Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: Hammerhead420 on November 03, 2012, 09:19 pm
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Heh, so I've been trying to join silk road for like 3 days now. It keeps telling me "registrations closed." Is this permanent?? Am I ever going to be able to register?
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Silk Road has been unavailable to many people these last few days, and the operators are working on the site. I think it's because of the maintenance and I expect this will be temporary.
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Is this going to be for a few days or could it be a couple weeks?
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Is this going to be for a few days or could it be a couple weeks?
Dread Pirate Roberts has said in another thread: "Another solution has been applied and so far seems to be working. We will continue to monitor the situation and work through this. New registrations are temporarily disabled."
So yes...right now SR is not accepting new users and a time-frame for this has not been given.
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^^^ I agree, they should of done this a while ago.
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one downside of closed registrations is it has already prevented a few vendors i know of from being able to register accts to begin selling
something definitely needed to be done to get the site functional, so for now this is great for the current members
but should it move to invite only or remain closed, we also need to allow new vendors to join in order to provide product as the old vendors stop for whatever reason
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Makes me wonder how many accounts were getting created on a daily basis in order to slow the site down that much. Also makes me wonder how many of those accounts were actual people, and not shill accounts to build feedback/LE/etc.
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one downside of closed registrations is it has already prevented a few vendors i know of from being able to register accts to begin selling
something definitely needed to be done to get the site functional, so for now this is great for the current members
but should it move to invite only or remain closed, we also need to allow new vendors to join in order to provide product as the old vendors stop for whatever reason
But once you go to an invite system, people would just abuse it. I can think of a few ways that could happen off the top of my head.
1. a user uses one of his invites to create himself a new account to get more invites.
2. Invite trading, people selling invites
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In my opinion: Sucks to be you but it's better for everyone else. Hopefully they institute an invitation-only type system because noobs piss me off.
Yeah, that'd be *super* for business, sellers aren't in it for the money at all. Can anyone tell me how I can exchange hubris for BTC btw?
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i wasnt suggesting we move to an invite only system - i was replying to those who suggested it
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In my opinion: Sucks to be you but it's better for everyone else. Hopefully they institute an invitation-only type system because noobs piss me off.
Yeah, that'd be *super* for business, sellers aren't in it for the money at all. Can anyone tell me how I can exchange hubris for BTC btw?
Wish i knew how to +1 you. Funniest thing i've read all day
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Invite only would be a poor decision. If new memberships need to be limited just open a few hundred spots per month via open registrations.
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Another notion that kills two birds with one stone--anyone wanting to register needs to load a wallet with one BC. refundable upon first purchase. Keeps the riff raff and gawkers at bay, but still provides an opening for the serious. Now you have also a member versed in the currency vs another dozen asked and answered questions.
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I think that's a lot more well reasoned than moving to an invite only system or arbitrarily restricting the number of user registrations.
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What about charge for a buyer account? This would stop users from creating additional accounts to leave feedback and also lock out a lot of kids that seem to be here these days.
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I hope that this stays like this for good. the sheer mass of people joining constantly degrade the quality of the market. I have been here for well over a year now and have watched this happen. when i first joined there were NO vendors who required FE, you NEVER heard of scams, etc. etc. Not to mention everyone that was here was honest and educated
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I hope that this stays like this for good. the sheer mass of people joining constantly degrade the quality of the market. I have been here for well over a year now and have watched this happen. when i first joined there were NO vendors who required FE, you NEVER heard of scams, etc. etc. Not to mention everyone that was here was honest and educated
That sounds incestuous, in any case all it'd do is ensure SR died and something else came along and replaced it, no business has ever survived by doing what you're suggesting.
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Another notion that kills two birds with one stone--anyone wanting to register needs to load a wallet with one BC. refundable upon first purchase. Keeps the riff raff and gawkers at bay, but still provides an opening for the serious. Now you have also a member versed in the currency vs another dozen asked and answered questions.
