Leech Contol: Managing "sharing" on a decentralised p2p network how would you do it? - P2P-Zone

SA_Dave · 07-09-02, 06:21 PM

I basically agree with alphabeater on this issue. At the moment, these leech control mechanisms are flawed and short-sighted. There are however some features of two p2p clients which I believe are reasonable :[list=1][*]Xolox - the method used to discourage "leeches" is somewhat ingenious IMO! If you are a cable user, and report yourself as a dial-up peer (thereby throttling upload capacity to relatively low levels), your download capability is also hindered. If "leeches" can only get it after 2 weeks instead of several hours, this is a suitable deterrant! I'm not sure of how this system accomodates asynchronous connections, as I've only read about this feature & I have a modem.[*]eDonkey2000 & Overnet - the forced sharing of partial downloads is not too much to ask, even from a person with limited hdd space. The bandwidth limiters in the donkey are also scalable & relative to a node's limitations. It doesn't go far enough though as sharing at 10kbps gives you all the benefits of sharing at 50. This is one of the factors which makes the network "slower" than the competition's.[/list=1]
If these features could be combined into a client with TankGirl's proposed Peer-rating system, as well as allowing for prioritised uploading to trusted peers, it would be an excellent development! This would be a useful distribution mechanism, particularly if you could prioritise selected content (rare & 'new' files for the most part) to be uploaded before anything else (as long as it's requested of course), to peers that have proved themselves to be worthy contributors to the network through their own interactions with you. This would have a beneficial ripple effect. I believe the advantages of prioritisation would far outweigh the perceived disadvantages. It's my experience that many users are micro-managing control-freaks, monitoring uploads & downloads and cancelling or otherwise manipulating any that don't meet their own divergent & often ridiculous requirements! In this sense, priorities already exist on a per-user basis & I believe that automated prioritisation would practically eliminate queues if the "rules" were implemented in a rational and generally fair manner. Think of this as a decentralised version of AudioGalaxy's groups, without the spam of course!

This is mainly what TankGirl's vision incorporates, with a few of my own ideas thrown in for good measure!

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07-09-02, 06:21 PM	#1
SA_Dave Guardian of the Maturation Chamber Join Date: May 2002 Location: Unimatrix Zero, Area 25 Posts: 462	I basically agree with alphabeater on this issue. At the moment, these leech control mechanisms are flawed and short-sighted. There are however some features of two p2p clients which I believe are reasonable :[list=1][]Xolox* - the method used to discourage "leeches" is somewhat ingenious IMO! If you are a cable user, and report yourself as a dial-up peer (thereby throttling upload capacity to relatively low levels), your download capability is also hindered. If "leeches" can only get it after 2 weeks instead of several hours, this is a suitable deterrant! I'm not sure of how this system accomodates asynchronous connections, as I've only read about this feature & I have a modem.[]eDonkey2000 & Overnet* - the forced sharing of partial downloads is not too much to ask, even from a person with limited hdd space. The bandwidth limiters in the donkey are also scalable & relative to a node's limitations. It doesn't go far enough though as sharing at 10kbps gives you all the benefits of sharing at 50. This is one of the factors which makes the network "slower" than the competition's.[/list=1] If these features could be combined into a client with TankGirl's proposed Peer-rating system, as well as allowing for prioritised uploading to trusted peers, it would be an excellent development! This would be a useful distribution mechanism, particularly if you could prioritise selected content (rare & 'new' files for the most part) to be uploaded before anything else (as long as it's requested of course), to peers that have proved themselves to be worthy contributors to the network through their own interactions with you. This would have a beneficial ripple effect. I believe the advantages of prioritisation would far outweigh the perceived disadvantages. It's my experience that many users are micro-managing control-freaks, monitoring uploads & downloads and cancelling or otherwise manipulating any that don't meet their own divergent & often ridiculous requirements! In this sense, priorities already exist on a per-user basis & I believe that automated prioritisation would practically eliminate queues if the "rules" were implemented in a rational and generally fair manner. Think of this as a decentralised version of AudioGalaxy's groups, without the spam of course! This is mainly what TankGirl's vision incorporates, with a few of my own ideas thrown in for good measure!