The story begins in 1999, when a forum was created called “Something Awful.” This forum became popular for making Internet Memes and sayings, like “All your ___ belong to us.” Shortly after Bram Cohen created the BitTorrent Protocol, but before big
trackers like The Pirate Bay were created, the forum made a filesharing section called the “BitTorrent Barnyard.” This section became enormously popular and the owners became concerned about the legality of what they were doing, and shut the section down. Now is where the folklore part comes in. Allegedly, members of the forum, also known as “The Goons,” created a separate torrent site, and called it “WDMA,” for “Where Da Movies At?” They got the idea for the name because new members to Something Awful would log in and ask that question, thinking the BitTorrent Barnyard was still there. Then as quickly as it came up, WDMA also shut down. I have read stories about drama that caused its closing, and some stories saying WDMA was just a myth.
After WDMA supposedly shut down, some of the members then created various filesharing sites that today are known as WDMA sites, or WDMA
trackers. These were those mysterious places that sometimes come up in invite requests than no one knows anything about. It is not clear if these places are forums with DDL links, or if they have torrents, but they are more forum based and are designed differently than the private
trackers I am used to using. (Which use versions of TBDev or Gazelle as platforms.) These places are so secret that nothing about what is inside is anywhere on the open internet. Anything I know about them have been told to me by
PM, and much told to me is based on what was told by others. It is said that anyone who talks about them is immediately banned, and anyone requesting them anywhere will be found out and banned after acceptance, as will be the inviters. But the thing that I find fascinating is the level of secrecy that the places keep. Even the most “secret” of private
trackers have some information somewhere out there, and these
trackers do try to seek out new members or else they will stagnate and die. Honestly, some of these
trackers are stagnating a bit already. So how do WDMA sites stay so secret, but still stay alive all these years? (They pre-date the beginning of the oldest private
trackers.)