[Meta] Subreddit Discussion.

Note2: Fucking stimulants eh? I bolded the important. The rest is pretty much me saying thank you and other emotional shit. If you read anything please just read the bolded words and take part in the discussion.

I'm all stimmed up and have no work to do, I feel like I've been shirking my mod duties so I decided to post this.

Basically I just want to talk about the subreddit. We haven't done this in a long time and a lot has changed since then. This subreddit has grown exponentially and we have created an awesome community. I know there is a lot of complaining about stupid noobs here, shill accounts, and whatever else but I love it all. You guys are awesome and I'm really happy that I get to experience this.

Enough of the corny emotional shit from me, time to get to business.

I want to know how you feel about the subreddit in general. Is there anything you want more of? Less of? Rules that you think should be added or taken away? Projects you'd like to see implemented? I just want to talk and try to get ideas from the community and to make sure that everyone is happy. We try hard to change things up, provide a good experience, to stay impartial and to provide good info. But I think that sometimes we become a little isolated and its good to talk to everyone.

This is your chance to make your grievances heard, this is your chance to get your ideas out there. Lets come together and work to make this community better.

Also, I hate to do this but if you would please upvote this post that would be awesome. Other things are stickied and are scheduled to be stickied. Also the other mods don't know I am doing this (which means if this is stupid and you all decide to berate me I take full responsibility), I am the sneak king.

Lastly, thank you to the users that actually talk with us. Lately we have gotten some thank you's from people and it really makes us feel good. You guys are awesome. I also want to thank the people that criticize us and don't let us get away with bullshit. Every time you type "mod" or many variations of our usernames we see it in modmail, I think it is safe to say that we see at least 95% of your complaints. Its gets kind of rough some times and it hurts to see especially when we try to do things and they just end up dead. I think its good though, its keeps what we do in perspective and it also makes us consider all outcomes of some decision. Very few things get done without someone at least trying to have a discussion because we don't want to piss you guys off.

I love you all and I want to try to make something good with this while we can. I'm on stimulants and happy to talk so I'll be up all night and read to talk with any of you.

Note2: This doesn't mean that anything talked about here will actually be implemented.I want this to be more towards brainstorming and also the mod team being able to learn and grow.

Edit: Word choice and formatting.


Comments


[19 Points] None:

[deleted]


[10 Points] None:

Wow King, I've been here a long time and often read your comments. Somehow, this is the first time I realized you are a mod. First, let me speak a small piece about the mods in general. They (including you) are, for the most part, fantastic. There has been alot of drama on other subreddits lately regarding corrupt and inefficient mods. I just want to say that it is nice coming here and having mods that are courteous, seemingly impartial, and competent. Obviously this has something to do with the relatively small size of our community, however, the mod team certainly deserves credit for this as well. The mods are fun, intelligent, and responsive. I just felt that this needed to be said and please, keep up the good work.

Now, enough of my rambling (sorry, I'm drunk). On to the sub. Honestly, I wouldn't change anything about this sub. Look, I've been a constant browser and contributor of this sub and r/silkroad for almost a year, and I've been a part of the DNM community for much longer. Here's a simple fact that just will not change: the darknet is boring much of the time.

That's really it. When there is no drama, no markets turning scam or being shutdown, the sub becomes quite bland. There's no way to combat that, its just how it is. This is why posts about Agora being down often reach the front page. Its because people like things that are "exciting". When there is nothing going on, most of the top posts are vendor reviews, darknet deals, and noob questions.

Anyway, here is my suggestion: don't change the rules and don't ban anything. There are, for lack of a better word, periods of "calm" or downtime in which there is simply not that much content to post. This is why it is important to keep posting as open as possible. The more rules, the less amount of topics that can be posted and discussed. You never know what post will spark interesting discussion. Another thing, I think its great when mods sticky interesting posts. This gives the opportunity for the community to discuss topics as a whole.

