Talk:Silk Road (marketplace)

"Silk Road" versus "The Silk Road"

I'm pretty sure that it's called just "Silk Road" and not "The Silk Road". Not sure how to change the title of the article though... KLP (talk) 15:55, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

One of the little links, 'move page'. I did it for you. --Gwern (contribs) 16:03 13 June 2011 (GMT)

Tor links

Template:ChineseText Rather than parenthetically reminding readers that they must use Tor to access Tor hidden services (.onion sites), does some kind of Tor box exist to more neatly accomplish this task? I imagine that it would look similar to the example I've included, but would say something to the effect of "This article features external links to Tor hidden services. Visitors cannot follow these links without using Tor". KLP (talk) 13:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I managed to put together a preliminary template. Not sure where to go from here. Halp? KLP (talk) 17:22, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

So as not to get too off-topic, I've decided to continue this effort to my user page. Feel free to help! KLP (talk) 20:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a gang of folks that get .onion addresses removed from Wikipedia. Once they find this article, they'll kill it.

94.222.191.118 (talk) 15:31, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh my. Do they occupy some kind of WikiProject or just a broad idea, like the "deletionists"? KLP (talk) 20:31, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

If you're really curious, go to the Tor talk page archives & article history and note the little edit wars. Thankfully, our onion links do not link to child porn in any sense, so if they dare damage this article, they can simply be reverted out of hand. --Gwern (contribs) 20:46 17 June 2011 (GMT)

Really? Guess I have to add this to my watchlist then. Imperi (talk) 02:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Delete SR page

It is important to understand the nature of this once tight community. Exposure like this is not necessary, and would be greatly appreciate by everyone using the site if it was deleted. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.82.151.207 (talk) 23:26, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

In that case, your attitude only makes it worse. Are we trying to achieve irony⸮ KLP (talk) 01:21, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Agree. It's page should be deleted in it's entirety. --Wikiepdiax818 (talk) 05:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I take it that you were agreeing with 68.82.151.207, so I reformatted your comment accordingly. Anyway, we've already settled the issue and the result, as indicated at the top of this page, was to keep the article. KLP (talk) 14:15, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This links only work with TOR: Weapon Shop (guest shop of Silk Road called "The Armory": ayjkg6ombrsahbx2.onion/index.php/silkroad/register Silk Road Wiki: dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Hidden Wiki: kpvz7ki2v5agwt35.onion/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Black Market Reloaded: 5onwnspjvuk7cwvk.onion/ Freedom Host: xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/ The Farmers Market: vynox6ys2jjswhxq.onion/ Tor Link List: dppmfxaacucguzpc.onion/ Silk Road Forums: vynox6ys2jjswhxq.onion/

What? And please sign your posts. KLP (talk) 15:58, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Protection

We ought to get this article protected. I find all this vandalism, especially with regard to the URLs, very tiresome. Thoughts? KLP (talk) 19:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It's a little annoying, yes, especially the phishing .onion links, but I don't think it's really heavy enough to justify semi-protection. --Gwern (contribs) 20:14 31 October 2011 (GMT)

the link

i think we should remove the link or switch it with the fake one (silkroadmarket.org). i dont think wikipedia should make it easy like that for people to find a place where they can break the law. the streisand effect isnt an issue unless someone makes a big fuzz about this but why would they? im not proposing deleting this article and merely changing the url shouldnt attract too much attention. lets not forget that there is no real reason the url should be included in the first place, it doesn't enhance the quality of the article and .onion urls dont link to websites, they link to tor hidden services so the fact that its custom to include links to websites doesn't really apply either, in fact, that only makes it more logical to have the .org site here instead since this one IS an actual website. --91.53.214.223 (talk) 15:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course it enhances the quality of the article. How could not linking to the website, in the article about the website, improve the article or even not matter? --Gwern (contribs) 16:01 2 December 2011 (GMT)

