Many of us hail from /r/conspiracy due to dissatisfaction with some of the things over there, so what problems did/does /r/conspiracy suffer from which /v/conspiracy can learn from and deter?
What could moderators do to make this 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?
What can non-moderators do to achieve the same goals?
Beyond the goals of sharing and discussing conspiracies and conspiracy theories, are there any other things that we would like to see on this subverse?
Are there any other questions we could ask ourselves and seek to answer with the aim of making the subverse and community excellent?
Is this too many questions for one post? :P
Please share your thoughts in the comments - even if you don't subscribe but have ideas or suggestions!
Edit: 14 days later and I'm now a moderator here. I'm stickying this post so anyone who missed it before can participate.
edit2: followup discussion here: [Meta] Brainstorming Thread #2: What could vconspiracy do to better itself? Take a look at this summary of ideas from the previous discussion, and share your thoughts!
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AlmightySonOfBob ago
How would you treat someone like me? I'm a former mod of /r/TopMindsOfReddit, /r/AgainstTheChimpire, and currently moderator here on voat in /v/TopMindsOfVoat. I have many others too. /v/humor is taking off quite nicely.
Anyone who has dealt with me on reddit before my ban knows I'm a very fair person. I enjoy what /r/conspiracy used to be and /v/conspiracy is now. /v/conspiracy reminds me of the old conspiracy subreddit. Yes I mock some comments and tease somewhat but I've been treated very well here. Not so on /r/conspiracy. So much paranoia over there. They even annoyed /r/conspiratard so much the mods there changed the rules which in turn created a few new more focused subs. I once did an AMA in /r/coontown and was treated far better than I was in /r/conspiracy. Sad when racists are more open for discussion than the conspiracy theorists.
That leads me to my second question. How would you keep the stormfronters/chimpire types out of this subverse? Obviously you can't keep them all out but /r/conspiracy got blindsided and now /r/isrconspiracyracist is doing way better than it should. The conspiracy mods should have seen that and taken action. I mod /v/isvconspiracyracist here too and it's pretty much dead. So kudos to the mods here for that.
Mumberthrax ago
Sorry my other comment was a bit of a wall of text, and i didn't even address your last question.
It's a good question to ask. What could we do to keep bigoted posts and comments out? Well for one thing we have a rule against "overt attacks on people's race, religion, ethnicity, nationaliry, or creed", moderators have the ability to remove comments and posts, and users have the ability (if they've got enough CCP) to downvote. If mods and users are vigilant, then that is one strategy.
Do you have any particular suggestions for how it can be approached? Ideas or thoughts?
AlmightySonOfBob ago
Listen to your good users when they say "there's racists here". Also, allow the users to call out racists and racist posts. /r/conspiracy gets butthurt about that. I'm not saying every user will be right but listening to the community and be aware of what's posted in your sub would make a world of difference. I have some users I trust more than others and when they tell me something is wrong or needs to be removed I check it out immediately and solve the issue. I think /v/conspiracy is doing a great job so far but trust me.....chimpire/coontowners/stormfronters are here and they're growing. I talked to a few of them and they're preparring for their subs to get banned and they'll move over here. I want you and the users here to be aware of that. Hopefully this mod team which you are a part of will take a stronger approach to it.
I would hope you'd also allow people like me who are civil but disagree with much of what is in your subverse to participate here. I enjoy talking to people who believe all kinds of stuff. I even talk to the racists. I disagree with them but they find it fun to talk to me. So do some of your users. redditbelowsme is a testament to that. He's a 9/11 truther and one of my mods in /v/humor. We're pretty good pals. I just don't want to be treated like /r/conspiracy treats my type. I think /v/conspiracy is better than that. Let's hope.
Thanks for the response.
Mumberthrax ago
I personally find bigotry abhorrent, however it manifests. I believe that there is no good reason to mock a person for their skin color or sexuality or nationality or age or religion. Stereotypes can be incredibly harmful. I'm thankful that this subverse hasn't grown so large as to attract the attention of bigoted commenters, and that @fenixrisin established early on the rule against bigotry in the sidebar. Though I haven't seen much actual active moderation for those things (due to a lack of need), i think having it there does help to express what sort of community is desired here.
I believe that /r/conspiratard promotes bigotry. I believe that a good deal of the posters there see anyone interested in conspiracies as part of a group that deserves to be ridiculed, attacked, maligned. Perhaps it is in good fun, but even racist jokes can seem to be purely in good fun to some people.
From what I understand, /r/topmindsofreddit is an offshoot of the community of /r/conspiratard when the mods there established a rule about linking to /r/conspiracy, ostensibly to deter brigading. I know brigading and linking to other places on reddit from within reddit is a gray area, so i won't make any judgments there, but there is a connection between a culture that i perceive as toxic and the culture of the people who migrated to that subreddit - and by extension that same culture is likely connected to your subverse.
So it bothers me.
When you and I talked before, you shared with me a different perspective on the thing. You said it's good to laugh at the silly people who take things to extremes. You seemed to suggest that you think some conspiracy theories are legitimately worth looking into, but the real nutty ones can be entertaining. You said that if you can't laugh at yourself, that that is dangerous. I'm paraphrasing, and possibly remembering incorrectly, but that's the impression i got from our talk about how you feel about /r/topmindsofreddit and /v/topmindsofvoat. I think there is truth to it. I think if it can be balanced, then it can even be beneficial to regulars here.
Words are one thing and actions are another. Your subverse, /v/isvconspiracyracist states in the title "yes, yes it is", and one of your posts expresses a desire for more racists to come here as there isn't enough racism to post about. Why? If you sincerely do not believe in bigotry or the value in racism, then why wish for it, and why try to portray our subverse as something shameful when it isn't? If your intentions are as pure as you present them, then why do they conflict with your apparent actions?
The content on /v/topmindsofvoat is mostly benign so far, and still the tone of the whole thing is grating. Instead of calling conspiracy theorists common pejoratives like "twoofer" or "tinfoil hat loonies", now we are "top minds" all of us for the comments some random person on reddit made. It's just another pejorative. It's like when my grandpa says that not all black people are niggers ("not all conspiracy theorists are top minds"), but then goes ahead and refers to most black people he saw as niggers anyway. My grandpa wasn't a bad guy on the whole, but he was bigoted in many ways. I don't think you're a bad guy either, but I do think there is a fair bit of bigotry intertwined with the communities you are a part of.
Anyway, long story short, your subverses make me uneasy and while they don't seem to have much activity currently I am not confident that they will not degenerate whenever a random person or two decides to say something dumb on this subverse. As a commenter you seem respectful and appear to offer no reason to treat you without courtesy in my opinion. I hope that you will try to make it clear in your involvement with /v/topmindsofvoat what you've expressed to me, that not all of /v/conspiracy and not all of the people who post and comment here with an interest or even belief in various conspiracy theories are foolish or deserving of ridicule. Similarly with your involvement in /v/isvconspiracyracist, i hope that you choose to try to answer the topical question honestly and objectively.