To quote from the Pirate Browser's website:
PirateBrowser is a bundle package of the Tor client (Vidalia), FireFox Portable browser (with foxyproxy addon) and some custom configs...
Seeing as this browser is using Tor in the background, and will probably come with it's own configuration hassles/tweaks etc, will we allow questions that support it?
(Assuming it sticks around)
Proposal: Tor
As long as those questions pertains in any way to Tor, I see no reason not to. Censorship evasion is not the main goal of Tor, but it is one of them.
The Pirate Browser will likely become one of the major vectors people will choose to use to regain their privacy via Tor. It seems entirely on-topic, does it not?
Speaking as a maintainer of Whonix, as someone who is active within the Tor community, I've asked the same question, although on tor-talk:
tor-talk: Are non-official projects welcome to Stackexchange Tor Q&A forum?
Hi!
Short version:
Can I redirect Whonix users to Stackexchange Tor Q&A forum?
Long version:
There are many Tor related projects, which are non-official, such as Whonix, Liberte Linux, TorChat, etc.
Can non-official projects redirect their users questions to the Stackexchange Tor Q&A forum? I mean, will those questions be accepted or will they get closed by the moderator?
- I really like to see a Tor forum succeed.
- I am not eager to run a separate Whonix forum.
- The Tor support team is free to ignore those questions.
- The Tor support team (and anyone else) is free to point out that these projects are non-official and unsupported.
Cheers, adrelanos
Got an answer:
from Nick
Hi!
So, we chatted about it a little, and we're not 100% actually sure what the right answer should be there. We don't mind general questions about other Tor-related projects, but we'd like to avoid having that stuff ramp up faster than the Tor questions. Also we're also worried that if we say 'yeah, sure, go ahead' then we'll get swamped with support requests for stuff like "tormail," or the next Haystack, or that it's going to turn into a promotional vehicle for somebody with a forked Tor called tOr, or some drama like that.
On the other hand, I don't want to have people decline to answer questions like "What are all my options for a Tor-based operating system?" or "How can I transparently proxy traffic to Tor on Windows". So we need a good answer here, and I don't know what it is.
How about we this: Let's all try to make an honest effort to focus on stuff that Tor releases for now, answer relevant questions for other Tor-related stuff as it shows up, and revisit this in a little while, once we see how it goes?
Everybody's still working out how we want to use this, and it's only going to work out if it has a happy, engaged community. That means IMO we should avoid making and avoid looking for Big Policy Pronouncements, and lean towards decisions of the form "let's try X for now and see how it works out".
At least, that's how I'd go. It's not actually my call, and I'm not currently moderating it, but I don't think that's a crazy approach for now.
best wishes, -- Nick
And another interesting one from:
from Runa
On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 2:39 PM, adrelanos wrote:
Runa A. Sandvik:
On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 12:58 PM, Nadim Kobeissi wrote:
I disagree with the Tor Project pushing for a StackExchange that is limited to Tor, when a StackExchange for Anonymity Technology doesn't exist as a whole. I would prefer that a SE for Anonymity software is established that includes Tor as well as other solutions such as I2P. As it stands right now, Tor looks like it's trying to monopolize any possible Anonymity SE, and that's not okay.
There is a thread here that echoes similar concerns: Why limit this to TOR?
Nadim, I said this on Twitter and I will say it here too; the right place for this discussion is on the Stack Exchange proposal page.
It is not up to the Tor Project to decide what goes and what does not on this page, it is up to the community.
That contradicts what Nick initially replied (first reply in this thread).
Stack Exchange proposals and pages are very much community driven. We need help from the community to make our page a success. There is a discussion on our proposal page about whether we should limit the page to Tor-related questions or not; Why limit this to TOR?.
I agree with Nick's statement about seeing how things develop and revisit the question later. I am concerned that including other anonymizing networks and tools, such as Freenet and I2P, will make the site too broad. I would also like to encourage you to comment on the proposal page instead of the tor-talk mailing list. The proposal page is a good place for a discussion about what the page should and should not be.
-- Runa A. Sandvik
Also see:
Why limit this to TOR?