Not including the real link presents a danger to the public. If we don't keep the proper one here, people will more likely follow malicious links that they find elsewhere. That said, just because people might follow the link if we present it in the article doesn't mean that they will go on to break the law. Even if they do, the violation will not have occurred on Wikipedia's servers, so it's not even an issue. Furthermore, information helps people do whatever they want, illegal or not. Conceivably, this article might even help law enforcement. By your logic, flawed as it is, the link must stay. KLP (talk) 02:53, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm too paranoid to keep the link on my pc, yet there is always a true and legit one on Wikipedia. Keep it. 85.95.155.8 (talk) 10:18, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I am shocked to see wikipedians have censored this link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.183.8 (talk) 19:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

If you would even consider putting information that you yourself acknowledge is "fake" into a Wikipedia article, you need to get off Wikipedia immediately and leave it to the adults. 24.38.200.234 (talk) 13:36, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

The link seems to have been removed without any kind of discussion here, which is kind of unfair considering the fact that the discussion of link removal never came to a decision. Can we put the link back on? Craptree (talk) 00:33, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The link was removed based on a discussion at an administrator's noticeboard - see the notification at the bottom of this page (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:06, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Screw the admin. The discussion and decision linked to basically amounts to "Wah, wah, drugs are bad, so let's ignore our usual rules and remove the link to protect the children and kittens". They also make the example of not linking to copyright violating sites such as The Pirate Bay - despite the fact that TPB's url actually is on TPB's article. It's a decision that's entirely inconsistent with not just rules but also common editing practice, and it's a very moralising and POV decision for an encyclopaedia that has "NPOV" as one of its main rules. So, to re-iterate, screw the admin.

Having a link to Silk Road is consistent with wikipedia policy on linking (see Wikipedia:ELOFFICIAL#Official_links and Wikipedia:ELNEVER#Restrictions_on_linking). It also enhances the quality and relevance of the article. The reason the link has been removed appears to be some editors having political objections to drug use. The link should therefore be added back. Woood (talk) 07:57, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

213.104.79.110 (talk) 20:01, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there some means of prompting a real discussion about the link? I'd like to point out that using the Silk Road marketplace in not inherently illegal in the US or the EU, but using it to buy drugs is. The use of the link was well within the rules, since it was not spam and was the primary link to the website about which the article is. The noticeboard explicitly mentions ignoring the rules. 146.115.137.225 (talk) 21:15, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It's actually not necessary to install TOR in order to access this site. Has anyone thought to incorporate a regular HTTP link through the well known tor2web proxy accessible with any web browser? https://silkroadvb5piz3r.tor2web.org/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.62.170.69 (talk) 21:45, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Why has the link not been added back yet? 86.7.89.84 (talk) 15:40, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policy clearly states neutrality. It's not wikipedia's responsibility or policy to worry about what we're linking to. No censorship, I strongly believe the link should come back. If I find it, I will edit it in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.101.249 (talk) 02:52, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The correct link is silk roadvb5piz3r.onion/ (without the space between 'silk' and 'road'). However, the link has been blacklisted as a spam/phishing website, so it refuses to accept your edit with the link in it (hence the space in the URL). The actual URL does not change. You can see the blacklist discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Silk_Road_.28marketplace.29. It is my hope that the link can be whitelisted, but as of yet, no one has posted a proposal on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#Proposed_additions_to_Whitelist_.28web_pages_to_unblock.29. If you feel like taking the effort, please do so. It's pretty silly that admins that are clearly ignorant when it comes to .onion sites are determining whether they can be listed or not. Sid (talk) 10:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, note the new RFC discussion under "I have restored the link" on this talk page. Check there from now on, in regards to the link discussion. Sid (talk) 19:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

"The die have been cast and now we will see how they land"

Nice to see the "sic" there. The turn of phrase is obviously confused, one does not cast a die as in a singular of dice as in throwing by that meaning, but rather as in casting (putting forth) a molding on a manufacturing die. Casting a mold, casting a die, not throwing dice. 66.243.212.138 (talk) 23:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

You had me there for a second, but the phrase refers to a game of chance wherein one might use one or more die. See Alea iacta est. KLP (talk) 04:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the sic is for the fact that it should say the dice have been cast 82.20.32.138 (talk) 23:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

