Market Super List Issues - Revamping the Process

Community,

It's come to our attention that there is a potentially problematic market added in the Super List. See thread for more details: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4hcldx/do_not_sign_up_or_use_bitbay/

  1. 15 days ago, BitBay messaged us saying they wanted to be considered for listing in the Super List. They made their required introductory post 15 days.
  2. 4 days ago (or 11 days after their introductory post), they messaged us again stating that they have waited the required number of days and requested to be listed. We require a 7 day wait period to give the community a chance to check the market out.
  3. 4 days ago I added BitBay to the Super List.
  4. Today, the warning about BitBay was made.

Presently, I have removed BitBay from the Market Super List. We will further investigate the accusations and allow BitBay a chance to respond to the criticisms. BUt obviously there was enough concern that we removed them in the interim.

I believe what has come out of this is a need to revamp and retool our validation process. At a minimum, we need better accountability as to when a market is considered "validated" - things such as who performed the checks, what they did, etc. But even that term is severely overloaded in our context.

I can assure you that there was nothing unethical or any action that would be considered executed in "bad faith" towards this community by myself or anyone else on the mod team. I'd step down in a heartbeat if I had done anything like that towards the community. We are still looking to see what we could do better because at the end of the day, this sub is present to protect the community at large.

One thing that does come up from time to time is what it means to be on the Super List. The Super List is not a recommendation/endorsement of any form. There are some minimum requirements to be listed. We rely on the community to help one another and to spot problems. I do appreciate /u/Satoshi- for publicizing the problem and making us aware of it. Again, we believe in relying on the community to help squeeze out problematic vendors, markets, tumblers, whatever.

That being said, I believe its time that we revisit the Super List requirements and do a better job in governing the process. Looking at the modmail for this specific market listing request, it was obvious that we could have done a better job. The requirements were believed to have been met at the time, but I don't believe any of us dug in deep enough. They had the requisite number of vendors (at least appeared to), there were no complaints of withdrawal issues from the community, and they seemed to have the required uptime.

So what does this mean?

Feel free to ask any questions. I apologize to the community for this slip. We will do a better job in the future.

~Econ

EDIT: To better illustrate how this usually happens, I'll outline the modmail. Now, its become obvious that this way is not good and we need to change it. So basically it goes like this:

  1. Market mentions they want to do an announcement.
  2. Post on sub made
  3. Mod(s) check out the site
  4. 7 day waiting period
  5. Market pings us that they've waited the 7 days.
  6. Someone will reply back asking if any of hte o ther mods have objections to the market being added.
  7. If no objections are raised, market is added.

After this incident, I've realized this is bad practice. It needs to be more proactive rather than passive. Even a "YES" from each of the mods is better than a passive "any objections" - b/c we don't know if the message was even actually read/received. This will change in the future.


Comments


[13 Points] octomarvel:

Don't get rid of the superlist. It's a valuable resource and if it wasn't, bitbay wouldn't of happened.

Just become more proactive with market adding/checking.

Being a representative of Apple market, I can say for sure that we are ready n willing to jump thru any hoop put before us in order to prove our market and ourself.

Seriously, a good market will lunge at the chance to prove their legitimacy and while I understand everyone being all butt hurt about the mods not keeping them safe from a scamming market link on the superlist, I'm thinking that maybe we should all be thinking of hoops for new markets to jump thru instead of blankly complaining.

Personally, I believe econs original suggestion of a forced deposit/withdrawal instead of a passive complaint is a strong way to enforce superlist legitimacy straight off the bat.

To be honest, I am kinda proud this community outed a scammer so quick and without having to dig too much. There's hope for the future.

But yeah, tl;dr...less talk, more action.

=)


[1 Points] BelowAndBehold:

2 things:


[3 Points] deepdot:

When a market/vendor requests to get listed with me, i refer them to this, in case you are looking for some ideas.


[1 Points] SuperTruthers:

But did you actually look at the site?


[1 Points] Satoshi-:

EDIT: thought you made the same post as https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4hcldx/do_not_sign_up_or_use_bitbay/d2pblt8?context=3 so replied again.


[1 Points] Stellar_Surfer:

Keep it going! This sub, this Super List are amazing!!!

Thank you for your support!


[1 Points] TheHighSocietyy:

It shows you have a good level of integrity that you admit your mistakes. Many people like to always shift blame onto others to protect their egos so I don't think people should have been so harsh on you in the other threads.

I would keep the Superlist and do what you said by just tightening the requirements. It's very easy to tighten them and catch most scams. Make it a minimum of a month, do a intensive check for 'suspicious activity' on the market such as with BitBays strange vendor reviews and actively ask for community involvement in vetting the market.

And as a poster mentioned below having a blacklist would be useful.


[1 Points] None:

The only time a market should be added to the superlist is when users ask for it. Also only idiots use vendors and markets that nobody is talking about.


[1 Points] peargod:

So haven't really used the Markets before and need something, so immediately came here and saw the superlist, and then saw this post. Coming from the outside, some way of identifying just which markets are within some bound of legitimate is so important and I trust this sub-reddit over any site Google will return .

The only addition I would make, and what would be valuable it sounds like it dealing with new upstarts, is if the superlist included the length of time that a market has been on the list. This would help the more experienced markets the most, but would reward consistent stable behavior. Just a thought, and please don't get rid of the superlist!


[1 Points] sapiophile:

Had a thought that might be helpful. For every edit to the superlist (and maybe some other important pages we maintain), in the "reason for edit" field, we include the Permalink to the start of the relevant discussion in modmail. Since a big problem is how hard it is to find old things in modmail, this should help.


[0 Points] CynicalElephant:

It's no big deal econ. Glad you removed them from the list. I think what you said about, "any new market can behave for a week," is the biggest issue. That's definitely true because most markets behave for months or years, then exit scam.

Have you considered having two lists, one for new markets needing testing, review, and time, and one with long time established markets? For example, AB and Dream could go on the main superlist, and this new BitBay market would go on the new market list. The new list could come with a disclaimer to especially not trust the new markets.


[-1 Points] dlayover123:

Thanks /u/theeconomist1. Thank you for removing this from the superlist for the safety of those who might not frequent this sub daily. I agree in more transparency and if you guys are busy with other stuff, use a decoy to check the ins and outs of a new market. Satoshi only took a few screen shots of bogus shit and it was so obvious things didn't add up. Anyway, glad this is all in the process of getting worked out.