HugBunter Discusses Change for Dread

Thread: http://dreadytofatroptsdj6io7l3xptbet6onoyno2yv7jicoxknyazubrad.onion/post/3a20d9281f961f807c95

Its probably long overdue to have an open discussion on this, but I want to hear your thoughts. I am going to first outline some things as context for my later questions.

I originally built this platform as a continuation of what once was an incredible effort in harm reduction, sharing of news and also important for guidance and learning, with the Dark Net and drug related communities on Reddit. The idea was to create a space that allowed free discussion of taboo subjects with only a small set of governing rules to keep things sane and what I believe is morally correct. As hard as it is to believe for most, there was never any incentive for money with this and upon launch of Dread there was absolutely no monetization of any sort, absolutely no ads, self-funded by me and later relying on donations, I wish that was something I could have stuck to throughout the life of the platform, because it wouldn't even need to be discussed now. However, with the fast paced growth of the platform and especially once DoS attacks started to become a regular issue, I was forced to implement the banner Ads as a means of funding the expansion of the site. Today, we have many methods of promotion within Dread and while at times this is more than enough to cover everything, we do have periods where Ads aren't as effective, especially when things are very stable across marketplaces, which is fortunate in the grand scheme of things, but the platform does fall on hard times.

We as a platform have worked incredibly hard over the years in continually providing this space and in just a few weeks will be celebrating the 7th birthday, which is honestly unbelievable to me, I really didn't expect this to grow at all originally. We've been through so much, many things no one is even aware of, but the community as a whole has always been my priority. I don't have much power to control situations, but wherever possible I try to guide things and prevent damage. We've been mostly pro active when we can, where things are clear, or clear on our end with what we do see behind the scenes and outed exit scams early on, there have also been times where we weren't sure and could not definitively call it so early on.

The DoS attacks 2019-2023, the most exhausting, mentally draining situation to have to try and handle. Our efforts held things together between it, providing direct solutions to overcome the attacks through the development of /d/EndGame released freely to everyone in need of it, while also keeping Dread online through tactics I employed which kept attackers at bay, while we continually undermined them in assisting affected platforms. I'm very inactive at times, I've been through extreme bouts of illness over the years, but mostly complete burn out that I attribute to these attacks directly, I was never mentally prepared for the highs and then extreme lows while going through that, it really does affect you to the point it now becomes scary if Dread doesn't load up for me immediately, I think I can safely say I was traumatized by all of this.

We have faced many attacks from every angle, along with every other platform in this scene, whether it be DoS attacks, FUD, phishing, spam. We've been through it all, we always come out on top, we always pull through. It really means a lot to me that so many people have believed in us and supported us so much over the years and it does keep us motivated in the end.

Something else that will be up for discussion here is our process of approval for ads on the site. The minitory scream that we are "gate-keeping" towards new markets on disallowing them to have Ads. If you think this then, while I agree the process needs to be improved, there has to be a process of validation, to filter out low quality scams and outright dangerous platforms from being promoted to the user base. This is something that shouldn't really be centralized, so we go off the Superlist recommendations, which goes through a thorough approval process with the /d/DarkNetMarkets moderators, allowing for improvements to new platforms to meet minimum criterias and also creating a time-based barrier to give opportunity for the markets to be put to the test by customers and vendors alike and also showing the efforts a market admin is willing to go to, in order to ensure they actively improve their site when needed and are able to promote themselves outside of Dread while not suddenly disappearing a month or two after users start putting their money on the line. While the Superlist can never prevent a market from exit scamming down the line, it does help to ensure a solid and stable market up until the day they close their doors, whether that be from an exit scam, seizure or amicable end. No one can predict that, but it has to be expected of every market you ever use. We have placed our trust in this Superlist process because it has no oversight from us as a platform, so there is no bias that can come into play from decisions of Dread staff, but it then relies on trusting the choices of human moderators within the DNM sub, so its still not ideal overall. It just isn't appreciated that anyone can see this as Dread gate-keeping, even though my stance is the more quality markets, the better. Every new market is free to promote on Dread once they have been through these processes, we don't stop anyone unless there are serious issues, especially security related, which would then be in everyone's best interests for us to shun and warn.

Which brings me to this post, because it has become increasingly clear, especially with a lot of situations over the past couple of years that there is some discontent with some things or how things are managed, most of which I do already agree with, but either we have had to prioritize other things or there isn't a clear solution. I promise this year is going to be a big step for us in realizing the potential of what can be done here and moving forward with plans that have been put off for so long for one reason or another. Which will start with advancements to Daunt, the launch of Test4Pay, relaunching Recon and then moving on to additional platform launches that have been on the back burner for way too long.

I want to hear from you as a user, what do you think we can improve as a platform in how we manage the site or what is the platform lacking, what can we do to better your experience here and I'm not talking about minor features, I mean structurally.