The BakaBT Website

Header

This page is intended to act as a guide to the BakaBT header visible on all pages. The numbered headings indicate sections of the header. This handy reference image will point out exactly where each of these sections is.

1 - Quick links

Help Form	A form that transmits your problems to BakaBT staff.
Adopt	A list of torrents in dire need of adoption.
Top 10	Some nice statistics.
Banners	A display of all of the banners that rotate on reload.
Forums	Go to the forums, where you can ask questions about torrents and the site, or just chat with other BakaBT users.
Blog	The new BakaBT blog, filled with the rambings of Chiyachan and whoever else he coerces into it.
IRC	Information on how to get connected to BakaBT's IRC channel.
Web IRC	Access via the browser to the BakaBT IRC channel.
Rules	Read this.
FAQ	And this.
Wiki	What you're on.
Random	Takes you to a random torrent.

2 - RSS

A RSS feed of recently-granted torrents. The results are filtered by the default browse options specified in your profile.
(Only Power Users)

3 - Navigation

News	The front page, filled with recent news about the site.
Browse	Browse all torrents on the site.
Offered	Recently offered torrents that have either not yet been accepted, or have been rejected. The number listed in parenthesis is the number of pending offers. Power Users can mouseover provides links to Upload (the page on which you create a new torrent offer), Sandbox (where you can play around with torrent descriptions) and Templates (a list of description templates for offers).
Media	Jaru's attempt to create a browsing system of recently-granted offers that is based off of images, rather than text.
Settings	Where you can change account settings.
Messages	Tracker messages (separate from forum messages). This is where you receive PMs from other users, or notifications from the system about torrent swaps, comments on notified torrents, and torrent approvals and deletions.

4 - Login

Your username and a logout/login link.

5 - Donate button

Make one-time, or set up monthly, donations and get upload credit.

6 - Search field

Search currently accepted torrents. Searches according to your default browse options.

7 - Stats

Your tracker stats. In order, overall ratio, total uploaded, total downloaded, number of torrents seeding, number of torrents leeching, and number of unredeemed bonus points.

Userpage

This page is intended to act as a guide to the BakaBT profile page. The numbered headings indicate sections of the page. This handy reference image will point out exactly where each of these sections is.

1 - Friend Controls

Add this user to your Friend List, or block them. Your Friend List and the Users you have blocked can be found under My friends. After blocking a user the Send Message button on your user page is faded out for him and he can no longer send you any PMs.

2 - User info

The username and user class of this user. Also, a flag representing the user's country of residence.

3 - Avatar

User's tracker avatar. This is the image that appears in torrent offers and comments, separate from the forum avatar.

4 - Public user information

Join Date	Date user registered with BakaBT.
Last Seen	The last time they visited a page on BakaBT while logged in.
Uploaded	Amount uploaded through BakaBT, and average rate of upload.
Downloaded	Amount downloaded through BakaBT, and average rate of download.
Bonus	Amount of the upload credit earned by redeeming bonus points.
Donated	Amount of the upload credit earned by donating to BakaBT.
Freeleech	Amount downloaded that was not counted towards total download, due to old freeleech period.
Bonus Points	Number of unredeemed bonus points. "Use" takes you to a page where you can spend your bonus points.
Share Ratio	Uploaded / Downloaded. There are different smilies for different ranges.
Torrent Comments	How many times the user has posted a comment on a torrent. The number is a link to a page displaying all of the user's comments.

5 - Tabs

Tabs to filter torrents based on various criteria.

Seeding	Torrents the user has finished downloading and is now solely uploading to other peers.
Seeded	Torrents for which the user has uploaded more than they have downloaded; their individual ratio for that torrent is greater than 1.
Leeching	Torrents the user is currently downloading.
Incomplete	Torrents the user has started downloading and is not currently downloading, but have not been recorded as having finished.
Leeched	Torrents for which the user has downloaded more than they have uploaded; their individual ratio for that torrent is less than 1.
Uploaded	Torrents the user has uploaded through the offer system; rejected offers appear here until pruned.
Bookmarked	Torrents the user has bookmarked. Bookmarked torrents are aggregated for the Related Torrents section.
Wishlist	Torrents the user has wishlisted. Unlike Bookmarks, Wishlist data is not used anywhere else.
Notify	Torrents the user has enabled notification for. A message will be sent to you when someone comments on a torrent you have enabled notification for
Comment	Torrents the user has commented on. A torrent will only appear in this list once, even if the user has commented multiple times on it.

6 - Categories

Torrents that match the filtering applied by the options in 5. You can sort by clicking on the respective category.

