There has been a lot of discussion and drama re modding lately. We have multiple camps of opinions.
I want whats best for this sub. I'm not an experienced mod but I can see that leaving everything to its own devices has led to a lot of circlejerk, concern trolling, waste of space submissions.
This subverse is for the investigation of pizzagate connections, to further our understanding of the situation and find more relationships and potentially some evidence.
We are all concerned about shills and the subverse being compromised. Make no mistake, shills are here and in great force. They are trying to create drama, they are trying to frame us as racists, they are trying to mislead us and they are trying to distract us.
To that end, I am going to put the following rules in place and as mods we will start to enforce them. The purpose of these rules is to concentrate the efforts here and facilitate meaningful dialogue, as well as remove all the noise. This is going to be hard. Sorting things is hard. We will make mistakes. We will ask you guys for input. Please feel free to check the mod logs at all times and call us out if you have any objections.
These rules are open for discussion, below. Please let me know your thoughts.
1. Concern trolling posts will be deleted unless substantiated or adding significant value
There are currently a number of concern troll posts - such as concerns about antisemitism (that have zero examples or proof), concerns about the fact that we're doing it wrong etc. Concern trolling adds no value to the sub, it clutters it. We want to hear your concerns, you can IM us or use the @ handle.
2. Zero tolerance for spam
Spam posts will be deleted and users banned.
3. Title/picture only posts with no explanation
This is an investigation, explain how your submission is linked in. Dont be lazy.
Like I mentioned, I'm new to modding. We may add more rules as you guys comment below, and we may change the above. But for now I'm going to do a bit of a cleanup, feel free to provide feedback. I'm sick of the state of things as much as you guys.
If you want to be helpful, here's a link to the previous sticky which we will reinstate soon. It contains direction and where to focus - https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1434672
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philomath ago
Edit - after re-reading your post, I would like you to clarify what you intend to do with posts that violate your rules.
Just my opinion, but you're making a mistake. A big one. This isn't reddit.
The entire ecosystem here is set up to allow user moderation through upvoats and downvoats. It makes navigation more difficult and slower because you do have to weed through stuff you don't agree with and don't want to see, but that is a worthwhile sacrifice. It ensures that authoritarian individuals don't get the power to speak for the entire community. While I'm sure your intentions are good, they may not always be, or those that come after you may not be.
I think you need to get the community more accustomed to speaking with the voats and letting them moderate themselves. It's a change and will not feel normal overnight, but is the right thing to do. Jumping into Voat waters and imposing reddit customs is wrong. It's against everything we stand for, and I'm frankly a little shocked at your eagerness to do so.
Spuddlebuns ago
Point is, this is NOT your usual, 'Stream of Consciousness,' post any stupid outrageous shit you want, just because you can subverse. As has been CLEARLY pointed out over and over and OVER again,
This subverse is for the investigation of pizzagate connections, to further our understanding of the situation and find more relationships and potentially some evidence.
THIS subverse is not for the morons and trolls to shit all over everything just because they are uncensored. There are other topics to go squat on. Not here.
philomath ago
You can say that all you want, but you guys are not special. This site is bigger than you and should not have to change because you were welcomed here. If you can't get behind that then maybe voat isn't for you.
This is sounding more and more like Europe right now. Please know, authoritative and prepressive subverses wont be tolerated.
EndThePizza ago
Don't we have the right to run the subverse in the way we as the subverse community think is best? Any organization can set whatever rules it wants for itself. Anyone who doesn't like it can go to another subverse.
piratse ago
No, you have the right to run it in the way the WEBSITE/ADMINS (who are very much about free speech) deem best, and you can have rules within that scope.
philomath ago
You have to understand what you've walked into here at voat. This place is full of those who rejected the moderation policies of reddit because they were overbearing, uneven, biased, and wrong. We are not children and became disgusted with being treated thusly. Being told was was good speech and what was not acceptable. Being told that anything that didn't align with a particular dogma was offensive. Everything was becoming racist or misogynistic. Downvotes for dissent.
We became fed up with it and soundly rejected it. We've cut the cord of it and created (or joined /u/atko) this oasis in our fucked up view of how things should be - little to no moderation, letting the community decide what we want to see. It's a learning experience as new subreddits are targeted because we get new waves of refugees. Where this was once essentially a utopia of discussion, it was the early days and everyone was excited about the future. We then got fatpeoplehate and it slightly changed. We got coontown, and it really changed. We /r/europe and things changed. Now we have you.
In each transition, our utopia gets rocked by challenges to the core beliefs of the site, similar to what is happening here. Shit posters and power hungry come with each wave and disrupt it further. What has worked for us isn't always comfortable for the new users, and questions are asked, ideas of better moderation practices are proposed. Add in the shit posters and power hungry, and the original users are forced to once again fight off the power grabs. We've gone through this shit numerous times and are pretty sensitive to it. We left censorship, to come here and fight as a community to keep that shit out of here. Some are going to be a little sensitive when they think they see it.
So no here we are. You are part of the voat community, our community. It's not just your subverse, it's our subverse. We have our resident racists who we as a community have decided to allow in. We have the anti-semites that we've allowed in. As much as I despise what they believe, they have as much right to say it as I do to deny it.
How does that pertain to /v/pizzagate? The rules as they are posted are contradictory and leave themselves open for censorship. That and it's been openly stated that censorship is in part the intent. There are too many "the jews are responsible" posts. So what happens when the Jew-hating faction of the site decides to join your ranks, starts looking through their troves of who-knows-what, and starts making some legitimate findings? Will they be deleted because they don't comply with rule 4? Also, are you guys really comfortable with letting a few people decide what constitutes "outlandish?"
I feel like the proposed rules #1 and #3 should be sufficient to keep the subverse moving in the right direction, and set very clearly what that direction is. Rules #2 and #4 are more open to interpretation and open our entire site to abuses.