Serious question. It's become horribly obvious that racists are spamming the living hell out of /r/conspiracy. I kinda like this subverse and I'm hoping not too many of the stormweenies/chimpiracists come over here and ruin it.
What are you thoughts?
FYI: If you feel the need to hate on me that's fine. I'm moderator of /r/TopMindsOfReddit, /r/AgainstTheChimpire, /v/TopMindsOfVoat, and /v/AgainstTheChimpire. I thought you guys should know. I don't hate any of you and honestly this subverse reminds me of what /r/conspiracy used to be like.
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Mumberthrax ago
I think this question presumes that the people who post and comment and vote on /r/conspiracy are a homogeneous whole with a single culture or set of beliefs. Like reddit, and voat, and really any social forum, it is more complex than that.
There are legitimate racists there, no doubt. People who are afraid of Jews, who see them as greedy or deceptive/manipulative, and some who believe that they secretly are devil-worshippers.
There are people there who do not hate Jews, but who hate Israel, or who hate the things the Israeli government does to other people.
There are people who are not racist, but who enjoy trolling and trying to provoke a response by pretending to be racist.
There are people who pose as sincere truth-seekers, and in the process express blatantly racist views in order to 1) encourage legitimately racist people to post more 2) give the entire group of people there a bad image. (see bipolarbear0 as an admitted case of this)
Where the ratios for those stand, I am not certain. /r/conspiracy has a lot of issues, like brigades and vote manipulation from places like /r/conspiratard who revel in the dumbest things people can say on /r/conspiracy. It really ruins things, and you can see it in the /new/ page where serious conspiracy-related topics are buried by disinformation and fluff. The moderators have made no attempts to improve the quality or encourage more sensible conduct, but at this point there's not much they could do because such a large portion of the people active are not really interested in actually discussing conspiracy theories seriously (at least, this is what I am supposing).
It's a problem that, I think, stems from not nipping crap in the bud before it began to flourish.
So in short, yes there are some racists on /r/conspiracy and no the bulk of the people actually interested in posting there are not racist.
AlmightySonOfBob ago
/r/conspiratard no longer does that. In fact they'll ban you for linking to conspiracy.
Agree.
Completely agree.
Don't get me wrong. I know a large portion of the /r/conspiracy userbase isn't racist at all. I have a few friends over there too. It's just becoming such an issue that I've been told by several users that it's pissing them off to be getting invaded by such people. The mods are probably so overwhelmed it's hard to keep up. I had a former mod of /r/conspiracy, /u/go1dfish, do an AMA in my subreddit /r/topmindsofreddit and he said the mod mail was always..ALWAYS full. He said no matter what they'd never get caught up.
Mumberthrax ago
go1dfish is the fricken awesome. Very sensible, and his subreddits are earnest attempts to curtail abuse of moderation powers.
r/conspiratard may not directly permit posts to /r/conspiracy anymore, but that doesn't mean the sort of people there don't spend time on /r/conspiracy trolling or voting. I obviously have no way to prove this. I think it would be disingenuous to propose that because they made a new rule about it that the community will suddenly stop doing what they've been doing.
I kind of feel like /r/topmindsofreddit is in a similar vein. It's used to lampoon and malign conspiracy theorists, that it serves to preemptively discredit anyone who considers or believes in a conspiracy theory regardless of the evidence or actual plausibility of the theory. It's really frustrating.
Conspiracies do happen. A lot of conspiracy theories are junk. The /r/conspiracy subreddit does not provide a conducive forum for promoting critical thinking in evaluation of the theories. The best content it's had lately has been the meta-reddit stuff because that's content that is accessible to everyone, not just those who study history or know who the Rothschilds are or what Gladio B is, etc. so it's a frustrating situation all around. I'm hopeful that /v/conspiracy can distinguish itself, and become a better place for civil discussion on conspiracies and deep politics to take place without all the appeals to emotion and racism. It's small now, but if it grows too much I foresee places like /v/topmindsofvoat drawing people here to troll and start up the same junk.
AlmightySonOfBob ago
Oh I don't doubt that, but you can't blame /r/conspiratard for that anymore. You can blame me and my subreddit for that. Though we don't troll, at least not all of us. If my users troll I don't know about that and if I did they'd be banned.
Our intention with that sub is to create more of a entertaining sub rather than a sub to debate or refute anything. Sure we mock but conspiracy theorists mock us too. I think in this day and age you've got to have a sense of humor. If it frustrates you then you probably need to chill and realize, almightysonofbob/mod of tmor isn't all that bad. I don't hate conspiracy theorists...well the super crazy ones I do but I think we can all agree that some of them are batshit CRAZY. I was conspiracy theorists aka Top Minds to feel free to have a humorous and light hearted conversation with those who disagree. As long as they don't get super pissed I don't ban anyone.
I hope /v/conspiracy does just what you said. I like it here. Yes if /v/conspiracy takes off /v/topmindsofvoat might too but realize I'm just having a little laugh. I'm not trying to discredit anyone and I'm certainly not trying to cause issues or harm to anyone. You are more than welcome to stop by and discuss things with me.
I'm more than welcoming of any discussion you'd like to have. I also appreciate your honesty.
Mumberthrax ago
To be honest, I have not visited /r/topmindsofreddit very thoroughly. I think perhaps my impression of the "laugh at conspiracy theorists" culture has been tainted by people like herkimer and jcm267 and nolibs, who stuck a treasure troll flair on my username when i was criticizing them for harassing behavior. I shouldn't be so prejudiced.
I think that being able to laugh at ourselves as conspiracy theorists is a good thing. For instance, I really enjoy the videos produced by joy camp, and i liked the /r/conspiracysatire subreddit when it first was created. Maybe I have a persecution complex from all the jokes and ridicule about tinfoil hats and such. :P and I agree there are some definite batshit insane theories out there!
Anyway, I'm happy to have discussed this with you. It's good to know that you aren't like some who would call us all Alex Jones fanatics and dismiss everything.
AlmightySonOfBob ago
I understand where you're coming from. I'm not going to sit here and say "you'll like topmindsofreddit" but just know you're welcome to enter into discussion with us just as long as you maintain that light heartedness/humor I spoke of. All are welcome IMO.
Don't forget that I used to be a conspiracy theorist and in some ways I may still be. I just like to find a good nutty comment and have a laugh. Or a good discussion. Thanks for the talk buddy. I hope to see you around.