^^ great
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I hope that this stays like this for good. the sheer mass of people joining constantly degrade the quality of the market. I have been here for well over a year now and have watched this happen. when i first joined there were NO vendors who required FE, you NEVER heard of scams, etc. etc. Not to mention everyone that was here was honest and educated
That sounds incestuous, in any case all it'd do is ensure SR died and something else came along and replaced it, no business has ever survived by doing what you're suggesting.
perhaps thats how what i say may seem and i respect your opinion, but in all due respect: this is different than most businesses. we have 20,000+++ buyers who will never leave. this is more than enough to maintain this market. All accepting new buyers does is bring more publicity and let in more potential scammers and uneducated people. By all means i think that sellers spots should remain open. At this point we are seeing too much demand and not enough supply. look what happens to all of the top sellers. they cant even keep up! it has happened countless times! my idea might seem shallow and pedantic to some, but i implore you to do some research and study trends in activity on the site.
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I hope that this stays like this for good. the sheer mass of people joining constantly degrade the quality of the market. I have been here for well over a year now and have watched this happen. when i first joined there were NO vendors who required FE, you NEVER heard of scams, etc. etc. Not to mention everyone that was here was honest and educated
That sounds incestuous, in any case all it'd do is ensure SR died and something else came along and replaced it, no business has ever survived by doing what you're suggesting.
perhaps thats how what i say may seem and i respect your opinion, but in all due respect: this is different than most businesses. we have 20,000+++ buyers who will never leave. this is more than enough to maintain this market. All accepting new buyers does is bring more publicity and let in more potential scammers and uneducated people. By all means i think that sellers spots should remain open. At this point we are seeing too much demand and not enough supply. look what happens to all of the top sellers. they cant even keep up! it has happened countless times! my idea might seem shallow and pedantic to some, but i implore you to do some research and study trends in activity on the site.
You clearly don't understand what Dread Pirate's ultimate objective is, which is to increase his userbase here, make even more money, and most importantly, radically change how drugs as a whole are distributed. This isn't a small time business to him and permanently closing buyer accounts would only impede upon his primary goals.
If he wanted to stop people for signing up, he could would have made those changes a long time ago. Obviously, that's not been the case, so your "solution" isn't a very logical one.
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damn man. that's just about my luck too. I find out about something epic like this and the day I find out is the day they stop accepting new members...ain't that about a bitch. does anyone have an extra account for sale??
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accounts are not allowed to be bought or sold
at least vendor accounts, i am sure this would apply to buyer accounts because buyers arent allowed to sell anything including accounts
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I'm a newbie myself, so as much of a right as I have to make suggestions... I think some measure of temporarily slowing down the growth of SR would be prudent at this point. Or some sort of new deterrent implemented to keep out those who aren't serious. I like Looselucy's idea. Some kind of a small initial deposit to create an account, which could be refunded after the first successful transaction, or a week of being a member, something like that.
But I trust that DPR and the SR staff have their own solutions. They are the brains of the operation, after all.
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Looselucy and Mustard Walrus - totally agree 8) . It would definitely limit the numbers of the generally inquisitive, kids, journalists etc who are not here to buy.
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Maybe buyers could pay a deposit and have it returned when they have spent 100 bitcoin.. This would stop shill accounts and encourage more spending on the road..
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Makes me wonder how many accounts were getting created on a daily basis in order to slow the site down that much. Also makes me wonder how many of those accounts were actual people, and not shill accounts to build feedback/LE/etc.
If you have a look around on SR there are quite a few people that have registered and left after a short period, there is no way of telling who these 'people' are and also a number of them have very few posts , headlines such as anonymous drug marketplace does not help the site people logging on and thinking that they can get drugs anonymously forgetting how to purchase the BTC and then the cost of Bitcoins will put a number of people off etc
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We've been here since user numbers were under 2000.
We've come and go, seen vendors come and scam, same for buyers.
