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Okay excuse my ignorance, but this should be an easy question for you to answer. I didnt get a clear answer in the help, so I am just double checking:

https://askubuntu.com/review/first-posts/305383

I'm using ktorrent and see torrents with 15(18) in the seeders column yet it's status is stalled.Does anyone know why that is? Am I doing something wrong?

This should be flagged as off topic right? If so; what Stack Exchange should he be pointed to?

Or should it be left for an answer, given that KTorrent is something someone might typically run on Kubuntu?

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    Nope, not off-topic.
    – Seth Mod
    Commented Aug 11, 2014 at 23:11

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It's technically on topic, but a bad researched question... which is not surprising. The torrent protocol can leave you a little baffled because it does stuff you don't expect to do. Such questions should be tagged bittorrent since they are more about how the protocol behaves rather than a specific program.

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I just commented there. Let's see if the OP gets the idea or not before it gets the fire.

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  • had no idea about the seed ratio thing.
    – Anon
    Commented Aug 11, 2014 at 23:00
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    @Akiva It's more common on private, highly commercially expensive, highly sought after, or highly illegal torrents. Basically, it means if you don't help or get your hands dirty, you don't get helped as far as the health of a torrent network is concerned. There are other possibilities - like a seed quantity that is all on a blacklist for the app because they are "no-no" peers.
    – RobotHumans
    Commented Aug 11, 2014 at 23:02
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From the help center (emphasis added by me):

Questions that you may ask:

  • Using and administering official Ubuntu flavors including: Edubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, Lubuntu, Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu and Ubuntu Touch.
  • Running third-party applications on Ubuntu.
  • Development on Ubuntu.
  • Services provided by Ubuntu
  • Any question not mentioned below or here are great!

So, there are two possibilities:

  • Since KTorrent is provided in official Ubuntu repositories, you may consider it part of Ubuntu and questions about it as questions about how to use Ubuntu. Then under the first bullet point, the question is on-topic.
  • You might consider KTorrent sufficiently niche that it is in effect a third-party application. Or you may construe what is Ubuntu and what is a third-party application very broadly, so that most apps people run on Ubuntu, even most of those provided in the official repositories, are third-party apps. In that case, under the second bullet point, the question is on-topic.

I should perhaps mention that involving the use of some part of Ubuntu or third party application does not ensure with 100% certainty that a question is on-topic. "How to write compelling action heroes in the novel I am composing using LibreOffice?" would surely and swiftly be closed. But this question is asking directly about KTorrent's core functionality. It's on topic.

Of course, none of this speaks to the quality of the question. (I think it's okay with respect to quality, scope, and so forth as well, but that's a separate matter which you haven't asked about.)

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  • I guess the one thing about his OP that threw me off, is that he never mentioned Ubuntu once, and KTorrent is by my guess; a very rare torrent client to use on ubuntu in the first place. If he asked the very same question, but appended "On Mint", would it have been still on topic?
    – Anon
    Commented Aug 12, 2014 at 0:34
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    @Akiva If he asked the same question (just) about a Mint system, it would not have been on-topic. That is true of almost every question asked about how to use software in Ubuntu. Furthermore, I doubt KTorrent is actually uncommon on Ubuntu; it's probably one of the most common bittorrent applications used on Kubuntu. Most of my Ubuntu installations (both currently and historically) have been Lubuntu, and I've never seen or had LXDE related questions closed under suspicion of not being about Ubuntu, and I don't think I'm alone in not ever wanting to see something like that happen.
    – Eliah Kagan
    Commented Aug 12, 2014 at 0:57
  • If he does not detail however that he is using an Ubuntu version, is there potential for abuse here? In #ubuntu you get this every so often; a person coming to the channel because he knows he is more likely to get a friendly answer quickly than if he asked in ##windows or #mint. They often waste quite a bit of time before it clues in that the person is not using Ubuntu. My inclination to his sort of post would be just to append "On ubuntu" to guarantee its relevancy. What do you think?
    – Anon
    Commented Aug 12, 2014 at 1:05

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