...Or "the die has been cast". Also, since die is singular, the writer should have used the singular pronoun it. In other words, the writer could have made a correct sentence by either using the word dice, as you suggested, as a plural subject or by making the remainder of the sentence properly refer to the singular subject die. KLP (talk) 13:43, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Has any notable source mentioned whether it was a pun or not? --TiagoTiago (talk) 15:48, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Where's the pun? Hopefully me asking does not betray a lack of sophistication. KLP (talk) 18:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The pun about uncertain result and a busyness model being created (like in a roll of dice, we don't know whether copies will be casted from the mold they made) --TiagoTiago (talk) 22:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

That's deep, man. But, I have yet to encounter a source that has explored the potential for such word play. KLP (talk) 12:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Dead links

There is a host of dead links to Silk Road, and I was unable to recover them using the Wayback Machine. They are probably gone for good, so a lot of the associated quotes should probably be removed. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:39, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Er.... Are you familiar with the concept of 'Tor'? Why would you expect them to ever be in the Wayback Machine? --Gwern (contribs) 03:09 20 September 2012 (GMT)

I wasn't, but now I know a little more. It seems a bit strange to using citations that require an installation of Tor; I searched Wikipedia for similar links and found none, not even in the article .onion. If equivalent sources can be found outside of Tor, that would be better. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Very few Tor sites are notable enough to merit a Wikipedia entry, so their absence is not too surprising. It might be a good idea to provide mirror links using tor2web.org though if one absolutely had to. (I see it as little different from linking to paywalled academic sites: some people can get in, most can't. If the material is not elsewhere, oh well.) --Gwern (contribs) 01:27 30 September 2012 (GMT)

If we are talking about sources, common practice of WP:finding reliable sources is the way to go. That is, it doesnt matter if the source is published on a newspaper, a book, a radio transmission, TV, website behind or not behind a paywall, tor, Minitel, CompuServe, usenet, e-books, or any other place where information is published. If the sources is reliable and useable in the context of the article, we can include it. The only exception is to make it as easy as possible for the reader to access the source, thus sources that are easy accessible should be favorable to those that are not. As for tor2web, if you use it, do include the original link in the source in case that the proxy goes down. Belorn (talk) 11:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

why was this moved without discussion, per WP:Moving a page, WP:Article Names, WP:NPOV? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.161.209.52 (talk) 15:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Black Market Redirect

This was done without any disucssion on the talk page I think that "marketplace" is a better word to use for the market. It's only a "black market" in places where it operates illegally, since there is no defined world law on the Internet, I don't think a business that operates 100% on the internet can be considered a "black market"... It is simply a marketplace, on the internet. ☠  Travis "TeamColtra" McCrea ☠ - (T)(C) 03:35, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Since the initial version was already "marketplace", I went ahead and reverted it. Before making further changes to the title, let's discuss it here. ☠  Travis "TeamColtra" McCrea ☠ - (T)(C) 03:42, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 27 November 2012

Administrator Panyd removed the URL to the site for no reason at all. The article should be reverted to the previous version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Silk_Road_%28marketplace%29&oldid=525143734 (14:15, 27 November 2012‎) There is no sense in deleting site URLs and calling them "phishing links" just because said site is inaccessible for a few hours. http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/ is the correct URL and has been for many months, it's easily verifiable by googling for a couple of minutes. 80.217.16.8 (talk) 20:51, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

 Already done If you examine the article right now you'll see that someone reinserted the link. I'm not sure the link is appropriate, but, for now it's done. Begoon ^talk 04:25, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 30 November 2012

Please change the sales volume estimate from $22 million/year to $15 million/year. The research paper on which the Forbes article (ref [6]) was based was recently updated. See:

Christin, Nicolas. Traveling the Silk Road: A measurement analysis of a large anonymous online marketplace. Carnegie Mellon University CyLab Technical report 12-018. July 2012 (revised: November 2012.) Available online at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7139 216.149.208.5 (talk) 01:45, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done - with this edit. Thank you. Begoon ^talk 15:01, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Jewelry should be spelt jewellery — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.5.144 (talk) 13:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

