Note: The Executive Summary is still accessible here

Only deliver valuable submissions

The more valuable your submission to the Pizzagate investigation, the more upvoats you can expect, thus the more likely your post will appear on “Hot” or “Top”, so it will be visible to more people which in turn can lead to more digging and even more findings – and to more redpilling!

• This subverse has attracted thousands of new users lately, and only a small portion know all the details we have collected so far, so please create posts that also newcomers can understand and digest. Never assume that everybody knows what you already know and take for granted!

• Check v/new before you submit to see if your topic has already been posted lately. You actually hinder the cause when you submit posts that clutter up the subverse with identical messages.

• Often, a topic or URL has already been posted (and resolved) days, weeks or even months ago. To save you valuable time – and again to prevent the subverse from being cluttered with old information – do a search with your key words to find out (see “How to search Voat without the search bar?” below).

• “Reminders” can be useful, but don’t overdo it. Make sure you explain why people should be reminded of a special topic right now.

• Adhere to the submission guidelines (“For Submitters”; to the right; if using a mobile, switch to desktop version). Repeated violations of our submission guidelines may result in a subverse ban (sadly, we have to do this quite often, see banned users log).

• In most cases, a “Discuss” post is much better and more effective than a “Share a link” post. We often have to delete link-posts because the user wasn’t able to provide an accurate description of the content in the title. By providing a link in a well-described discussion post, you help the case and save everyone a lot of time, too.

• ALL CAPS posts are a nuisance for most people, so better refrain from doing that.

• Use logic, explain the why and how, and do this step by step. Structure your post as good as you can. Take people with you on your “journey of thoughts”. Tip: Start your post with “This will help the Pizzagate investigation because …”; if you find you have trouble ending this sentence, your post might better belong in one of our other subverses: v/pizzagatemods (for posts about moderation, meta concerns, the operation of v/pizzagate, general discussion submissions; no sources required); v/pizzagatewhatever (for speculative posts and all other posts that lack supporting evidence required for v/pizzagate research posts); v/AskPizzagte (for posts asking questions for further research, lost evidence resources, best links to share, etc.); v/PizzagateMemes (a breeding ground for viral content: for posts about how to spread the word about pizzagate and memes to do so)

How to deal with shills, doxing, CP and other illegal content?

Although at first glance, it may seem that we have a fair amount of moderators, quite naturally, we cannot spot all violations at any given time.

• If you spot something that clearly violates our rules, feel free to report this by either pinging a mod (example: @nameofmoderator) or by sending a message to mod mail (make sure to include relevant links).

• Downvoat like hell! :-)

Divide, distract, discourage is their motivation. Keep at it folks, we have faith in our community!

“Why is the search bar not working?”

Folks, we mods have no idea. We are not involved in the site development in any way and were just as surprised and irritated as you when the search bar vanished, then came back non-functioning. By the way, this is not something “Pizzagate only” – all Voat subverses have to deal with that.

We were able to find out, however, that the search bar uses quite a bit of site resources, and @PuttitOut was doing some reviews of the depth/detail. We can only imagine that he is again or still doing this.

How to search Voat without the search bar?

• Use https://SearchVoat.co – it's every bit as good and maybe even better than the on-site search. Be sure to hit that option button to see some killer ways to dial in and drill down.

• For tips and tricks how to use SearchVoat, see https://voat.co/v/VoatSearch/1278366

• See also this very helpful post on search alternatives: https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1782413

Is v/pizzagate being censored by mods?

Time and again, Pizzagate moderators are accused of “censorship”, thus hindering free speech, a hallmark of Voat. Do Pizzagate mods hinder free speech? In one word: no.

Our job is to enforce the submission guidelines. Moderators did not choose these rules – they were developed by the whole Pizzagate community through a series of stickies over several weeks: https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1541871

According to the Voat User Agreement, removing posts that fail to satisfy the submission guidelines is not censorship:

Can I submit links to any subverse I want?

Each subverse has its own rules which are usually stated in the respective subverse's sidebar. If you ignore said rules, your account may be banned from submitting further content to the subverse or in some cases, globally.

It can happen, though, that we remove valuable, legit posts, usually because the user did not explain how something is related to Pizzagate. Many users assume the connection is obvious, but it is simply not possible for us mods to see every connection, much less to comb through long articles or listen to videos. Should you find a legit post in the removed submissions area, please ping the mod who removed and tell them why you think this was a mistake.

However, moderating is not a science. If it were, there would be no need for moderators because a computer could do that. Moderating is done by humans, and the submission guidelines are open to a certain degree of interpretation. Bear with us, we are doing what we can.

“Where the f*** are the mods???” (What mods can and can’t do)

We moderators do not own the subverse, and we don’t have any admin rights whatsoever. All we do is trying to take care that users adhere to the submission guidelines – as fairly and consistently as possible.

Mods are not supposed to delete posts because of quality issues. As long as a post doesn’t violate a rule, it has to stay.

Mods are also not supposed to delete comments, but there are a few exceptions (illegal content like threats or child porn, personal information about Voat subscribers).

We are all volunteers, moderating in our free time. Some of us are working nights, others get up early when it’s still dark outside. Needless to say, we all have a job and a family. Moderating this subverse means an additional workload for each one of us. We often get attacked with shill and spam attacks coming in so fast and in such great numbers that we cannot type and click fast enough. So if you ever find that your post was deleted, while another one was left up, one possible explanation is that it simply slipped us – we cannot always cover 24 hours.

"Why is this the sticky and not the Executive Summary?”

As many of you have learned and experienced during the past days and weeks, this subverse has been under attack from shills and spammers, thus making the subverse look like a mess at times. With this sticky, we hope to clarify important issues.

For the time of this post being the sticky, you can access the Executive Summary here as well as in the section “For Newcomers”, where it is most useful.

Keep up the great work, folks. And don’t let the shills divide us.