Quote from: hilariousetc on February 04, 2018, 08:02:12 AM

People can first find a clearnet connection to sign up with first then use tor.

No, no, no! Mixing Tor and non-Tor use for the same login is a privacy cardinal sin, the kind of thing you find in FAQs on foot-shooting and what not to do. It has already happened that I advised a user here to totally abandon his account and make a new one, after Google refused to serve him a login CAPTCHA and he gave up and signed in via clearnet; I doubt he heeded me, but what I told him was sound. Please do not ever advise people to do this, much less consider it as a basis for policy.

(Perhaps I read too much into it, but if you meant more than explicit in the word findno, an open wifi hotspot should never be mixed with Tor use. I mention this, because its also FAQ fodder.)

Quote from: hilariousetc on February 04, 2018, 08:02:12 AM

I wouldn't be against users signing up via tor paying a (bigger) fee, and have in the past suggested that all connections are blacklisted once used to sign up via, but a user could then bypass that by paying a fee or buying a member rank etc to whitelist it for themselves.

Interesting. Do you have stats on how much abuse is actually coming through Tor? Id presume much, but I wonder how much; it is never good to proceed based on assumptions. As for abusive account signups specifically, is the current fee not enough? That would surprise me, given the economics of spamming and the nature of the payment method (no stolen credit cards!).

There is always a delicate balance when abuse issues collide with the privacy interests of legitimate users. One of the things I most appreciate about this forum is its friendliness toward Tor users, with good precedent insofar as theymos says that Satoshi always used Tor (I presume with no mixed clearnet use!). I am also keen on fighting abuse; I actually didnt use my account for eight months after signing up, because the quality here has been so bad that I didnt want to waste my time.

If youd care to discuss this further, perhaps on a new thread, so would I. I have not inconsiderable expertise on the Tor side. I also have some substantial longstanding familiarity with net.abuse issues, though not much at all with those specifically affecting this forum. Id like to help somehow.

Quote from: hilariousetc on February 04, 2018, 08:02:12 AM

The point is to make it so creating multiple to hundreds of accounts just isn't financially worth it but people should be able to have one or two or as many as they can afford or pay for. I guess with the merit system the number of accounts you can have now for signature campaigns requires more work and will slow farmers down greatly but I think people will still find ways around it by trading or buying merits etc.

I think ultimately, the merit system will succeed if and only if it becomes a social solution applying technical tools, rather than a technical bandage applied to a bleeding social wound. Thats why Ive been so intent on posting about this in Meta lately. Technical obstacles can be hacked and gamed around. A cohesive merit culture would not be so easy to fool.