ANI

I have started a thread on ANI regarding the difficulty of maintaining the .onion link to SR. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 12:54, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

EL list way too long

Most if not all of the linked sites are news articles or reportages, which are better served as inline sources for the article rather than external links (see WP:EL). The exception is regarding sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources, as those may be considered. To this, I think maybe Using Silk Road could be kept and the rest removed. Belorn (talk) 10:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Reorder the listing of products in the 'Products' Section

We need to rework the language contained in the 'Products' section of this article. A quote from the article follows: "Most sellers on the site are based in the United Kingdom and the United States, and offer products such as heroin, LSD, and cannabis."

This gives the impression that the site deals largely with heroin, when it in fact deals mostly and by large with Cannabis.

Note bolded section. At least 80% of the products sold on this site are weed. A brief search on the site would verify that the majority of the products being sold are Cannabis. A quick search on the site reveals that of the drugs currently up for sale, search results return:

• Drugs 3,011
• Cannabis 1,120
• Dissociatives 26
• Ecstasy 129
• Opioids 256
• Other 112
• Precursors 3
• Prescription 616
• Psychedelics 206
• Stimulants 324

I think we should reorder this sentence, or at least draw attention to the fact, in this article. Leading with heroine gives the wrong impression. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JollyGreenJesus (talk • contribs) 16:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I have restored the link

In accordance with WP:CENSOR, WP:ELOFFICIAL. There is no reason not to link to the **website we are discussing**. If you disagree, we can ask ArbCom. Quantum Burrito (talk) 08:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that was a bit over the top, I apologise. I was in a rush when I wrote that, of course going straight to ArbCom would be inappropriate. But, if you do not think the link belongs on the page, please discuss with me (and other interested editors) here instead of removing it again. Hopefully we can reach consensus on this issue by following the proper procedure. Quantum Burrito (talk) 15:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration is for issues with user conduct. I don't think anyone has violated community standards here. There was a consensus at ANI that this article should not have the link. It is not even possible to add it as a url, since it was added to the SBL. You are gaming that system by reinserting it. I am not aware of any other article in which a URL is included without linking to it. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 23:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I am not "gaming the system". I had no intention of bypassing the blacklist (I had no idea it was included), I just forgot the http. However, I do not see how a consensus at ANI is anything other than an abuse of sysop power. Which is a violation of community standards. Editorial issues regarding the page (which the issue of inclusion of the link is) are supposed to be decided by consensus of editors on a talk page, not decided by administrative fiat. You definitely do have authority to blacklist phishing sites, but blacklisting the URL of a site considered notable enough to have its own page, especially without seeking input from the editors on that page, is outside of the proper scope of a sysop's authority. It is an editorial issue, and it should be decided here.

So here is my argument: it is the real, multiply cited URL of the site that the article is about. There is no precedent for banning the inclusion of publicly available information from Wikipedia. In fact, it directly contradicts several of our principles. Wikipedia is not censored. Wikipedia should link to official sources, including official web pages. I say that the un-linked and correct URL should stay, as a valid and useful contribution to the article, until such time as the genuine silk road URL can be white-listed from the blanket ban. We link to the pirate bay, the BNP, and other objectionable websites. This should be no different. Quantum Burrito (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I think there has been a bit of a miscommunication here. Please don't assume that I agree with all the comments in that ANI thread. I honestly do not care at all whether we have a link to Silk Road. I am engaged here in my capacity as an administrator, not as an editor. That is why the discussion was held at ANI--insertion of phishing links into our articles is an administrative problem. Here is what concerns me: Right now, what we have is a number of our readers relying on the link in our infobox in order to get to the site. Occasionally a sockmaster bypasses autoconfirmed and inserts a link to a phishing page. Even though the link usually only stays up for a few hours, that is enough for people to be victimized. I am sure we both find this situation to be unacceptable.

