Silk Road forums
Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: deltasigma on May 11, 2012, 12:02 pm
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Hey guys,
Recently the in thing seems to be making lotteries. I think it's great, and I often spend the spare change I have after ordering on them. However I feel as if there should be some sort of seperation from lottery listings and regular ones.
Perhaps when creating a listing, there could be an option to make it a 'lottery'. Doing so would give options to provide variables, such as number of tickets, price per ticket etc. The lottery would then be automatically handled, when filled completely (or a time expiration passes) a winner is chosen from the list automatically and everyone that participated is notified by personal message. This would be coded by some sort of lottery API.
The second part is the feedback from lotteries, and the need to enter an address. With 'lottery' listings, you can only give feedback when you win a prize. To do this, all lottery listings will be automatically finalised when you submit your order, no rating is tied to this transaction and no text is submitted. You would also not be required to enter anything into the address section to submit the order. Then, the winner would be able to 'purchase' a feedback listing and say that they received the prize as promised.
Doing this would help discern the legit lottery vendors from those that aren't, as well as keep drug feedback and lotto feedback seperate. All pure lotto vendors would remain in the lowest percentile of vendors, yet still be able to get recognition from only winners feedback (vs FE x1000, lottery x1000, Hope I win x10239123).
It would also create a higher level of trust, and transparency, as the selection process would be independent and automated. It would take the work out of creating a lotto listing, and hopefully make it a more attractive thing for Vendors to do.
Some lotto listings have great ulterior motives, such as donations to charities and drug awareness platforms. By making it easier and a more integral part this could easily be increased. Wouldn't it be great it SR generated a stable donation stream to charities and drug rehab groups? Imagine the media coverage in that scenario, imagine what the road could become?
It would be as simple as a vendor offering, 3.5 gram lotto. .10 btc entry, 200 entries, profits to Cancer Research. The vendor still gets paid, the charity gets some money. The winner get's a prize.
Sorry for the long post, I'm just excited about the whole concept of SR becoming a big player in charitable donations for drug reform and rehabilitation, or just plain karma boosting health charities.
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The only problem with lottos is that it's an easy way to scam. A vendor can just make a new shill account and claim that it won as to keep all the proceeds without giving out the prizes.
I think a system like Anarcho47 uses should be in place (where he has numbered tickets and picks the winning numbers before the start of the lotto and posts them in an unedited thread in PGP encryption)
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Very true, though that was an idea-on-the-fly. There could be another way of the winner leaving feedback. Such as a direct link through the automated message to leave a message upon receipt of the winnings.
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I bought one, for the shroom kit lotto, but yea I was thinking the same thing, these lottos have got to be the easiest thing to scam on here unnoticed, definitely needs to be a way of protecting against scamming for them.
I'm not familiar with Anarcho47's way, so he puts the winning numbers in an encrypted post with no key, releases the key at the end of the lotto, how does he assign who gets what ticket #'s?
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Well it's done under the pretext that whoever orders first is number one, increasing in chronological number from there. But if he wanted to, he could just see the winning number is 69 and put a fake, new buyer in there.
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The only problem with lottos is that it's an easy way to scam. A vendor can just make a new shill account and claim that it won as to keep all the proceeds without giving out the prizes.
I think a system like Anarcho47 uses should be in place (where he has numbered tickets and picks the winning numbers before the start of the lotto and posts them in an unedited thread in PGP encryption)
That is easily gamed too , he could still select the winning ticket. There are hashing systems that can be used to do a secure lottery where nobody can cheat, including the person running it.
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I was too high whilst writing this to fully formulate it into a coherent, water tight idea. But, intoxication or not, I think the key point I wanted to make here was how SR could be used for good. Basically socially engineering everyone's disposition towards its existence. If SR was seen to be making large donations to charities, it would certainly provide some good feedback when being reported by the media.
Lotteries were just my main vector to do this, as it doesn't detract away from anyone's profit margins on goods per se. It's just a communal 'spare change pot' with the added incentive of the person organizing it gets a slice, SR get a slice, the winner gets a couple of slices and the charity gets the rest of the pie.
I dunno, call me an optimist. But I think if it were all put into place, SR would have more political power and a lesser degree of public distaste. 'Burn down the drug site that supplies Cancer Research with 5k funding each month!' has less sting than, 'burn down the online drug dealing ring'.