Nothing works until something else is already true
This site is a prerequisite map. Thirty seven conditions, arranged by what waits on what, so you can find out what your problem is actually blocked on rather than what it looks like.
What this is
Most pages about reaching a marketplace over Tor are lists. Do this, then this, then this. A list is a poor description of the situation, because the thing that stopped you is usually not the step you are standing on. It is something three steps back that was quietly false the whole time, and the step you are standing on is merely where it became visible.
So this site is arranged the other way round. Every page is one condition that has to already be true. Each one states what it rests on, and, more importantly, what stops working if it is false. Follow the arrows backwards from whatever is not working and you arrive at the condition that is actually the problem. That is the entire idea, and the rest of the site is thirty seven worked examples of it.
A card is not a task
A task is something you do. A condition is something that is either true or not. The difference matters because you can perform every task on a checklist correctly and still have a false condition, and because a condition can become false again later without anybody doing anything. The clock drifts. A quote expires. A balance stops being spendable. None of those are tasks you failed to complete.
Each card carries the same four labels: what it depends on, what it blocks, how you confirm it, and what it is not. The one that carries the weight is what it blocks. That is the direction this site is built around, and it is why the pages read forwards even though you will usually walk them backwards.
How to use it when something is broken
- Name the thing that will not work, as narrowly as you can.
- Find it on the dependency map and read its upstream column.
- Go to each upstream condition and ask whether it is actually true, not whether you did it.
- When you find one that is false, read its downstream list. If the other things on that list are also failing, you have found the real fault.
- If everything upstream is true, the fault is in the condition itself and not before it.
That procedure is short because the work is in step three. Asking whether a condition is true, rather than whether you performed a task, is an unfamiliar habit and it is the only thing this site is really teaching.
What is deliberately absent
No availability figure, no status indicator and no date of last contact, because this site does not open either address it publishes and will not pretend otherwise. No prices, no fee amounts, no delivery times and no confirmation counts, because any number of that kind would be wrong by the time you read it. No accounts, no cookies, no analytics, no advertising and nothing for sale. About this site sets out the rest.
Where to start reading
- How to read a card The four labels, the arrows, and how to walk them backwards.
- The dependency map Every condition, with its upstream and downstream columns.
- Roots and endings The three conditions that hold up everything, and the three that hold up nothing.
- If this is false Every condition, with the full list of what stops when it is not true.
- The two onion addresses What is published here, and what publishing it does not mean.
- Words used here The handful of terms this site uses in a narrow sense.