Silk Road forums

Hey guys,

Some interesting updates here. Good work. GE wishes you all the best. Hope it all goes smoothly!

I did notice that this thread was started a few days ago. Was just going to throw the idea out there that it would be really helpful if you could shoot out a mass-message via SR to all us vendors when you know in advance that SR will be down for maintenance.

A lot of us are too busy to frequent the forums as much as we would like, so we don't necessarily notice these posts until the site is actually down. This particular down period came at time when I had just settled in to do a whole bunch of new listings and other work. Would be great in future if we all knew in advance so we could manage our time better.

Not complaining. I know these things need to be done, and you guys bust your asses to make this place as awesome as it is. Just throwing the idea out there for the future.

Good luck, and may your your balls be free of aches!

Kind regards, GE

we did send out a message to vendors with some vendor specific details.  the messages only go out to vendors with recent sales, have you been on vacation?

the site is open again.  are everyone's buyer stats looking as they should?  how do you like the new format for the stats?  I forgot to mention that update in the announcement.  As luck would have it, that's where a bug shows up!

I lost some of my purchasing stats!?!? Only the recent ones are visible!??!

please message support with bugs so we can look into them

we'll be back asap

1 Is a vendor allowed to link their Atlantis/Black Market Reloaded-accounts in their Silk Road Profiles?
2 Is a vendor allowed to link their Atlantis/Black Market Reloaded-accounts in their Silk Road Forum Profiles?
3 Is a vendor allowed to link their Atlantis/Black Market Reloaded-accounts in a Silk Road Forum Post?
4 Are other users in the Silk Road Forums allowed to link to vendors on Atlantis/Black Market Reloaded?
5 If a vendor is allowed to link their Atlantis/Black Market Reloaded-accounts at any place here on Silk Road, is the same true for a personal web site created by the vendor itself?
6 Is a vendor more likely to be allowed to link to a different e-commerce site if the products sold there are entirely different from Silk Road?
7 Is a vendor more likely to be allowed to link to a personal web site of any kind if the products there are legal (but still sold illegally) ?
8 Are there any Official Policies or Agreements in place with sites like Atlantis and Black Market Reloaded on this subject?

It would be nice if any additional information which I didn't cover in the questions could be included as well if it helps the understanding of this matter. 

I numbered your questions to make them easier to respond to:
1 No
2 No policy, so yes for now
3 No policy, so yes for now
4 Yes
5 the answers are the same for personal websites as they are for other markets
6 & 7 These don't affect the answers above
8 No

I'll add that instructing customers who contact you on SR to buy elsewhere is also prohibited.  The forums are about discussion and openness, so so far I've done everything I can to limit censorship here and honestly I don't want to bother policing it.

Silk Road hosts a vendor's storefront and for that service we take a small cut of each trade.  To use your storefront here to collect customers and take them elsewhere isn't just breaking your contract, it's shady and underhanded.  I do take offense when people use the infrastructure I've created and maintain and made open to just about everyone and use it to direct people elsewhere.  So, I'm not going to try to stop you from linking elsewhere on the forum, but it's not respectful in the least, and I think it should be frowned upon by others as well.

UPDATE (07/02/2013 1700 UTC): Forgot to mention another change that's coming with this update.  Now that MtGox is losing market share, we'll be pulling from multiple markets to get the "official" exchange rate for pricing and hedging.  It will also be more closely weighted to the preset instead of equally weighting all prices over the past 24-hours.  This part is a bit of an experiment and we may revert back if there are any problems with it.

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This coming Tuesday we'll be rolling out some changes that should be welcome to our members who are used to using currencies other than the US Dollar.  Support for 34 new fiat currencies plus gold and silver will be added.  You will be able to view the prices in the market along with your account balance in these currencies, and vendors will be able to peg their prices to these currencies as well.

So for example, if you live in Australia and view prices in the Aussie Dollar, and you shop with domestic suppliers who peg their prices to the Aussie Dollar, you will see more or less steady prices across the market even as the exchange rates fluctuate.

As an added bonus, we've added 2 decimal places to Bitcoin prices for a total of 4.  This can easily be expanded or contracted as necessary if the Bitcoin exchange rate changes dramatically in the future.

The site will be taken offline around 1900 UTC on July 2nd while the update is deployed and tested.  We've done our best to catch any bugs that might crop up, but please message support with any that you find asap when we come back online.

In case it is asked, hedging is completely unaffected by this.  The only options are still Bitcoins and US Dollars.

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we're doing some maintenance that will cause an error page to be displayed.  should be back shortly.

It seems like I only ever post on the forums when there is something wrong that needs to be addressed.  Today, I'm just happy to be here and wanted to let you all know that.  I sincerely hope, wherever you are and whatever your current circumstances, you can join me in taking a deep breath, relaxing a little, and taking stock of our blessings.  Just being alive and free is such a gift.  I've been an enemy of the biggest and most dangerous organizations in the world for some time now.  At this point I'm truly amazed and delighted to still be free and alive!

Whatever amount of health each of us have, we can be grateful for that.  Every person in our lives we hold dear, we can be grateful for them.  I am grateful for each and every one of you in this community.  Whether you found this place just yesterday, or have been here for years, I respect you for thinking for yourself and acting in your own best interest, despite what others would try to force on you.  And I honor you as my fellow traveler as we walk this path together.

So, to all the players in this crazy game we're playing: buyers, vendors, financiers, the leaders in the community, the mods and admins, the arguers and skeptics, the evangelists, the tech gurus, the post office, the open source developers and communities, all of the giants who's shoulders we stand on, the scammers, and even... no especially law enforcement and law makers...  I love you all!

I know the feeling isn't mutual in all cases, but still my love for you persists.  It does because it comes from a deep respect for human life and for you as an individual.

As always, it's an honor to serve you.  See you down the road...

Just a heads up that we had to take the market down for some maintenance.  We'll have it back up asap.