Silk Road forums

You could say if 10 dead people were all it took to have global happiness forever then it would be 10 deaths worth having, but if you could do it with 5 deaths, or no deaths then it would be significantly better.

Indeed, but unfortunately due to the way that Tor works there is no other way to limit the abilities of the mass-spammers. We can't I.P. ban them, and if we reduce the 50 post requirements to 25 posts, for example, they'll reach that in a matter of minutes thereby completely negating the point of confining them to a single forum in the first place.

The fact that they must reach 50 posts gives us a chance to react before they can get out onto the main forums.

Libertas

The absurdity is realized completely in this sub-forum (Newbie discussion) as it's the only place we (people with under 50 posts) can talk. So we've been put in this jail right, and we have been given no topic to discuss, just a general overriding "theme" of drugs and newness. And that's it.

Now there isn't anything wrong with an introduction forum, especially for new vendors - it would actually serve as an interesting place to raise questions with new vendors and a great start for new vendors to get their product out the door, give it a little boot as it were.

The massive issue I have is with the fact that you have this absurdly high 50 post limit on a sub-forum that is 100% aimless. This has turned this sub-forum basically into a replica of 4chan but somehow actually managing to contain less original content and more stupidity than you would find on 4chan. I mean I count 4+ threads with 50-500 pages in them with titles like "Newest get your post count thread" and that one about $1BTC to the person that is the last to post in it, a brilliant excuse to post a million times in a row with inane bullshit.

It has been proven (in fact this is proof) that this is a stupid thing to do, and yet you (the moderators, administrators) can see this and have done absolutely nothing about it. Why on earth would you constrain people to here? It's actually ridiculous. You can see the end result for yourself, people posting 10+ posts that are garble, may as well be "lorem impsum" or a binary blob, and this actually raises their post count which is something they need to do to progress on to the higher areas of the forum.

I cannot believe that you actually haven't thought of a better means to "testing" new users. Now I can completely see the original thinking, and that you may not have foreseen what a load of crap it produced, but yeah sure: make people post some so we can gauge that they're not idiots and should be allowed onto the rest of the forum. Simple, no? Well why not have the first ten posts go through a moderation queue? You could still have an introduction forum, and a newbie forum! And people could still ask questions in the newbie forum that are suited to a forum for people new to forums (or that want to ask things about SR in general). But with that you could also only have quality posts coming through as 90% of posts here I would flat out drop from the DB, if for no other reason than to reduce the number of hash collisions searching the primary key of the posts table.

There isn't even a point to posting good content here (this, ironically, may is an exception as it's attempting to change things) because the signal to noise ratio, if you will, is so high that you'll be completely drowned out instantaneously by the fuckloads of what can only be classed as spam. Spam that is not even frowned upon, but is genuinely encouraged by having post limits and no repercussions for those that have simply spammed.

It simply serves to frustrate me as it means I have to make these super long posts in an attempt to spark some kind of discussion in order to break the sea of piss that this sub-forum is as I'm not going to sink to the level of retardation that's achieved purely as a result of having a post limit!

I don't even blame the users taking advantage of this, not at all. They've been given a challenge and see a fast way to solve the problem so they're going to take it. I should be doing the same - you're an idiot if you *don't* fall to the level of posting inane bullshit.

Anyway rant over, I'd appreciate an answer from a moderator or administrator.

¡Cuídate!

Hi sk0rt,

You mistake the Newbie discussion forum as a place for "testing new users" whereas its actual purpose is to minimise the impact of the mass-spammers that post their "bitswing / btkoin / mtgix" etc. spam / scam. The 50 post rule was implemented to keep that spam in one area until a moderator can delete it so as actual discussion can take place on the main forums. If that spam were allowed to get out of hand and be posted in the main forums (as it used to be before the 50 post rule was implemented) it would make such discussion impossible.

I quite like the Newbie discussion forum due to spending so much time in it answering questions and I feel it has much to offer the community. I opened up discussion some time ago with the rest of the moderating team and the administrators with a view to cleaning it up and perhaps limiting the "spam to 50" posts to one or two mega-threads but there has been no consensus agreed upon as of yet. Perhaps this will change in the future, perhaps not, but the reason for the Newbie discussion forum is to corral the mass-spam into one area to keep the rest of the forums relatively spam free.

It also serves a second, unintentional purpose of keeping new users confined to one section until they have a chance to learn how things work on Silk Road, meaning they ask the questions (that there are already answers to posted all over the forums) here instead of filling up the main forums with the same repetitive questions, something that would hinder proper discussion in the main forum areas.

I understand that it can be quite frustrating when you are attempting to have a serious discussion in this forum and users come along to post spam in the thread, but you will see the benefits of 50 post rule once you begin posting in the main forums.

Libertas

The prices are fine, you're willing to pay them (I'm willing to as well) and if you weren't willing to pay them then we would lower the prices.

Also it's like $500 to just become a vendor, christ almighty!

Indeed - in a free market, the buyers set the prices by deciding whether or not they're willing to pay for the goods in question at the prices advertised.

Regarding the $500, the vendor bond is fully refundable once the terms of the bond are met so it is essentially free to become a vendor on Silk Road.

Libertas

Quote from: Dingo Ate My Drugs on May 30, 2013, 03:50 am

Quote from: laplace on May 30, 2013, 03:17 am

Quote from: FauxyDocs on May 24, 2013, 07:11 pm

it allows us to blacklist detrimental users without them knowing so they can be stopped.

Then how about we throw the blacklist up here for all to see? Let's make this completely open with no secrets.

It wouldn't work. The scamming buyers would see their name and then write loads of forum posts about how they are not a scammer. There would be hundreds of pages of buyers complaining about being on the list and the whole thread wold be a disastrous mess.
The blacklist thread has NO DISCUSSION. This would not happen if buyers could see it and post on it too.

Shouldn't a democratic society work that way? Everyone gets a chance to defend themselves.

This is not a democratic society, it is a privately owned forum. That being said, it is a privately owned forum that protects freedom of speech and encourages libertarian ideals amongst its members.

As a result of the freedom of speech that is guaranteed here, vendors are entitled to discuss anything they wish within the confines of the Vendor Roundtable - including an informal "blacklist" - as long as it does not compromise the security of any individual.

Libertas

Hi there,

This is the second time I've used SR, bought my bitcoin and wanted to transfer over. I thought I might change my SR address, just in case, but the page got stuck, and when I refreshed (a couple of times), the address stayed the same, so I went ahead and did the transfer. Now I went in to my account page, and my deposit address is different.. Will the coins I sent to my 'old' address get to me now? If not, how can I fix this???

Thanks!

Hi Norma,

All Bitcoin addresses are unique to your account - your Bitcoin should show up with no problems but if they don't appear within 24 hours, feel free to message SR Support on the main site and they will manually push them through for you.

Libertas

CANT UPLOAD MY DRUG PIC'S  JUST DOWNLOADED A LOAD OF BULLSHIT!! WHAT ARE YOU GUYS USING?

A number of vendors have stated that they are able to upload pictures by reducing the file size. You can find two examples of this in these posts:

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=156125.msg1092118#msg1092118

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=154378.msg1091247#msg1091247

Please ensure that you strip all the EXIF and Metadata before uploading. If you don't know how to do that, please search the security forum for information about the programs that will do it for you.

Libertas

but they already froze a bitcoin account

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/15/4332698/dwolla-payments-mtgox-halted-by-homeland-security-seizure-warrant

They did not freeze a Bitcoin account, they froze a Dwolla account associated with the Bitcoin company Mt.Gox. Bitcoin "accounts" (wallets) can not be frozen.

Libertas