Assuming you agree that the status quo must be abandoned, there are two different ways forward:

1. Whitelist the SR link and blacklist variants of it, so that it is impossible for the sockpuppets to change it.

• I have now come to believe that I was mistaken when I wrote at ANI that the SBL could not be used to to counter the insertion of phishing links. It is not a perfect solution, but it may be enough.

2. Remove the link.

• This option is particularly effective because once people stop relying on the article to get to the site, the phisher has no incentive to reinsert the link.

Here is what I propose: We remove the link for now because of the problematic nature of the current situation. I will then file an RfC on this page and hopefully a consensus will emerge as to which one of these options is best from an editorial perspective. How does that sound? ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 22:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

That sounds very reasonable. I would like to note that removing the valid link will not stop people from inserting phishing links. But I shall not obstruct you in proceeding as you have asked. I do not know the exact procedure for an RfC, but if you could please link to it on this talk page when it is created, I would appreciate it. Thank you for being reasonable. Quantum Burrito (talk) 22:12, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

RFC

Should the article contain link to the Silk Road website? Please see the above discussion for some context. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 22:19, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

As the most obnoxiously insistent editor of this page, I'd like to make a few points:

• Simply removing the link will not stop people inserting a fake link.
• Removing the link will not stop people who search the internet for "silk road" checking its Wikipedia page for a URL.
• Including a website's URL is in accordance with Wikipedia policy, and an almost unquestioned practice until now. No concerns were raised by linking to TBP, the BNP, etc, as far as I can see this is entirely about the risk of phishing.
• There is no reason why the official, multiply cited URL cannot be whitelisted from any phishing site blacklist.
• And finally, in my opinion, making sure the true and accurate Silk Road URL remains on this page is the best and most effective way of stopping phishing attacks against its users. Quantum Burrito (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Good point, but seeing that it is a black market site, I think the link shouldn't be on the page, otherwise s users might think that Wikipedia is supporting black markets. Numbermaniac - T- C 01:51, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment This whole discussion sounds nuts to me. That we should have an article on the Silk Road site is in every way reasonable, encyclopaedic, and a service to the user. That we also should be required, or should permit, a link to the URL is a totally different question and strikes me as having no encyclopaedic function whatsoever. It might not be our explicit duty to block the inclusion of any such link, but it certainly is no part of our function to include it, which would look to me suspiciously like spamming or advertising. Furthermore, either to omit the URL or to enforce its omission would not in any way resemble censorship, because anyone too pig-ignorant to go and look it up on Google if he wants to probably also is too ignorant to find the article on Wikipedia. I vote for omitting the URL in any reasonable form until such time as any opposing editor can supply sound reason for its inclusion as an encyclopaedic item. If there is going to be a dust-up about it, such as disruptive editing or edit warring, then start looking at the normal options for quality assurance, such as locking and exclusion. We have enough people throwing hissy-fits about pictures explicitly displaying the genitals and shameless sexual activity of animals; we don't need to invite being tarred with less benign brushes as well. There is no reason to get shrill about the assessment of how realistic it is to try to omit the entry; if a lot of people add it to their watch lists and desultorily revert every addition, that probably will suffice in practice; if its persistence becomes worthy of serious attention, maybe you can request a bot to perform the function. JonRichfield (talk) 09:20, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Before pulling in their horns again, certain persons frequently voluble in this forum briefly declared themselves unable to see how publishing the URL could be spamming or advertising, but the question is not what they fail to see. The question is how they are to make the rest of us see it their way. As long as we remain unable to overcome our logical and ethical blindness, we need their help rather than criticism, and what I have seen on this page so far won't cut it. Till further enlightenment ensues, I still see it as spamming and advertising -- and unnotable and unencyclopaedic to boot. JonRichfield (talk) 11:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Would the link fall under WP:ELNO #3 as content illegal in Florida? The only problem being, I guess, that that section is disregarded for external links. Samwalton9 (talk) 10:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Not sure - I came across [1] and wonder: if there are reliable sources on the phishing attacks, it's probably more important to cover them than the link itself. I don't really have an opinion on whether to include the link, because of the possible policy issue Samwalton9 raised. EllenCT (talk) 02:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep the link - Linking to the official site of an article is common, useful and encyclopaedic in that it provide contextual source for the article. A reader who goes to this article might want study and research the subject further, getting their own understanding of the subject, and the link provide a mechanism for this. Any argument against the encyclopaedic value would first have to claim that a reader visiting the official site would have no more understanding of the subject than after just reading the article. As an response to comments above, linking to the official site in the article about the site is not spamming or advertising. Such claim invalids that definition of WP:SPAMLINK and the policy within, but also imply that we should not link to official articles if the article is about politics, campaigns, products, or anything else that would be defined as promotional if linked. A link can not be advertising in nature, only the way a link is used can be promotional or spamming. The more valid arguments for omitting the links is IAR (as one person commented in the ANI), or legal/publicity side if WMF takes a stand on the issue. For legal issues, WMF has the only vote and as such, editors that raise this point should ask them for a comment on the issue. Belorn (talk) 07:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep the link - I find there's really no question here. The reason the link was taken from the page in the first place was because it was replaced, more than once, with links to phishing websites (as it's hard to tell at first glance with an .onion link). Adding the link to the whitelist is the best solution. Quantum Burrito's reasoning is sound. Samwalton9, your concern appears to be unnecessary, looking at the clause at the beginning of that particular piece of policy, which states Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject -- which is exactly what we're talking about here. I see no reason to avoid retaining the URL in the article once it has been whitelisted. Keep the link. Sid (talk) 19:33, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep linkAs per Sid's argument -- No one arguing against the link for spam/advertising reasons has ever answered this clear and I think devastating argument. This is not a close debate at all.PStrait (talk) 21:28, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep link - As per HexenX and Belorn. Samwalton9 (talk) 20:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per history, site is blacklisted and its revdeled. Consensus was against, this should not override previous judgement about the link. See relevant ANI page.[2] ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:39, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. The phishing issue aside: if the Foundation declines to make any decision and consent by silence, the decision whether or not to keep the link still has to be made by editors. Neither ToS clause seems relevant to me, and there is compelling encyclopedic reason to have the link. --Gwern (contribs) 23:45 12 April 2013 (GMT)
• This issue was already discussed here [3] where it seems a consensus believes that such a link was against policy, whether the link is valid or not. There isn't an encyclopedic value that overrides good judgement to not publish. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:03, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It is obviously encyclopedic to link to a website where the website is the entirety of the subject matter. As for your ANI link - so what? No one there explained what policy it was against or why. Chihuahua makes up a new NOT (not a recreational drug site? No shit sherlock, what does that have to do with linking?) and his real opinion is clearly given by his description as 'advertising' (so what?). Canens admits there's no reason when he calls for the removal to be done under IAR. Nyttend has no idea what he's talking about and later on proposes to amend policy specifically to ban it (so, it's against policy? then why do we need to amend policy to ban it...?). DGG and Bushranger make a completely false equivalency (this is not a copyright violation site, so contributory copyright is irrelevant). Wehwalt makes the astonishing argument that since the address is easy to get, we ought to not include it (well! Time to delete all our pages on popular topics like Barack Obama or Pokemon, since you know, it's so easy to get information about them online). WONG just bans the addresses, no policy justification there! The anonymous IP makes the obvious points that no one has actually come up with a reasonable policy justification - and the only responses are to immediately make the phishing excuse (make up your minds, should the link not be there because phishing is too heavy, or should it not be there because it's against policy? Which is it?) and Wilkins makes a technical procedural point (super job there). And then the ANI post is archived and apparently now we have people like you going around claiming this confirms that the SR homepage is now against policy.