Category	The category that the torrent falls into. One of OVA, Series, OST, Movie, Manga, Artbook or Music Video. Beside the category-icon is a medal icon which states the torrent-status i.e. if it is leeched or seeded. There are six different medals: Green ribbon with golden medal: You have seeded that torrent to a ratio of > 1 Green ribbon with silver medal: You are seeding this torrent and have already a ratio > 1 Red ribbon with golden medal: You have leeched this torrent but haven't reached a ratio > 1 Red ribbon with silver medal: You are leeching this torrent Red ribbon with bronze medal: You have leeched a part of this torrent but not all data and haven't reached a ratio > 1 Round medal: You have uploaded this torrent onto BakaBT
Name	Name of the torrent. Underneath are the keywords (tags) associated with it. If you uploaded this torrent there will be two icons beside the name. The first one is for editing the description, the second one for editing the torrent info.
S/L	Number of seeders / leechers connected to the tracker for this torrent.
Size	Size of the torrent data.
Up	The user's recorded upload for this torrent. This number is reset when a torrent is swapped.
Down	The user's recorded download for this torrent. This number is reset when a torrent is swapped.
Ratio	The individual ratio of this torrent. The large, colourised number is up / down; the smaller, gray number is upload divided by torrent size. Inf indicates that the user has not downloaded any data of this torrent.

Torrent Details

This page is intended to act as a guide to the layout used on the torrent pages. The numbered headings indicate sections of the page. This handy reference image will point out exactly where each of these sections is.

1 - Torrent icon

Torrent type. One of OVA, Series, OST, Movie, Manga, Artbook or Music Video.

2 - Torrent title

Title of the torrent.

3 - Keywords

The keywords (tags) associated with this torrent.

4 - Swap notice

Date the torrent was last swapped.

5 - Download

Click to download the .torrent file. Also listed is the size of the torrent.

6 - User interface

Bookmark	Keep this torrent listed in your bookmarks. Also used to calculate related torrents.
Wishlist	A list of torrents to download... sometime. You're notified when a torrent on your wishlist is swapped.
Notify Me	Sends you notifications when new comments are posted.
Report	Report this torrent for not following the rules. Power users only.

7 - Other versions box

Category box with the different video format alternatives.

8 - Torrent info tabs

Tabs that provide interesting information about this torrent. Clicking leads to boxes 9-12.

9 - Statistics

Type	Type of torrent, one of OVA, Series, OST, Movie, Manga, Artbook or Music Video.
Size	Amount of hard disk space the torrent will take up when fully downloaded.
Completed	How many people have finished downloading the torrent.
Last activity	[Last time downloaded? Last time scraped?]
Peers	The swarm overview.
Freeleech	Whether the torrent benefits from freeleech or not.
Added	When this torrent was added to the pool.
Snatches	Number of times the .torrent file was downloaded.
Last Seed	How much time has passed since a new seed has entered the swarm.

10 - Filelist

A list of the files included in the torrent and their sizes. If contained in folders, you can expand all.
Can be viewed as plain text.

11 - Peerlist

Detailed information about the swarm.
Power users only.

User/IP	A link to the user's profile, or an IP address for users connected via the public key.
Upl.	Total amount uploaded of this torrent.
Downl.	Total amount downloaded.
Ratio	Uploaded / Downloaded for this torrent. This is the field that the list is sorted by.
Complete	How much of the torrent the user has downloaded.
Time	The time elapsed since the torrent was last started [verify?]
Idle	Time since last announce.
Hts	Number of announces.
Client	The Bittorrent client being used.

12 - Related

Other torrents bookmarked by users who bookmarked this torrent.

Forum RSS Feed

This tutorial will cover how to obtain specific RSS Feeds from Topics and Boards throughout BakaBT Forums.

The BakaBT forums is designed by "Simple Machine Forums", although a pain to initially set up, it is one of the most flexible and capable free forum software's available. That being said; a lot of thought went into how to make it user friendly to the members, but also so that Administration can not only easily moderate, but also obtain a constant flow of information as needed for themselves as well as members, and in certain instances; Of Members. To this end Simple Machines Forum developers created one of the most comprehensive Feed Systems available for forums to date.

Preparation

First let us start with a look at our default feed URL: http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml

Simple Machine Forum utilizes this URL similar to a code build. It is the basis for the feed building blocks and is where all the feeds from here on out will begin. Simple Machine Forum allows you to build on the initial URL so that it can target Categories, Boards, and Topics, among other things, but for this Tutorial we will concentrate on Boards and Topics, as this is the most relevant to us, and all BakaBT members.

Simple Machine Forum designers kept all available technology in the loop. Although the feed is initially an RSS .91, it can be changed to accommodate any type of feed from Atom to RSS 2.0 The following is the available manipulations to the RSS Feed available to everyone:

  * ;type=atom - Atom
  * ;type=rdf - RDF
  * ;type=rss - RSS 0.91
  * ;type=rss2 - RSS 2.0

Do not worry if this makes no sense at this time as it will all come together...

