getting in ยท post 04 of 7 in this channel
What the WeTheNorth market front page actually shows you
People expect a shop front. What arrives is closer to a locked door with a small sign on it.
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.
the first thing to know is that you cannot browse
Almost nothing is visible before you have an account. There is no catalogue to wander through, no listings to compare, no way to look before deciding.
That surprises people every time, because every shop on the normal web is built the other way round. Browsing first is the standard, and here it is not on offer.
The reason is structural rather than commercial. Anything visible without an account is visible to everyone, including people whose interest in it is not shopping.
so what is on the page
A place to sign in. A place to register. Usually a short statement about what the market is and who it is for, and often a note in both English and French, which is covered in the post on english and french.
Sometimes a notice about the current state of things. Sometimes nothing at all beyond the form.
That is genuinely the whole page. Its plainness is not a sign of an unfinished site.
why it looks so unfinished
Heavy pages load badly over Tor, so anything decorative gets cut. No large images, no fonts fetched from somewhere else, no scripts doing clever things.
The result reads as cheap to eyes trained on modern commercial design. It is actually the appropriate design for the medium, and a market front page covered in polish would be spending your connection on nothing.
Judging this page by how professional it looks is the wrong instrument entirely.
what the front page cannot tell you
Whether you are in the right place. A copy of a front page is easy to make, because there is so little on it to copy.
The plainness that makes it appropriate also makes it forgeable. There is no design flourish here that would be hard to reproduce.
So the check has to happen at the address, before the page loads, not by looking at what appeared.
what to do here
Read whatever notice is on it, since that is the one part carrying information. Then either sign in or go to signing up.
Do not go looking for a way around the wall. There is not one, and the things that claim to be one are the interesting problem.
It is also worth noticing what you are not being asked for at this stage. A front page wants a username and a password. If something here wants an email address, a phone number or a recovery phrase before you have an account, you are being asked for more than the door requires.
replies
a reader askedCan I see the listings without registering?
the answerNo. That is a deliberate arrangement rather than a limitation, and it is the same on every mirror in the set above.
a reader askedThe front page looks different from what I saw before. Is that bad?
the answerFront pages get redesigned, and notices change. A visual difference is weak evidence in either direction. If you are worried, the thing to re-examine is the address you arrived on, not the pixels.
a reader askedThere is a notice on the page I do not understand. Should I follow it?
the answerRead it, and be slow about acting on anything that asks you to move somewhere else or to hand over something. A notice is text on a page, and it is exactly as trustworthy as the page.
what this post is not Not a description of any specific current front page. Layouts and notices change, and this feed does not open the market, so it describes the shape rather than the contents.