account ยท post 01 of 7 in this channel
Signing up to WeTheNorth market takes about four fields
The form is short. That is the problem, because short forms feel unimportant and this one is not.
the three wethenorth market addresses
hn2paw7zfvndw3dovycegeqmvvnf4pl67b3g2p7pohjlzavloosh73id.onionhn2paw7zrgujyhnt6mgxlt2q6uhgbke4itpqitxhyfbumq3wtnckbuyd.onionhn2paw7zadwkcra3qzv5e4q547i7e5lvxm62cfxqftuqdu7moiu2ceyd.onionprinted the way they were handed over. no labels, no numbering, nothing here says which one to try first. this feed never opens them, so it has no status light, no percentage and no date of checking to give you.
what it asks for
A username. A password. Usually a confirmation of the password. Often a separate pin for withdrawals. Sometimes a captcha again on the way through.
What it does not ask for is the interesting part. No email address, no phone number, no name, no verification of any kind.
That absence is not carelessness. It is the design. There is nothing to recover an account with because there is nothing on file.
the consequence people miss
On every other site you have ever registered on, the email field is the escape hatch. Forget the password and the escape hatch opens.
Take the email field away and the password becomes the entire account. There is no forgotten password link that means anything, because there is nowhere for it to send anything.
The post on the password is entirely about this, and it is worth reading before you invent one at the form.
the recovery phrase
Somewhere during or just after registration you will be shown a phrase, often called a mnemonic or a recovery phrase. It appears once.
It is the only thing standing between you and a permanently lost account, and it is displayed at the exact moment when you are least prepared for something important.
Stop at that screen. Do not scroll past it. The recovery phrase post exists because so many people do exactly that.
decide before you open the form
This is the practical advice in the post. Choose your username, your password and where the recovery phrase will live before you start typing.
A form invents things for you if you arrive without them. What it invents is whatever is nearest to hand, which is usually something you already use elsewhere.
Ninety seconds of preparation removes the entire category of decisions made under mild pressure.
what happens straight after
You are in, and the account is empty. There is no balance, no orders, no history. Nothing is urgent.
That calm gap is the right time to do the storing and the writing down, rather than later when you are actually trying to do something.
Later never comes. That is not a moral observation, it is just what happens.
One more thing about that gap. It is also the only time you will ever see this account with nothing at stake, which makes it the only time you can test things freely. Sign out and sign back in once, just to prove to yourself that what you wrote down works.
A credential you have used once is a credential. A credential you have only written down is a hope.
replies
a reader askedIs registration free?
the answerRegistration itself is normally just a form. Any page that wants a payment before you can create an account is not the arrangement described here, and that difference is worth stopping over.
a reader askedCan I change my username later?
the answerAssume not. Usernames on markets like this are generally fixed at creation, which is why the post on the username spends so long on a field people fill in without looking.
a reader askedWhat if I lose everything immediately after signing up?
the answerThen you register again, which costs you nothing at that point because the account is empty. Losing an account is cheap on day one and expensive on day thirty, and people only learn that on day thirty.
what this post is not Not a walkthrough of a specific current registration form. Forms change, and this feed does not open the market, so it describes the shape and the decisions rather than the screens.