What consensus? There is no consensus there. --Gwern (contribs) 00:32 13 April 2013 (GMT)

You might want to visit the ANI discussion on it. [4]. I think you will have a difficult time convincing everyone that the article is "lesser" without that link. The current consensus is that it can't be included, via that other discussion. This is an issue that is larger than a single article, it covers our terms of use and legal liability, just as we don't provide links to known copyright infringement. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:36, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Gwern, your argument here is to include a black market is that it is the official website for an illicit drug market? Seriously? So by that same token you'd link to other illicit material if it has an official website? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:41, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Chris, way to ignore almost everything I wrote. 'other illicit material'? We are discussing Silk Road, not all the other hypotheticals you might like to discuss. --Gwern (contribs) 02:45 13 April 2013 (GMT)

Keep in mind, this isn't about morality, I'm not here to tell anyone what drugs to take or not take, it is an issue of liability for linking to obviously illegal material and responsibility for publishing links that are very difficult to verify because they are accessible by TOR only (something most people don't use) and they are ripe for phishing. Basically, we do a disservice to the reader by including links to websites that are dangerous, illegal or otherwise have more risk than benefit by the linking. There is no "right" to having a primary link in an article, and Wiki-wide policy overrides editorial consensus established on a single article's talk page. This is why I didn't bother "Opposing", as I don't think the vote count is going to matter here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not an issue of liability. I already pointed this out: this is not contributory copyright infringement, which is what was falsely claimed to be relevant in your linked ANI thread which I have debunked. And the 'TOR is hard to verify' is silly; anyone can install Tor for free following the easy official guide if they want, and I don't see anyone arguing that Wikipedia ban links to sites like Elsevier or JSTOR because the papers are behind a paywall and are 'very difficult to verify' without paying $50.

How are we doing readers a disservice? Those who are not interested will not use the link; those who are interested may use the link, and its removal is a 'disservice' to them. You have not established the link is 'dangerous', you have not established that it is 'illegal', you have not established that there is any 'more risk than benefit by the linking', and you have no established that there is any 'Wiki-wide policy' which 'overrides' the subject-area editors. --Gwern (contribs) 02:45 13 April 2013 (GMT)

As for WP:V, that doesn't apply here. The concern isn't about editorial accuracy as much as determining what is and isn't vandalism (phishing). As for the current consensus, I didn't establish anything, others did at an administrative board, and I didn't participate in that discussion. My objective is enforcing the consensus of that discussion until a proper discussion overturns it. I've tried my best to explain what they concluded, but it wasn't "my" decision to start with. Regardless, I've made it clear that myself and other admin have every intention of upholding the previous consensus until a new one forms, and hopefully I won't have to block people in the process. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:53, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Dennis, am I understanding you correctly that you are going to ignore every single one of my points, repeat everything you've said before, and not even try to defend your claims as you impose what you perceive as a consensus (of a handful of uninvolved people who can't agree on the grounds for a ban, implicitly agree that the link is not banned because policy needs to be amended to ban it, and cannot justify themselves to an anonymous editor) over the teeth of any opposition by actual editors? Wow. I at least applaud your willingness to own your behavior as mindless "just following orders". --Gwern (contribs) 03:00 13 April 2013 (GMT)

While I'm at it, I'll note my amusement at Dennis's apparent retaliation.

Never mind that my page helped Christin discover a major error in his 2012 published paper linked above, never mind that it's only partially even construable as a 'how to', never mind that WP:EL does not even ban 'how tos' in the first place, never mind that WP:EL specifically says that non-RSs should be considered for linking in external links, never mind that part of the page is an RS published in "A Global Village" - he will take this opportunity. --Gwern (contribs) 03:35 13 April 2013 (GMT)

• Oppose link per Wikipedia:ELNO#Links_normally_to_be_avoided, and previous ANI decision. Also propose revisiting Nyttend's ANI proposal to make links to phishing/malware/drugselling/ websites part of WP:ELNEVER, along with bombmaking and paedophile websites. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:55, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Note - there's no reason that the article cannot mention malware and phishing in the text (currently it doesn't), we could lower the source benchmark a little, provided there's some source. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:EL does not apply to "a link to an official page of the article's subject" such as the one being discussed here, and the ANI decision does not appear to be a decision at all, it appears that no consensus was reached. Samwalton9 (talk) 06:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