In our opinion, a little registration downtown sounds like a good idea.
Maybe some stability in the community first would be nice.
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I propose a limited buyer account system:
1. Registration remains open
2. When any user (whether they want to buy or sell) first registers, they have the following restrictions (let's call it a restricted account):
- cannot message vendors
- cannot favorite vendors
- cannot add items to cart
- cannot deposit/withdraw BTC
3. To move from a restricted account to a regular buyer or seller account:
- user clicks a link on their account page to start the unrestricted process
- user must scroll through a buyers guide or such (should cover PGP as well) and check an "I read it" checkbox
- user is provided a public key and a unique message to encrypt, and must paste the PGP encrypted message into a form
- if the message decrypts properly, the user is now a standard buyer account, and can attempt to become a seller if so desired
My reasoning behind this is to still allow curious people to browse the site, but to force serious buyers to have some baseline understanding of the site. The guide that new users have to read should cover how to use the site (adding/withdrawing funds, checking out, account settings, finalizing/feedback), how to pick a reputable vendor and avoid scams, how to use PGP, and how to become a seller. Requiring a test PGP encryption will increase the average security of the community as more people use it. The account unrestriction process as a whole will slow down people making fake accounts for scams and such. There should be a new forum category for newbies to post in that have questions regarding the process as well.
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one downside of closed registrations is it has already prevented a few vendors i know of from being able to register accts to begin selling
something definitely needed to be done to get the site functional, so for now this is great for the current members
but should it move to invite only or remain closed, we also need to allow new vendors to join in order to provide product as the old vendors stop for whatever reason
I guess closing registrations would also stop vendors "rinse and repeat" from ripping people off then starting a new vendor account
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I propose a limited buyer account system:
1. Registration remains open
2. When any user (whether they want to buy or sell) first registers, they have the following restrictions (let's call it a restricted account):
- cannot message vendors
- cannot favorite vendors
- cannot add items to cart
- cannot deposit/withdraw BTC
3. To move from a restricted account to a regular buyer or seller account:
- user clicks a link on their account page to start the unrestricted process
- user must scroll through a buyers guide or such (should cover PGP as well) and check an "I read it" checkbox
- user is provided a public key and a unique message to encrypt, and must paste the PGP encrypted message into a form
- if the message decrypts properly, the user is now a standard buyer account, and can attempt to become a seller if so desired
My reasoning behind this is to still allow curious people to browse the site, but to force serious buyers to have some baseline understanding of the site. The guide that new users have to read should cover how to use the site (adding/withdrawing funds, checking out, account settings, finalizing/feedback), how to pick a reputable vendor and avoid scams, how to use PGP, and how to become a seller. Requiring a test PGP encryption will increase the average security of the community as more people use it. The account unrestriction process as a whole will slow down people making fake accounts for scams and such. There should be a new forum category for newbies to post in that have questions regarding the process as well.
Yes, this is a much better idea than using some kind of invite system, or requiring a fee to set up new buyer accounts. Just adding a few hoops new users would have to jump through in order to become full members would accomplish all that's necessary, without doing anything extreme like invites or fees.
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Another notion that kills two birds with one stone--anyone wanting to register needs to load a wallet with one BC. refundable upon first purchase. Keeps the riff raff and gawkers at bay, but still provides an opening for the serious. Now you have also a member versed in the currency vs another dozen asked and answered questions.
^^ great
This. It wouldn't hurt business if buyers had to shell out coin before they can shop. It would eliminate a lot of dumbasses from the process, and let in serious buyers.
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also, perhaps turning off the images on the website by default for users with an option to "show images" more readily available (as in over an image) will speed up the website. Even scaling the image sizes down would be good. taking the image of the "login" part back to text only will also help speed up the website.
when a user comes into the main page and category listings most of the images they see they dont need to look at and stopping that mass download of images on the main page will significantly speed up the site
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I think you guys are too willing to throw away your anonymity.
