[Meta] /v/Conspiracy Community discussion: Moderation Policy Document (Conspiracy)

submitted ago by Mumberthrax

A Policy for Moderators to Follow

Hi folks, Mumberthrax here. I have another boring post for you today about... Moderation Policy!

Yes that's right, another moderation policy post. I bet you're getting tired of those and want fun stuff, eh? Well if we have a good mod policy document in place, then mods will hopefully be better empowered to implement fun stuff like AMAs and quality sticky'd topic discussion posts. At least that's the supposition ; )

So I drew up this rough draft of a moderation policy document (based on the suggestions from the previous community discussions: 1, 2, 3) and ran it by the mod team for any critiques. Now we'd like to present it to the community for review.

Here it is!

https://github.com/Mumberthrax/VoatConspiracy/blob/master/ModerationPolicy.md

It is mostly common sense stuff, but I think it's important to have it laid out just so everyone is on the same page, especially for when new moderators are added. Think of it like a constitution that guides your public servants in the manner you prefer - because this document is intended to be part of our "open source" moderation project on github, where anyone may submit proposals for changes to be incorporated into it. Basically, you the community get to help shape the policy that you the community follow when you take on the role of moderator.

Your feedback is important

So if you would, take a look and share your opinion on it in the comments below. Please feel free to be as critical as you like (though offering specific suggestions for solutions is ideal!). There are a few spots where there are unanswered questions relating to the addition of new moderators - these questions are not urgent, and a community discussion on that specific topic is upcoming so they don't have to be answered just yet.

If there's no opposition to this document as it exists currently, then we'll go ahead and make it our official moderation policy for now.

Thanks for your time, and thanks for being a part of our community here at /v/conspiracy! :D

Upcoming community discussions:

  • How we select new moderators: challenges, options

  • Racism and bigotry, Conspiracy theories about specific races or peoples, and how we want to handle these things

  • Subverse rules: updates, possible additions/changes.

Some random things you may be interested in (Please accept this content as an apology for boring meta stuff!):

Edit: Yes, I unsticky'd @AssuredlyAThrowAway's post about /v/nottheonion. Yes, you're welcome to ask about it in the comments here.

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stealthboy ago

In my humble opinion, "moderating" is becoming too much of a thing that is seen as important in itself. This is what caused the downfall on that other site. Mods are seeing their "job" as something with power and import. Does it really matter? There is an upvoat and downvoat button. That's what it's for - to let the user base decide what they want to see. Is something posted that is offensive, stupid, or off topic? Hit that down button and be on your way. If something that is inappropriate has many upvoats then obviously the community wants to see it. The mods need to stay out of the way.

This is all just my opinion on the matter. I appreciate that you're trying to do something, but I just don't thing that something needs to be done. Mods need to be unseen.

Mumberthrax ago

Alright, so we could have a completely anarchic subverse - just let the votes do what they do.

As someone with an interest in conspiracy theories and related things, I want to go someplace where conspiracy theories are discussed in an intelligent way, where my contributions (and others' quality contributions) are seen and not buried under mountains of junk from sorcha faal or alex jones fearmongering (not to say jones is always fearmongering, but it happens a lot). I don't think anyone would deny that there is a LOT of garbage that gets spread around - misinformation and disinformation, not to mention astroturfing and hasbara fucking up votes and the conversations with flaming and attacks.

To be clear, as a user I want to see three things in a conspiracy theory discussion community:

  1. Quality information organization. I want to see the dots connected in a rational and well-sourced way, or at least articulately argued, and i don't want this information to slide out of sight with the next wave of posts.

  2. High resilience against disruptive elements. Astroturfing, flaming/trolling in the comments, disinformation, black propaganda, spam; all of these are problems that /r/conspiracy suffers from. It's my contention that the moderators there are not interested in remedying them, or are uncertain how to do so, or are afraid to try anything to limit it.

  3. An active, engaged community. I want to see people who stick around and talk with each other, who are involved in running their own projects to help sort information and educate each other.

So how can I find these things? This subverse was pretty good before the influx of people from reddit since the FPH/AMAGeddon incidents. How will we prevent it from becoming /r/conspiracy?

nokilli ago

Admins need to give you the option of making upvoats cost a CCP to tackle that, and they're not going to do that because they're already thinking about...

4) Profit!

Mumberthrax ago

I don't understand. Could you elaborate on the connection between that feature and a motivation for profit?

nokilli ago

Well if what they're saying about reddit's machinations is correct then it's all about appeasing advertisers.

Will advertisers be as interested in voat if the site better allows its users the opportunity to moderate? That means more "speaking truth to power" stuff and less fluff.