@adamshepardl:
Do I require credit to upload new torrent files, and is that what this is used for?
When you get enough points from user thank-yous, or from keeping your torrents seeded over time, you can exchange those points for an increase in your upload data volume (shown at the top center of the webpage). Clicking on the "Bonus" value in the upper right of your webpage will take you the exchanging web page. You'll see that the more points you exchange, the more data volume you get…and the "volume per points" price gets better with higher numbers of points.
For example, right now you have about 300 points. If you wait until that reaches 350, you can turn that in for 5 GB upload added to your totals. That would bring your ratio up to 1.5.
You'll continue to earn seed bonus points if you keep active the torrents you've uploaded--even if nobody is downloading them. You'll get a half a point per hour if you do this. With your current total of 300 points, you'll reach 350 points in about four days.
Happy seeding (and you can take that any way you want ;D )