Add Monerica to merchant directory #2398
Conversation
Adds Monerica.com to merchant directory
✅ Deploy Preview for barolo-time-757cf9 ready!Built without sensitive environment variables
To edit notification comments on pull requests, go to your Netlify site configuration. |
|
duplicate of #2117 |
Regarding why this one was closed, is it that the changes can't be tracked in GitHub and that it appears too political? If so:
Also, Monerica in the last year went from having no means of business viability to having sponsorship and affiliate links. There is no way these will be removed. So if it can't be added for that reason, why then is Cryptwerk allowed when it clearly displays affiliate links and ads? What exactly makes Cryptwerk allowed instead of Monerica? Please clarify if Monerica can be included as is, needs modification or simply cannot be added due to the business processes outlined here. Thank you. |
From a visitor perspective, yes, they may misinterpret such as American exceptionalism or/and American imperialism
However the rest balances it a bit. Maybe I'm overthinking and no one cares, I would like to hear other people's opinions. |
|
The political stuff does seem odd. but transparent at least. so the original issue had a complaint from @MajesticBank about the open sourceness of the site, which you claim to have addressed now (i've not confirmed this). I do notice that MB is currently not listed on monerica, do you have their listing history in a file somewhere? is there something we should be aware of as they are listed on our sponsors page? |
It was listed but was removed because the site went offline, see: monerica-project/monerica#129 . This occurred around the time the site migrated from GitHub only to an application. Not sure if this was an intermittent outage or what. The audit trail of the MajesticBank in the application is here: https://app.monerica.com/directoryentry/entryaudits/309 - however, since their site is back online, it is now added back to Monerica.com: monerica-project/Pages@46ffed9 (currently deploying), this time with it's provided TOR link. |
It seems like it's better to overtly say Monerica derives from Monero + the United States of America in terms of the name and to explain the logo. The idea is that the USA does not represent a specific political ideology in that there are different parties, groups, etc. which was meant metaphorically in the context of connecting various Monero businesses, communities, etc. But the name and logo aren't changing so that all have to be taken into consideration. |
|
i noticed this web site checker commit monerica-project/monerica@d09f3bc#diff-78a6ab2214dbbcf1faa43e1c9add640b19e7b2778d9db12fba2b0cd961d271ad , nice to see the back-end is under active development. |
Going forward, sites will be checked every week and added to the submission queue as being offline if the sites don't load. If as site returns then it's assumed someone would re-submit it. But, it's possible the removed ones could be checked again later however this is a concern for https://github.com/monerica-project/monerica |
|
Offtopic for this pr, but there are times when sites fail to load for various reasons (ddos, dns, broken updates etc). maybe only remove when offline twice in a row(?) |
This is why it's a 1 time a week check and then goes into a manual review. But there are other ways to flag and retry sites. The main point is that a reliable directory must have a process to remove sites and there is one now. |
|
Any updates or feedback on this? Thanks |
|
Just wanted to note that Monerica lists the following:
So we have to add a big warning for these merchants which comes with additional risks of having a scam website listed, cryptwerk likewise which is known to promote very scam-looking casi-nos. |
|
@jermanuts what's the relevance with scam? I just checked the sites and looking fine to me. If we have to audit every site they listed then whats the point? |
|
Cryptowerk has been promoted/ linked to by the official Monero site for an incredibly long time. There's nothing on Monerica that is much different that Cryptwerk with regards to those categories. Someone can try to make this statement more clear "Please remember to do your own research before trusting them with your money" such that the Monero project doesn't endorse or encourage any specific site but, if you're going to list Cryptowerk and not Monerica, it seems capricious. |
|
@HardenedSteel Perhaps because it is listed on "your" website? I prefer how KYCnot.me does it https://kycnot.me/?t=&q=&xmr=on you encourage users to actually pay on verified websites with clear ToS, no sponsor, can choose clean no referral links and it is actual useful products and not a list of all X services that accept Monero. |
|
@monerica-project Yeah, but unfortunately it was the only option back then. I was actually thinking about opening a PR to remove cryptwerk and replace it with kycnotme, but this is not related to this PR. I just mentioned it because you brought it up. |
