Community discussion on a new unannounced specific rule

To begin, I am not looking for trouble or to piss anybody off. I have followed all rules to the best of my abilities. I am on here all the time and I mean ALL THE TIME...to help people. Usually I help with not only safety information but also help by giving information so people can get what they need either by directing people to a certain market where a specific vendor is at or by posting their email as an alternate means of contact (if you remember markets where unusable during the ddos time and the only way to get in contact with some vendors was through email.)


The incident: Recently someone asked about codeine/promethazine and I posted hjgotit's email, pgp and grams link. hjgotit is only on Agora and as you know Ag will be shutdown. An email is the only means of contact available to get to him. I was told I had to remove his email and the post would be re-approved.


I complied and I asked for the reason as to why I had to remove the email from my post. I was told because it is used to scam people, which I don't believe to be a good enough reason. The second reason was because "it is a way to do direct deals and it will make the market obsolete." obsolete? what?


Next, I went to the detailed version of the rules which can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarkets/wiki/index/rules . There are only 2 mentions of email in the rules. The first one can be found under 1. no personal information and pertains to doxxing of other people. The next mention can be found on 3. No independent vendor ad posts. I am not a vendor so there is no way I can post a vendor ad so that rule does not pertain to me or any user that is not a vendor in any way. As you know it a vendor can't post "I have shatter for $20" because it is advertising but a user can post "vendor name has bomb ass shatter at a great price." or " canna has the best weed/price ratio." or "Mr.Taffy is running a special on wax $55 for 5 grams, hurry up and grab it." There is no mention of a rule not allowing emails.


Furthermore, let's decipher exactly what a direct deal is. What exactly is a direct deal? Rule #5 states:

No direct deals

This includes every method of contacting someone through reddit, just don't do it. It's against reddit's ToS and can get the subreddit banned.

Action: Permanent ban


A direct deal is a deal done over the reddit platform. It is clearly defined through the rule itself. If someone asks "where can I find ogbryan?" One user post's Agora. Another user post the email. Where exactly are they doing a direct deal? They are sending you to a separate platform.


Let's use TMG for example. TMG does not allow direct deals. Instead vendors post their email and any deal is done through the email platform.


I am very passionate over the darknetmarkets and this is why I am now posting this. I am irritated that I am not being allowed to help others. After all, this is why I come here. Even if this were to be made a rule (not allowing of emails) it does not help(or hurt) the longevity of this sub because no direct deals are occurring. This ruling only hurts people.


Mods and users, post your opinions on this matter.


TLDR; I posted an email to a vendor, was told to remove it to get my post re-approved, I complied and asked why. I was told because emails are used to scam, it is considered direct deals and would make the markets obsolete. I checked the specific reddit rules and found no mention of email rules pertaining to the situation and read that a direct deal is a deal done over the reddit platform. Should emails be banned from this sub?


Comments


[17 Points] Theeconomist1:

I'm replying before I've read the post that caused the problem and understanding the entire contextual situation, so I'll give a generic explanation as to the emails on the sub issue. Again, this isn't specific to you or your post, but why emails are a problem:

I was told because it is used to scam people, which I don't believe to be a good enough reason.

Were you around when Evo exit scammed? I don't recall this username until more recently but I also know people rotate user names for opsec or other reasons. Anyway, if you were, do you remember we were keeping a consolidated vendor thread where people could post vendor's email addresses for contacts? We acted a bit on the fly and suspended our usual rules b/c it was an unusual time. Of course, this ended up backfiring. Several people got scammed. Assholes were posing as vendors and posting email addresses (that weren't actually the vendor) and taking people's money. Now, before you say that people are idiots for not double checking or what not, I agree - people should do that research. But what do I hate more than that? I hate a scammer making money. I don't want to make it easy for them, regardless if someone supposedly deserves it b/c they were "idiots" and didn't do their research. I hate scammers more than I dislike people who don't research. This was a bigger problem than the community may realize b/c most people didn't post on the open forums that they got scammed, but I sure as hell got a lot of PMs over people who did get scammed who were understandably too embarassed to post about it. It wasn't just one or two people either.

As to the direct dealing, we do toe a very fine line here. The "obsolete" comment probably was in the context of the sub getting banned. We survive here b/c we try to make it clear that we are not a market, we are not a dealing platform. We are a place to discuss the goings on of the various markets out there. Posting onion links helps with this. We can say "Hey, look we are just discussing what's going on over there. We aren't the market, we are discussing hte markets, whihc are happening elsewhere." I know you may a distinction b/w you, a non-vendor, posting a vendor's email address. Hell, I'm sure all of us get it. But, if this starts happening all over the place, we sure as hell start looking like a platform for vendors and customers. And as for the sub's survival, it doesn't matter what I think, what the other mods think, or what you think or anyone in this community thinks. Its what those in charge (Reddit) thinks. They are the ones who can yank this sub.

Our new ad rules do state that an email address cannot be alone - it has to be along with an onion link and it has to be secondary. I know, you aren't a vendor and you aren't posting an ad. But still, for uniformity, we tend to apply the rule to any mention of a vendor. I get it, Agora is going down and some vendors have no alternate contacts. Maybe the discussion should be more along the lines of how we deal with locating vendors while Agora is down. I think its a fair question.

Anyway, hope that helps.


[3 Points] samwhiskey:

I think it helps to post a vendors email in a situation like this but it seems like a blanket rules do the greater good of keeping scammers off and protecting this sun reddit. I've gotten a stern warning from a mod for posting unclepsychedelics email for contact info and didn't really think it was right, but after the explanation I gave in to the logic. Maybe just a pm to the person asking for contact info would be better. Either way, if there is a chance of getting shut down, we should avoid it.

What are the exact reedit admin rules we are following on this and can a mod post discussions between mods and admins about this?


[2 Points] Jay-__:

The latter part may has been bad wording on my side there. I wish I could search for things in modmail, but it was discussed and we decided against it.

I tried to rephrase what was said as 'final words' back then, but I won't say I've perfectly done so. :/

It's late over here and I am on mobile, but I'll look through modmail tomorrow and see if I can find it again.

Edit: which doesn't mean it will be absolutely forbidden forever. No. Believe it or not, but we take such things serious if they're brought up and always try to find a good solution. I believe this will be no exception and will be discussed the next days.

That's if I wasn't wrong with what I said. It's not unheard of that even mods are sometimes just wrong - and I'm one of the first to admit a mistake if I've done wrong.


[2 Points] None:

Sort of reminds me of Napster just because they weren't handing out music or making coin of music downloads didn't stop a bunch of grandpa's that didn't understand the technology and shut them down I'd hate too see Reddit go down that path


[1 Points] 2005C:

what about direct deals on voat.com ?


[1 Points] MO_Drugs:

Mods and users, post your opinions on this matter.

I farted while reading this story.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing or good thing. I'm just saying.


[1 Points] None:

A easy way would be for people to vetted the encryption key tested to what was on a site but I understand the economist point it's a slippery slope to Reddit being shut by being classed as a darkmarket