Now that we know what type of feeds are available to all of us how can we target Boards and Topics???
Again: Simple Machine Forum Developers were thinking, and gave us a list of options to add to the initial URL.

The following is example expansions to the initial URL that can be added.

  * limit=x - display the "x" number of posts (if number is less than 5, it will display 5. If number is larger than 255,
 it will display 255).
  * board=y - display only posts from board "y"
  * boards=x,y,z - display only posts from the specified boards
  * topic=y - display only posts from board in which topic "y" is located

There is just a little more information to disseminate before we get to the heart of this tutorial.
The folks at Simple Machines Forum also gave us "Sub-action(s)". Now without listing all of the available Sub-Actions, I will just show the two that immediately affect all BakaBT members:

  * Recent Posts (displays the most recent posts that you can see)
   sa=recent
  * News (displays the first post from the most recent topics that you can see)
   sa=news

Creating the custom feed

Now that we have all the parts that are required, let's put it all together.
The following are examples of targeted Feeds from the BakaBT forums:

BakaBT - New Torrent Requests (Board Example)

http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?action=.xml;sa=recent;board=3.0;limit=20;type=rss2

BakaBT - Site Feedback & Rules (Topic Example)

http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?action=.xml;sa=news;topic=22306;limit=20;type=rss

In the above examples you will find that I have color coded the the various parts that will be required in order to obtain the Targeted Feed that we want.
As you can see in the light blue is the initial Forum URL.

NOTE:

Now as we build the URL coding up, you must add a "semi-colon" ( ; ) after each addition to the URL.

In the above examples:
The Green is the defined "Sub-Action". Most commonly we will utilize "sa=recent" in our URL(s), as this will give a rolling feed, and not just the first post to a topic.

The Navy Blue area defines the the topic or board that we wish to obtain a feed from.

The Purple area defines how many posts will be fed to us via the Feed. I tend to leave this at 20, as this will limit bandwidth load to the forum server, and allow our Feed to load faster as well...You can not do less than a five (5) posts, and you can not request more than 255 at any given time. If you want more than 20 feeds, be respectful of the forum and the server, as this will start introducing a large drain on the bandwidth from the forum server.

The Red represents the the Feed type. In my case, I tend to leave mine as RSS2 as this qualifies for the most information with least trouble from the four available types.

Examples

Now that I have assembled the pieces, how do I define what Board(s) or Topic(s) I want a feed from?

Lets take the example of the first example feed above:

BakaBT - New Torrent Requests (Board Example)
http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?action=.xml;sa=recent;board=3.0;limit=20;type=rss2

This one is labeled "BakaBT - New Torrent Requests".

If you look at your browser's Address bar you will see something like this:

• 

Off all the things in the Address bar we only want a certain part, we want to know if this is a topic or a board and what the number sequence is;
In this case we are interested in "topic=22306.0"

• 

Now that I have the information required, I am going to take my Example code and copy/paste the "topic=22306.0" into it:

So I will go from this:
http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?action=.xml;sa=recent;board=3.0;limit=20;type=rss2

To this:
http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?action=.xml;sa=recent;topic=22306.0;limit=20;type=rss2

Now here is a kick in the shorts:
Listing "Topics" will rarely work, if you list a "Topic" in your URL, it will most likely refer to the Board it is posted tom and not the topic directly. If a Child Board is buried to deep from the initial board development, the system will refer to the parent board one layer up. So "Boards" are more reliable.

Since the Child board was buried to deep in the forum structure, you find that the example gives you a feed for the Parent "Board"

So lets, pick a board as an example - Forum/Thread Games:

• 

Check the Address bar in your browser:

• 

Again: all we are interested in is the Board and the Numbers:

• 

Once again I am going to copy and paste "board=41.0" into my prepared URL:

So this:
http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?action=.xml;sa=recent;topic=22306.0;limit=20;type=rss2

Becomes this:
http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?action=.xml;sa=recent;board=41.0;limit=20;type=rss2

Now to test and see if the Feed work, we will copy and paste the new code into the Address bar and see if we get a correct feed. Indeed we find that this works:

• 

Final Notes.

As demonstrated above, it is always better to utilize a Board over a Topic, as the Board reference is reliable. I know this has been a long road, but purposely done for a reason, so that you will understand all of the available options, actions, and consequences you will face as you develop your feed URL.
Experiment a bit, find the boards you want and the topics you desire, and see what works best, and what feeds you require to monitor, everything you need to know is in the tutorial just given.

I hope that the BakaBT members will find this of some use it targeting feeds to their individual needs.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask

Regards
The Sarge