I would like to give friends who have direct access to my files through the LimeWire Connect Direct option to have priority over other users. While I only share about 1500 files, I often find I have over 40 people queued. Is there any way this priority for friends can be achieved?

There are a couple of ways I could think of, but I have found it is a bit of a problem problem for the average Limewire user to find what they are loking for and get stable downloads, and anything I could suggest would only go to make it a bit more of a problem

The fact that your friends can direct connect to you should give them that much more of an advantage over others, and if they know what time you will be switching on that too would be an advantage, but I like to think that the network is open to all users and whilst some more efficient way to discriminate against REAL free loaders (and not those we think are freeloaders) would be a good thing IMHO. I would not like to see the network used as a private means of exchanging files, which it seems you might be suggesting. I haven't explored the subject, but feel sure there are other ways to distribute files among a small group of people.

My answer is based purely on what I consider the Gnutella network to be and I would be interested to see what others feel.

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While I agree entirely with your sentiments about file sharing, it does seem a bit unfair that I can give direct access to my files to specific friends but they get no preferential treatment. It is galling to see a friend downloading at 1kbps when others are getting much higher speeds. I had hoped that connecting direct would have meant that the friend would have enjoyed a faster rate than the other 19 people I allow to download at any time.
I am not trying to create a small nucleus of priviledge and I do only have 1500 files to share but I would like to play favourites now and again as a favour to a few specific people.

I limit my upoads to one per person and a total 5 uploads at one time. I occasionallty change this to 2 and 6 respectively. I share over 3000 files. I imagine the files I share are less popular than yours (and I dont consider 1500 files to be a small share and I keep thinking I should cut mine down a bit). A large ammount of what I upload appears in others shares.

I rarely have a queue. Yes on occasions I am downloading from a host at the same time he is uploading from me and if he is having difficulties I might manually stop a couple of uploads to help him. The problem is ... that makes others unhappy ... they think well if this guy won't share why should I and it just has a knock on effect. You clearly are having a lot of your files redistributed, and if your freinds search for the files, they are more than likely to find them in a variety of sources, rather than just you. Then every one is kept happy!. I often choose 1 host to get a line of files from, and if things are a bit slow and I search for some of the files. I find them elsewhere and the download process is sped up.

As you say ... you would like to play favourites now and again, and you can manually but this could get others upset and they might just ban you. .... I have banned hosts for less I allways un ban them after a few days though!

A final thought: I have noticed some hosts list their connection as modem, (when clearly it is something much faster make of that what you will.

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