Sure I'd be ok with them, but they're private, it's almost impossible to get on them.
And then I was on one once, and it requires you to keep a 1.0 ratio or something. But there are plenty of power users that have a 50.0 ratio with their seed boxes, so they're essentially "taking traffic" from 49 other people trying to maintain their 1.0 ratio. Even though I had my stuff properly seeding that I downloaded, only few downloaded from me, so I couldn't maintain my ratio.
Some of them are hard to get in, but TL and IPT are damn easy, they open up many times per year. And if you download new stuff or big torrents is always freelech so it doesn’t even count to your ratio. So, it’s quite easy actually.
Actually that subreddit is locked for ever. There is a website, opentrackers.org, that is kinda the authority right now. It’s operated by a trustworthy “poor” guy who has been long enough in the scene.
All the ones I've ever been on had a way to build ratio using points earned by seeding. I have crappy upload speeds at home but have built a large ratio on all the ones I'm on just by permaseeding files and looking for freeleech items to download and seed.
Ok I get your point. But I haven’t been in any tracker that ask for any private information. You just need a burner email for all you torrent related activity and that’s it.
In a public tracker your IP is also tracked, and while is not tied to an email, you’re open to honeypot attacks (that’s how law firms try to fine you in Germany). This way they find out exactly what you tried to download, timestamped.
As these assholes always go for the low hanging fruit, you’re mostly safe in private trackers.