There is only one thing that I would like to see more heavily moderated. That is baseless accusations. I think that the "scam warning" tag should be doled out with much stricter discretion. Like an eyewitness in court, "scam" warnings carry significant weight with people. A vendor can have hundreds of successful transactions, yet a single scam warning can harm future business substantially. Many people do not even bother to check the account's post history and stats. Proof is very undervalued in this sub.

Anyway, thats all I have to say and I hope this post is comprehensible. I am open to discussion on any of these points so please, comment away!


[6 Points] pussyole684:

A few suggestions:

1) encourage reviews, upvote them, reviewers should try to post pictures, especially if its weed/shrooms/coke etc so that should be encouraged

2) maybe give flairs for reliable reviewers to give them more credibility?

3) have certain standards for reviews, maybe put a template in the sidebar? people shouldnt just post 'ordered 3 tabs, arrived but havent tried yet', that says nothing. Make certain things required e.g. vendor name, marketplace, link to vendor, item, price paid, where it was delivered from, which country it was delivered to

4) Make 'I need to buy xxx drug domestically, what are good vendors for this' without naming the fucking country you are in banable, fucking hell

5) make me mod

6) also remove low quality posts like 'VENDOR IS A SCAMMER IT HASNT ARRIVED AFTER A WEEK' n shit


[6 Points] roionsteroids:

I'd get rid of anything that's not related to drugs.

Want to discuss credit card fraud, weapons, animals, fake IDs?

Open another subreddit, it's free.


[4 Points] kirkkommander:

Free Drug Fridays. Where the mods send all the subscribers free drugs. You know, to show appreciation.


[3 Points] over9000pies:

I love this subreddit. It's my first introduction to reddit ever, and it's the only one I look at every day.


[1 Points] StuffyKnows2Much:

First of all: /u/LongLiveThe_King , you're an asset not just to /r/dnm, but to Reddit in general. You obviously work very hard in this sub, for no pay. Sincere thanks from the bottom of my heart for creating a sub that I visit a minimum of (no joke) forty times a day.

Second: I feel the primary weak spot of the darknet in general is review scams. There doesn't yet exist a system to really verify that

A) the reviewer isn't a scumbag buyer who got his product and wants to discredit the vendor

B) the reviewer isn't a scumbag vendor who is pretending to be a overenthusiastic buyer

So here's my highdea: private sub of Certified Reviewers. People who have posted multiple (I mean like 5 or more minimum) reviews enter a raffle or whatever, and if selected, they get invited to the Certified Reviewer board for a short amount of time. This is critical. I don't know if there's a way to manually remove people from private subs, but if there is, this might work.

Once the Certified Reviewer is in the private sub, the vendors that visit this sub are encouraged to send small samples to individual members of this crew (nothing huge, because there's always the risk of being seen as bribes). For the duration of their time in this sub, the CR's write reviews on the product, and when their time is up, they are replaced by other reviewers who frequent this sub.

This lets smaller vendors have a chance to get their product promoted by the major /r/dnm players (Hugs, you, Astrid, etc) and lowers the possibility that front-page reviews are just shills. Plus, the rotation of people encourages infrequent posters to buy more, post more reviews, and generally become more of a presence in anticipation of maybe being selected for free drug samples.

Might be a crazy idea, but it's something to consider if vendors are interested.


[3 Points] vb5pfizer:

Hey man, thanks for all the work. I sometimes wonder if all of the mod team is constantly on stims because of how quickly and thoroughly you guys move and how much work you do for this place.

I remember how at the beginning there was a lot of experimenting with the sub theme and whenever a good suggestion was ut forth it would be implemented in like half an hour. Then one day we have an exchange about reducing clutter, the next you come out with the DDD threads. You make a separate sub for ads but then say 'fuck it, we'll also compile all the ads into posts on the main subreddit... DAILY.'

