Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: OzFreelancer on November 04, 2012, 01:49 am

Title: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: OzFreelancer on November 04, 2012, 01:49 am
Anyone got any great ideas for a feature article?  Not SR-related, that's been done to death.  I was thinking of identity theft, but haven't been able to find a victim with a meaty enough story.  I also wanted to do MMA in different countries, but can't afford the trip to Brazil, though Thailand's doable. :)

Feature articles need to be able to sustain 2000 words and have at least 3 voices/interviewees from different aspects.  My other features are on the sidebar of my site for an idea of what I do.

Yes, this is a rather unusual way of going about it, but I have writer's block :)  And the SR community is full of interesting and knowledgable folk. :)

Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: FreshKids on November 04, 2012, 02:40 am
Do a dark internet topic that hasn't been done to death.

How about one covering pedobaiting? The popular con (several guides written about how to perfect the art) where men pretend to be underage girls or guys, and wait for a pedo to come and try to hook up with them. You let the pedo incriminate himself and send photos etc, while you gain personal info, and then at the end you present all the dirt you have on them and get them to send you bitcoins or amazon digital gift cards to keep quiet.

It has a robinhood style romanticism to it while being a relatively safe way to make money online.
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: lesseroftwoweevils on November 04, 2012, 02:59 am
I'd rather hear about the more intelligent variety of pedophiles on the deep web. Everyone from Chris Hanson to your local reporter has done the "pedobaiting" style of con before, so I wouldn't find it all that insightful.

Go trawl through the hidden wiki and the deep web. Not that I actually looked for it, but I'm sure there's forums similar to this one for pedophiles.

Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: Caparino on November 04, 2012, 03:11 am
The future war starting in January-Apr 2013 and the proof/reasoning behind it.

The collection of historical, literary, scientific, and governmental books on the deepweb.

The reason Mitt Romney lost this campaign(Oh wait that didn't happen YET)

Why the world will slowly degrade more and more because of different types of media.

Why the social stratification that exists today will lead to different types of human evolution to take place at once.

How to stop caring about what people think and to live for yourself.

Those are at the top of my list, if you need more let me know  :D
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: OzFreelancer on November 04, 2012, 03:16 am
I'd rather hear about the more intelligent variety of pedophiles on the deep web. Everyone from Chris Hanson to your local reporter has done the "pedobaiting" style of con before, so I wouldn't find it all that insightful.

Go trawl through the hidden wiki and the deep web. Not that I actually looked for it, but I'm sure there's forums similar to this one for pedophiles.

That's quite an interesting idea.  I read an amazing in-depth article about that football coach guy recently and it was terrifying the lengths he went to in order to groom his victims and hide his offending.  Absolutely everything in his life was calculated to find himself young boys to abuse.

Thing is, I really don't want to go anywhere that I could be exposed to images.  I did look at a couple of (text) forums for one of my articles and that made me throw up in my mouth.

I wish there really were gladiator fights organised through the darkweb :D

I also wish I could give karma to both you and FreshKids for your suggestions :)

Edit:  and Caparino, who posted while I was posting:

Quote
Why the world will slowly degrade more and more because of different types of media.

What do you mean by this?  Virtual +1 to you too. :)
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: jpinkman on November 04, 2012, 03:23 am
I'd rather hear about the more intelligent variety of pedophiles on the deep web. Everyone from Chris Hanson to your local reporter has done the "pedobaiting" style of con before, so I wouldn't find it all that insightful.

Go trawl through the hidden wiki and the deep web. Not that I actually looked for it, but I'm sure there's forums similar to this one for pedophiles.

While it's true that the pedo baiting story has been done to death for years by reporters in real time stings on TV and such, the added darknet and extortion twist seems unique and would draw a lot of interest. The hard part would be landing firsthand interviews with the hustlers that pull such stunts, or even harder, with the dipshit pedophiles that fall for it. Even doing the background research into an article like that developed from 2nd hand sources would be difficult unless you had hookups. I could see Gawker doing an article with that sort of slant that would instantly go viral.
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: Caparino on November 04, 2012, 03:37 am
I meant things that spawn out of social media; widespread insecurities amongst the population, glorification of people that are famous for the most moronic reasons (instead of people that SHOULD be glorified i.e. scientists, philanthropists etc), degradation of knowledge of what actually goes on in politics and knowledge in general.

These examples are the easiest to ponder and back with proof, then there are ones that go into the "conspiracy theory" realm for most people.
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: anonman88 on November 04, 2012, 06:33 am
what about a whole different side of the internet? what about an article about the underground piracy scene?
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: rocketgauze on November 04, 2012, 07:02 am
I read an article today (on a fairfax website) about a couple who bought bath salts from an adult shop and then injected them. The name of the product was "smilin' slurrie" or something like that but when you go to the web site or anywhere else it doesn't even have any information about what chemical it is. There are quite a few products on their site and I can't find any information about what they actually are.

I think there has been a lot of hysteria around bath salts and the article about the couple was trying to play off of that. It would be interesting to see an article detailing what is actually being sold in different bath salts, how they are imported/manufactured/packaged and whether the hysteria around them is valid. If they are actually effective, banning them will just push their sale into the darkweb, especially if they can be readily synthesized in other countries and are more powerful/stronger than existing drugs.
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: OzFreelancer on November 04, 2012, 09:08 am
Some very good ideas.  I particularly like the bath salts one.

Moksha, I already did an opinion piece for The Age on the Big Brother laws. :)  Though not as involved as what you're suggesting.
Title: Re: Need ideas for my next feature article
Post by: BenCousins on November 16, 2012, 04:02 pm
Interview Adam Freelance and ask him why his such a wanker