• To be clear, I've RevDel'ed all edits with the *onion address. I hate to be so blunt, but anyone unilaterally adding it back is likely to get blocked unless there is first a clear consensus outside of this talk page and in a public forum that would override the previous decision at ANI. As it stands now, I read it as a consensus there that the address should not be included. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:56, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose link Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with a mandate to record notable topics, but no mandate to allow use of this site to assist external sites. If anyone is interested, they are sure to find lots of info at Google, so the only justification for including a free link here is that other pages have one. There is no point debating whether WP:EL does or does not permit the link because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy where outcomes are decided by the precise wording of a rule. What counts is whether there would be any encyclopedic benefit from this link, and the answer is no. Johnuniq (talk) 03:57, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose link: Link serves no conceivable encyclopedic purpose. Therefore simply doesn't belong here. Arguing policy is irrelevant. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 05:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose link - per IIO. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose link - Business spam for a black market site; not accessible by normal linking (another violation of the linking guideline); high risk of insertion of malware. A laundry list of reasons why NOT to link. Carrite (talk) 08:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment(s) - First, WP:ELOFFICIAL says that we should link to the official website of the subject of the page. Even if a link is 'spam' (in the broadest sense), a page should have a link to the official website (we, liberally, whitelist porn-site's official landing pages if their topic is notable, even if the link has further only been abused). BUT, it is not a MUST, ELOFFICIAL ALLOWS the official link, it does not say that there HAS TO BE the official link. The official link is just there as a service to the reader. There is no real need for it, it is a service. It is not an argument to say that the link has to be there because WP:ELOFFICIAL allows it.

Silkroad is hosted on .onion, and the various silkroad links have been abused (insertion of phishing links, redirects, etc. etc.). That resulted in silkroad###.onion links to be blacklisted. Blanket blacklisting there does not mean that the official link should not be used, it means that that should be discussed in a proper manner, and that the official link, and only the official link, could go through a whitelisting request to be allowed. It should be noted, that the continuous abuse of .onion links now has resulted in a blanket blacklisting of all of .onion. Where needed, the appropriate, specific links which are official can be whitelisted - if that need is here, get consensus to add it, and request for whitelisting. Discuss before adding in this case, discussion trumps blacklisting.

So, unless there is a convincing legal argument why linking to this site is disallowed (in the relevant parts of the world), I do not see why the official site should not be linked (and I doubt whether it is illegal to link to this site anywhere). Arguing that the official site does not serve encyclopedic purpuse is similar to arguing that there is no encyclopedic purpose to link to 'www.wikimedia.org' on Wikimedia. Here, on this local page, having the official link is not 'spam', not in any way more than having the business link of 'www.wikimedia.org' on Wikimedia (however, it is spam practically anywhere else). Neither is it a problem that one needs special software to access the link, if an official site is behind a pay-wall we do link, if an official site requires flash we also link - even if that would be discouraged by WP:ELNO (we should mention that special software is required, like we should do with e.g. .pdf-links or YouTube videos). Any, any other link that is phishing, or redirecting to the site (especially those which have referrals) should, without questions asked, be blacklisted (probably on meta ..?) and one should consider to liberally indefinite block anyone on sight who adds such links in bad faith (WP:IAR also applies to those who find it necessary to IAR and change the links to their favour without establishing consensus). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:20, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose link per what Dennis Brown said. If ANI said no then it's still no the way I see it. MIVP - (Can I Help? ◕‿◕) (Maybe a bit of tea for thought?) 10:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Keep Wikipedia does not stand on the morality of the issue, if they did we wouldn't have articles of serial killers in hopes that someone wouldn't go out and try it or gang related articles. If someone wants to check out Silk Road it's their decision and Wikipedia's responsibility to accurately disseminate real world info. If anything you would be helping people stay safe by not going to an alternative site, a government monitoring site, or god forbid a site with worse intentions engineered to show up in search results above the real site. Because a few countries have made it illegal does not reflect the whole of mankind, we are not our brothers keepers.Geremy Hebert (talk | contribs) 10:42, 13 April 2013 (UTC)