All in all, a shitload of great work. And I don't really think there need to be any changes. I know the drama and all the happenings on the subreddit can be addictive, even more so than all the drugs, and when there is none, there might be a desire to fiddle with it a little, tweak the rules here and there, change stuff up. But I think the sub is good as it is and more rules might just run counter to the principles of agorism and transparency.

I will totally second the 'vendor complaint' tag. Scam warning tag should be reserved for situations when the scam in progress is at least verifiable by the mod team, like TE going down or the DrMDA scam.


[2 Points] camelcult:

I liked the stickied drug discussion posts. Maybe like a weekly drug story thread for each of the different drugs?


[2 Points] None:

[deleted]


[2 Points] datdropdoe:

I liked the drug discussions idea a lot. The problem though I thought is they are only stickied for a day and then they end up buried pretty far. But they're very helpful and informative and great places to discuss the different drugs. I wonder maybe if we could make it kind of a regular, recurring thing, maybe even by grouping some together. A one day window is small and if you missed the post that day it might already be buried to page 3. I know you all put it in the wiki but thats just my thoughts.


[2 Points] Liliaceae08:

Firstly, I love this sub—in fact, it’s the first page I check every day, as well as several times thereafter—and I appreciate the work all of you moderators put in here and how you all strive to improve this sub even though it’s already great as is. I also like that you all are very involved and don’t seem to let the post-r/silkroad/ influx of new users with their repetitive and many times stupid posts bring you down or curb your sense of humor or hamper your willingness to help said new users. Some subs it seems like the moderators are simply a set of highlighted usernames on the sidebar representing people who only come begrudgingly out of inactivity to tout their own authority and swing the ban hammer or do a little tidying up here and there, but on r/dnm/ the moderators are distinct personalities behind screenames, offering some of the most insightful and helpful content on this sub—you are as much active users as you are moderators, and I really appreciate that.

As for suggestions—even though I wasn’t a fan of Gabralkhan, I think he had a neat idea—at least, I think it was his idea. He proposed that every week a user who offered up a particularly informative, interesting, or generally thoughtful contribution would be awarded Reddit Gold. It’s not a lot, but it’s something that could encourage users to engage in some friendly competition and/or to post more meaningful contributions. I wouldn’t expect the mods to foot the bill, but maybe we could have willing users sort of “sponsor” that weeks gold purchase.

Additionally, to all the users here, please reign in your eagerness to downvote posts that simply disagree with you personally but are otherwise relevant and meaningful contributions to this sub. It’s getting a little out of hand. Perhaps I’m a little butthurt, but I take a lot of time to write my reviews, and I always try to put forth my best effort when I sit down to write one, and it makes me a little twitchy when I see all those downvotes, while in the comment section, it’s all crickets chirping because these downvote-happy users are silent. I’ve seen it on many other good contributions as well, so please, if you downvote me or anyone else who posts worthy content, please just write a short comment explaining your reasons for doing so, so that we all may improve and in so doing, improve this sub as well. I’ll step down from my soapbox now.


[1 Points] None:

[removed]


[1 Points] None:

To me it has always felt like reddit is the wrong medium to discuss markets in detail. A separate IPB or PHPBB forum with stickied threads, different boards, vendor ads and the likes would be a thousand times better.


[1 Points] Trappy_Pandora:

How does the community feel about paid vendor staffers like me roaming your boards and subreddits?


[1 Points] sharpshooter789:

Get rid of "reviews" where the OP hasn't tried the product. I hate reading them and they are worthless. The only possible exception could be weed because it can be judged to some degree visually.


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[0 Points] galaxyandspace:

An idea I have had: when doing a review, you must review two or more vendors in your post. All of them must be mentioned in the title, along with which markets where used.

I truly believe the above idea will cut down the amount of shill reviews that take place here, by slightly upping the amount of work it takes to write a review.

Anyways, thanks for having this discussion!


[0 Points] iamthrow:

Maybe the mod team could put together a copy/paste template for vendor reviews to encourage more people to post them.