Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: Creamsicle on November 02, 2012, 12:40 am
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Lately I have been experiencing major issues with SR going down. I spend much more time trying to access SR than I do actually replying to messages, preparing orders, and maintaining listings and it is becoming a real problem. I just wanted to see how other vendors have been dealing with this and how it has affected your business.
SR was down almost the entire day today for me and finally came back online a little after 6pm EST but then went down again as I was replying to messages. This causes delay in shipment, which is bad business, as well as wasted time spent fetching "New Identities" with tor and constantly trying to connect.
I am not sure exactly what is involved in keeping SR secure and it's servers locations a secret but with the 8-9% fees on every transaction we should not be having these issues. Since money is obviously not the issue here, what is it that is keeping this problem from being fixed? Correct me if I am wrong but even with the way it is setup I would think that something could still be done to prevent server overload, right?
Obviously less people are going to buy because they are unable to access SR and probably give up after so long. Going to leave it at that for now, time for your comments. Hopefully this might move us in the right direction in something actually getting done about it.
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One thing you can do to help is by funding tor relay servers.
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Getting on SR has been hell for me today...I kept reloading and reloading just waiting for the welcome page to show up so I could make an important order before the weekend. Thankfully after a few hours I was able to get on long enough to place my order...but I can only imagine what vendors have to go through (especially the top vendors!).
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last week has been shitty in terms of sales and also because most buyers on the east coast are getting packages slower because of the hurricane closing major sort facilities.
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I've been trying to access the login page for almost an hour now while doing other surfing activities. Not going anywhere. Giving up now. Not a vendor but an avid consumer ;).
And yeah, it has been HORRIBLE the past few days, and they are getting that kind of commission it for sure is uncalled for... Even for consumers as we are technically paying those fees as well.
I don't think this problem is anyhting related to Tor, I think it's SR itself, as I can access other onion sites fine.
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Nag nag bitch bitch moan.
All we can do is wait for DPR to fix this shit. Until then, we're fucked.
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is it safe to say that nobody can get on right now?
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yes, no one can get on ad YES the site being generally slow not only affects sales, but also affects my processing of them.
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=64627.msg562598#msg562598
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This is also a hassle for buyers when were trying to catch a listing we know will sell out fast. And also trying to communicate with a vendor for some kind of last minute changes is fucking impossible. I'm sure it's 10 times worsse for vendors. I hope they do something soon. CS is right that money shouldn't be an issue!
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I'm not a vendor, but I can sympathize as a buyer. Especially part-time vendors who have other comparable IRL responsibilities, this availability issue could be a deal-breaker. It's an unfortunate step backwards in the massive success of SR. But I have absolutely no doubt that DPR et. al. are using every effort possible to get a solution in place fast. With the profits that they receive, it is absolutely in their best interest to keep the site growing "SAFELY".
Without any direct knowledge, I imagine security is probably the main concern that is holding up the solution, plus a long-term scalable solution to allow many more users to access the site, from a technical internet side is non-trivial. Resources need to be distributed, so that many requests can be served in parallel. For a comparable legitimate business operating legally on the clearnet, the process of converting a system like this to a scalable, distributed system would involve many months of planning between many different people and organizations, in addition to testing the new system against realistic usage patterns. Since SR doesnt' have the infrastructure a giant corporation (at least I don't currently believe it does, but who am I to say that there aren't power figures with a stake in the Road?), and since we are confined to working exclusively through Tor, there's a lot to consider and accomplish, *all under the radar*.
I don't know how far the admins are willing to go to keep SR growing, so they might not be shooting for the goal of unlimited scalability, in which case hopefully, they find a clever way in a short time to keep vendors processing orders without delays, and afford buyers better availability.
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Final Answer:
Yes down time affects my business. more then I realize sometimes.
But understand that I do not think for one second if DPR knew how to fix it "Right now" that she wouldn't.
Imagine the potential income lost for yours truly: DPR.
Im am sure downtime does not affect any ones more....
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I'm on vacation mode until SR works this out, if I can't log on I assume my buyers can't either so why bother? This with some terrible family issues my head is about to explode. sigh
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Whilst it doesn't seem to have hit my sales, it had affected my ability to process and package effectively. Will be suspending
Stock sold out this morning anyway, so hoping the situation will have improved somewhat by the time our next batches come through.
Funny really. I couldn't get on either SR or the forums last week. When I eventually got a connection to SR, I noticed things were all messed up with the vacation mode bug, timeouts etc.
I sent this long-assed message to support and was busy writing a 2nd even longer one with accompanying screenshots... When I connected to the forum finally and saw the "Explosive Growth" thread.
I hung my head in shame at what must have been an unwittingly patronizing and condescending email and so wished the SR message system allowed message recall.
To the people who run and support SR technically - I love you! Take your time, do what you need to do and know you have a lot of people wishing you well. Your success is ours, and likewise, our success is yours also.
Namaste
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Nag nag bitch bitch moan.
All we can do is wait for DPR to fix this shit. Until then, we're fucked.
made my day