Previous discussion, from 22 days ago (stickied from 2015-5-25 to 2015-5-29): [Meta] What could vconspiracy do to better itself? I'd like to invite anyone with an interest in conspiracies or underreported events to join me in brainstorming ways to make this sub excellent.

Intro

Hello! I'd like to invite you all to join me in a continuation of our community brainstorming discussion on making our subverse and community excellent. If you have an interest in conspiracy theories or underreported events, even if you don't subscribe to this subverse, your thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

What could we do to make /v/Conspiracy a more effective community hub for uncovering, organizing, sharing, and discussing information about conspiracies and secret agreements and all the related things that go into that?

In our last discussion, 21 awesome people participated, sharing their ideas and sentiments. I'm pretty happy about that. Thanks everyone!

I've reviewed that discussion and put together a somewhat organized summary of the suggestions and ideas shared there, as well as one suggestion from /v/conspiracymeta. I'd like to invite you all to review these and share your thoughts and opinions, and any additional ideas or suggestions that you think might benefit the community.

Ideas and Suggestions

In trying to summarize/organize these, I made a mind map: http://a.pomf.se/burzjq.png Everything below this line is basically the same as what is in the map. Edit: imgur mirror, since pomf.se seems to be down as i write this: https://i.imgur.com/VGDuIZm.png

---

1. Trolls

^{Summarized contributions from: @implantremoved [1]; @Mumberthrax [1]; @throwawaynkc [1]}

A. Don't feed the trolls

• Don't upvote, don't support, don't respond
• Try and remain calm and collected. don't let it get the better of you.

B. Encourage development of skills to handle trolling and inflammatory commentary

• Maybe an informative/instructional link in the sidebar
• Guideline in the sidebar: encourage users to self-police disruptive comments

2. Racism

^{Summarized contributions from: @AlmightySonOfBob [1, 2]; @alwaysturning [1]; @implantremoved [1]; @throwawaynkc [1]}

A. It does not help our community, only harms it

B. Don't allow it or support it

C. Users should call out and report racism

D. Mods: listen when users report racism

3. Culture and Etiquette

^{Summarized contributions from: @AlmightySonOfBob [1]; @erietemperance [1]; @Mumberthrax [1,2]; @partycrasher [1]}

A. Have a civil, thoughtful, and friendly community culture

B. Tolerance of all discussions - if you don't like a particular theory, don't jump in and start calling everyone names and saying how stupid it is. mods should remind users of that.

• A place where we can discuss conspiracy theories without the fear of getting harassed and bullied for being curious and wanting to explore
• Community shares common interest and respects each other
• Debates = good. vitriol/personal-attacks = bad
• Set the cultural tone early

• Mods can remind people where they are

  "You are in /v/conspiracy, that means we're going to talk about conspiracies and we take some of it seriously"

C. Promote skepticism of various conspiracy theories as much as for the "official story" - seek evidence and corroboration

D. Allow people who are civil but disagree to participate.

4. Community Growth and Participation

^{Summarized contributions from: @MagnaFarce [1]; @Meechum [1]; @Mumberthrax [1,2]; @OWNtheNWO [1]; @partycrasher [1]}

A. Acquire more users, and get them to stay.

B. Find ways to encourage existing users to post more content - ideally high quality and original content.

• Not difficult to find content: facebook, /r/conspiracy/new, alt media sites

C. Encourage more commenting activity moreso than fluff/twaddle posting - quality not quantity.

D. Encourage research and discussion of topics in the comments.

5. Signal-Noise Ratio, discussion fragmentation, organization

^{Summarized contributions from: @arrggg [1,2]; @BAMFmaster [1]; @Charlie_Prime [1]; @Dysnomia [1]; @Homo_ludens [1,2,3]; @jayocjay [1]; @MagnaFarce [1]; @me2 [1]; @Mumberthrax [1,2,3,4]; @OWNtheNWO [1,2,3]}

A. Use sticky posts to feature discussions on specific topics

• Ask in a sticky post what topics people want to discuss, sort based on votes
• Maybe some sort of reward system for people who post high-quality posts so they get to suggest a future topic (like /r/redditdayof)

B. Self-post summaries/reviews on some or all links

• Encourage people to write a short self-post paragraph about a youtube video and what can be gained from watching it, instead of just a direct link
• Same as above, but for all links

C. Instead of posting several links on a topic, post new articles and links in the discussion of one post.

D. Combine duplicate posts into a group, reduce fragmented discussions.

• Maybe a site-wide change on /v/ideasforvoat
• Maybe just a comment in posts including duplicate or related posts
• Maybe some sort of incentive system to encourage finding and posting related discussions

E. A tag that can be placed in headlines that lists the number of sources cited

F. Promote critical thinking tools, organizational tools

• Conspiracy theory rating scale

G. site-wide change: let mods adjust the weight of self-posts vs. links

H. Have popular conspiracies like 9/11 in the sidebar, post links for people to research

6. Community Projects

^{Summarized contributions from: @conspiratees [1]; @Dysnomia [1,2]; @Homo_ludens [1, 2, 3]; @imtoophilosophical [1]; @Mumberthrax [1,2]}

A. Glossary of conspiracy theory terms, theories, prominent figures

B. "Open source" investigations/reports

C. Re-post heavily sourced threads from /r/conspiracy. Maybe a megathread of these.

7. Misc.

^{Summarized contributions from: @arrggg [1]; @hackisucker [1]; @me2 [1]; @Mumberthrax [1,2,3]; @BUILDING7 [1]}

A. mods: don't make an "official" product without talking to the community about it first - e.g. podcast.

B. A rule requiring evidence to back up a claim. no "you can google it yourself" or "the burden of proof is on you for questioning my theory"

C. Stickied posts with the latest major "doom warnings"

D. Modify rule 1 to inlcude "no images macros/images with text on them"

E. Make night mode work - current CSS/theme nightmode is broken.

• Voat has a planned fix for this. alternatives are: no custom style, a dark style

Meta-stuff

If you have suggestions or ideas for how this process of soliciting ideas and feedback can be improved, please share! Either in the comments below, or on /v/ConspiracyMeta.

---

Edit: 2015/6/9 Unstickying so that a new post may be stickied: [Meta] vConspiracy Community Discussion: Moderation