Look at the BTC vendors. And the Vendors of other materials that want to cash out their BTC with one of them.
I'm posting under this name to piss you off, yes. But when I do business with a BTC Vendor, I never use the same account twice. I make an account, do my business, and never use it again. It would be foolish for a vendor to NOT do that. I don't know a vendor of any good on SR that wants to get IDed even one way, much less bi-directionally. Only a fool would want to correlate their seller name with their BTC cashing name. Or buying name. Or do the same thing twice. You kill anonymity with a pattern of any kind. We have that nailed technologically, so other more tangible methods are all LE will bother with. Is the BTC vendor LE? Is SR? Ohhhh spooky..... Any one of these can fuck you. Don't link yourself.
That's what makes this business possible; 1) you can't follow the money, and 2) you can't rat out your supplier. That is how LE finds suppliers. The buyers rat them out (or a sub category, the buyers are LE), or they follow the money. Both ends are broken. If you start linking it up, it loses it's usefulness and only morons will remain a part of it. Taking away a vendor's ability to make a random fake account without any permission, invite, or correlation will really hurt a vendor's desire to be here. Not to mention the fact that lots of people prefer obtaining BTC here to begin with... No names. All the suggestions I see intrude upon these crucial disconnects. If I saw it happening, I'd be very concerned that SR had been compromised and was trying to strengthen it's ability to narrow down identities.
I have to buy something before I can sell my BTC to a BTC vendor?
I have to deposit BTC before I can get BTC the only way I know how because I'm a noob?
The suggestions I'm seeing are clearly not well thought out. Big surprise...
These suggestions would utterly destroy the backbone of how this place runs. Your perspective is not all encompassing. You'll need to get a big-picture view of what is going on before you can contribute. "Me me me want want want" isn't the only thing that matters. It takes brains to do this...
This isn't my only account. Vendors need to come and go, at least their names do. You don't want to build a list too long... I don't abuse anything. It's essential to my business, and that's not just this name...
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should be a few more days
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so close but yet so far. Cant wait to place my first order and say fuck you to all these CL fools with their bunk shit. ;D
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I will be very disappointed if registration does not open again.
I'm a long time researcher and have heard about this community for some time. Thought I'd come check it out. There are handful of things I'd really like to find that have never been available. Hopefully I can find a solution here.
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I hope to be able to sell and buy something good ... hoping to reopen ...
I smoke in the waiting ;)
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The only ones profiting from closed registrations are the existing vendors because they can keep up their high prices.
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Registrations are opened!
You're welcome :)
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And I think any buyer with over 100 transactions should get his gear purchased by SilkRoad on every 3rd transaction there after. With xpress shipping.
Well look at that. I would be one of those buyers...LMMFAO!
Bikerbum
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mother fuckers... oh well keep on letting all these stupid uneducated scamming pieces of shit who constantly ruin it for everyone else.
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I think it should now be 'pay to play' vendors *and* buyers both. Keep out the shills and the ripoffs...or at least slow them down....I gotta hand it to the bosses ...they keep trying to find ways to keep us in escrow, and to eliminate the scammers...but this place is just to juicy a morsel for the thieves...but now that we're known, and have enough people to ensure plenty of dough to the owners, I definitely think it's time to start charging to sign up....too many otherwise, have several accounts, and it takes a while to know who you can trust, and who is just a shill for the vendors...
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So what's stopping someone from registering dozens of accounts here, betting that in the future, open registration will be closed and that people will be willing to pay for an account?
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I'm glad they closed registrations, and if they haven't, they definitely should. There are assholes who have posted the SilkRoad Url and instructions on how to get here on youtube and everywhere else making it a breeze for idiots or law enforcement to get on and get closer to shutting it down. It was meant to be mildly difficult to find to weed out the morons.
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I think it should stay closed indefinitely. Too many noobs around here are fucking up a good thing.