|
This PR was created because Cryptowerk is listed as the recommended source for Monero merchants. Monerica is more focused, has more listings and is better maintained. But, if this PR is not approved then the expectation is that Cryptowerk will also be removed and there will be a policy statement to go along with it. |
|
as for sentiment on this, the monero twitter handle shared monerica in april. 16k views and no complaints (shared by rando on matrix https://xcancel.com/monero/status/1783196341662875799#m) I am aware of there is possibly some controversy around the reasons the maintainer chooses to list / de list services, but we can listen to feedback on this moving forward. |
|
@monerica-project does monerica have a hidden service set up? If not, could you look into setting one .onion link up and linking it on site like Feather or Revuo do? Check their website footers for reference. |
|
With all the delisting and negative media coverage that have been targeting Monero. I think it is better to stay on the safe side and avoid any possible controversial listing on getmonero.org. Monerica have been doing just fine with "word of mouth" and served users looking for a wide range of services that accept Monero and I prefer keeping it this way. |
There is a very low likelihood that delistings and negative media coverage about Monero will ever stop. Do you legitimately think otherwise? Although one can go to kycnot today and see less controversial listings, there is nothing on their site (https://kycnot.me/about) which says they won't eventually just replicate what's on Cryptowerk or Monerica, especially if it's on the official Monero site as the recommended site. So again, this seems to be a capricious decision not based on any policy and not thought through in terms of what direction kycnot will become if you list them instead. To be safe, why not remove all merchants and directories, only link to KYC exchanges? |
|
At this time, there isn't one. It is a goal to have one in though, provided it will work with current DDoS prevention setup. |
|
@monerica-project Tor itself has DDoS protection solution called PoW defense |
Since this is off topic to this PR and due to the complexity of this request for the current architecture, go to this issue: monerica-project/monerica#216 - to discuss further. |
Hmm, CloudFlare? Big no from me, -1 from me to list monerica as-is. GitHub pages would be okay, CloudFlare would not. Related: https://0xacab.org/dCF/deCloudflare/-/blob/master/readme/en.md Yes, I know, DDoS... still. Town isn't getting listed for the same reason, let us know whenever you change CDN provider or implement a better DDoS protection measures. Possible alternatives: Bunny or move from GH Pages to Nginx and deploy this. Live demo available at xcancel - Nitter front-end. |
Yes, there are all concerns. We can wait on moving forward with this PR if that's required. CloudFlare and GitHub Pages are free and have been able to keep Monerica going, without them the costs would have ended the project. The main cost now is a VPS which hosts the application and separate programs which crawl pages and copy them over to GitHub Pages. The cost of it is covered by advertisers. Other costs have to be estimated and paid for, the goal is to grow the site and help the merchants and Monero adoption at large, consequently making these kinds of costs possible to pay. Hence this PR and why trying to get it listed on the main Monero site is something that could help with other infrastructure costs, in trying to make this a bigger business that can address all of these concerns. So it seems the consensus here is let Monerica go figure out technical issues and change its infrastructure to accommodate privacy concerns and come back and try again. |
|
Getmonero.org is on cloudflare. neither monerica.com nor getmonero.org implement the CF captcha/gate |
Just to add on to what nahuhh said - the point about Cloudflare issues stands, but as long as getmonero.org continues to use Cloudflare, it seems... harsh (?) to penalize Monerica for this. |
|
This will most likely not be in the next deploy as we have some work to do on the merchants page #2407 |
Here is one for monerica.com : http://67w4f46nfrfigohl4ypgpo7cjnftl57rorha3zmn4xkll5jvmi6mi4qd.onion/ |
|
@monerica-project Very nice, man! Thanks for the quick turnaround. Make sure you add it somewhere on the site, footer, for example. Also, make sure you set up an Try going to feather wallet or revuo monero website using Tor browser to see what I mean live. Cheers. |
In researching this, there are 2 ways to do it, adding a |
Monerica.com (started in January 2022) is a community maintained directory for Monero businesses and resources. Adding it as a resource to this section is of great value to the Monero community.