Mathematical Analysis Shows Ratios are Bad

In the file-sharing community, balance is everything. If everyone contributes, the system works, and everyone is happy. Community generosity leads to high-speed transfers and high availability.

But not everyone is generous. Some people are downright grinchy when it comes to sharing. And that really pisses people off. So people make private communities to keep out the grinches. But how do you decide who to let in?

The primary method of weeding out the trash for most torrent sites has almost universally been the invocation of a minimum ratio requirement. The reason is obvious: everyone should share the responsibility of uploading. The problem with ratios is that they don’t really solve the problem, and are actually contrary to the idea of file-sharing.