private trackers. They have their perks, no doubt, but most of what I need can be found on the internet.

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.

If you permaseed you don't need to know individual tracker seeing requirements.

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 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'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.

I actually can’t find the stuff I want that’s missing on public trackers on private ones, so they’re pointless to me.

Edit: Looking for HD middle seasons of Reno911.

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 prefer rutracker 👀

Doesn't matter, my happiness is solely based on fulfilling my needs. This ends up requiring a mix of private and public trackers.

In this day and age its easy to automate fulfilling whatever obligations a private tracker requires once invited, so they are a relatively small hassle most of the time.

I can't bother joining a private tracker. Of course, they might be useful for niche content. For instance, 15 years ago there was a special tracker, where people shared races of virtually all racing series. But mainstream stuff is available on public trackers.

There one tracker where I download lossless music. But anyone can join it, I guess you could define it as semi-private or semi-public.

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

Indifferent.
I use both torrent und usenet, public and private trackers and indexers.

I just recently decided to donate to a certain private tracker and fuck man its so nice. It has so much and its all good. Plus you know the quality will be legit on the highly seeded items. Since i donated it gave me a boost on my ratio, which even with my mediocre connection is fairly easy to keep good

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

whatever lets me a upload a YouTube video downloaded via newpipe

Public but that’s because I always find what I am looking for and don’t see a need for a a private tracker.

Provate tracker. We are there for each other and together we have an awesome collection of linux isos

My private tracker days are behind me after they shut down OiNK, and then later what.cd. Though I can't say I don't miss it sometimes. At its peak, What was an amazing place.

Private trackers aren't dominated by people who waste my bandwidth downloading all day at maximum speed and never contributing back.

Private trackers have, always been a bunch of snobby dingleberries

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.

Private, I like sharing in a community. Particularly like the Nordic one I'm in, they make sure everything has nice subs. There's also a few quirky torrents on there, like a collection of very old and niche Swedish PC games, many of which I remember fondly from when I was young.

Private. Speeds are much better and your stuff lasts longer. I tried several times to have public options for my Coliseum Video uploads and all have failed in some way. At least with private trackers, I know that they’ll stay seeded for a long long time.

I really enjoyed the private tracker I used, but I didn't notice that my prowlarr config got messed up and stopped seeding to ratio and I got banned. Don't really want to donate to get unbanned so that sucks. Back to public.

I dunno the difference