An interesting notion. However, given the way that any group of people interact, how do you propose to prevent a repeat of what you criticize /r/conspiracy of doing ? I am not criticizing your suggestion, just trying to see how plausible it is. I, for one, would welcome such a sub.

I think stricter commenting rules (eg- if you make a claim that a study says 'x', you must provide a link to the study or an article referencing said study) is a good place to start, kind of like how they operate in /r/askhistorians.

I'd also like to encourage people to do their own research and contribute. Maybe there could be a "topic of the week" (decided by upvotes) and a .self post dedicated to posting our findings, and then a second .self post that organizes the findings and draws conclusions based on the evidence.

Honestly, I'm completely open to suggestions. /r/conspiracyresearch is live, anyone who's interested is welcome to come by and pitch ideas!

Some people are better at research then others. Just today, I provided a link to a study involving GMO and it's inherit dangers. I was challenged to provide the actual study itself. I found it, but it wasn't easy, and I am better than most at research. It seems that most of the easy to find web sites just copy each other. Also a lot of the studies being referred to are behind serious pay walls, or a subscription to a scientific journal organization. In other words the actual technical studies (or at least most of them) that most web sites discuss aren't open to the general public.

I am not saying this to dissuade from the creation of this about to be new sub, just that the criteria for it might be difficult to uphold.

Maybe my wording was a little too restrictive. I'm not saying that it will be required that the study in question be provided in full (because you're right- access requires $$), but at least that the study was mentioned and cited in an article (preferably by a reputable source/site, but that should be left to up/down votes imo).

Research isn't for everyone, but that doesn't mean that everyone can't participate in the discussion. Someone without a source for a claim could still pose it as a question, eg- "I think I read somewhere that GMO's are linked to malnourishment, can anyone confirm?" This way, statements like "GMOs are linked to malnourishment" won't be upvoted by people who will upvote anything just because it's anti-GMO. In the research sub, I'd like to see upvotes based on curiosity in a subject (like wanting to see a question answered) and sourced responses, rather than upvotes based on shared opinions and pithy remarks.

*edit: clarity

I would too. But the reality is that votes are agree/disagree buttons on all subs, site wide. It has been this way for the 5 years that I have been here. This is human nature. This is how people act in person too. With me or against me. I see this all the time. There are people that I deal with in the real world that I never mention anything that contradicts the corporate media to them, ever. I just keep that to myself. Those people simply don't want to hear it. So, on this new sub, the vote buttons will be agree/disagree no matter how much you claim they are otherwise.

Not necessarily. Communities like /r/askhistorians and /r/ecr use their up/downvotes in a way that aids discussion. It's just dependent on the overall tone and expectations of the community. If you've got a group of people dedicated to certain voting standards, they will generally abide because it achieves a common goal.

If you've got a group of people dedicated to certain voting standards, they will generally abide because it achieves a common goal.

Well, that would certainly be a welcome change. I do get tired of the "us and them" mentality.

I would prefer a publicly editable Google document. Many people can work on it at the same time. It saves revision history. Much like 77days document which analyses the YouTube series saying 'some thing is going to happen in X amount of days'

Your suggestion sounds a lot like a Wikipedia paradigm. While this would have it's advantages, any "proof" that would result from this would be vulnerable to "white washing", just as Wikipedia is. Given the nature of a /r/conspiracy style sub, this would be more of a hindrance then an advantage. That said, how would you suggest this be avoided ?

white washing

I am not familiar with this term, so I looked it up on wikipedia. If understood correctly, your concern is that some people will remove proofs, and alter the document. This can be avoided by changing the permissions. Google docs allows people to restrict who can make alterations to a document.

However, setting up a wiki might actually be much better. With a wiki, we can allow people to submit 'alterations' or 'patches' which need to be approved by either an admin or a page owner.

Everyone will have read permissions, but write permissions should be restricted, after 24 hours. Initially when a page is created it should be freely editable to everyone. (useful, in case of a breaking story when many people want to contribute during a short amount of time).

The best way I can think about how to set this up, is via a modified git server.

I'll have to give this some thought, a lot of thought. I wish there wasn't so much work to do, so I could work on fun things like this.

Yes, your understanding of "White washing" is accurate. I like your ideas of how to mitigate this. I would vote for it.

I think its a great idea. I would like to contribute when I have the time. I agree that many quality posts don't get the up votes they deserve and I have to search through so much crap to find them

/r/conspiracyresearch is technically up! You're welcome to subscribe and see what happens

Have you checked out /r/ConspiracyFacts?

Yes, but there's not very much discussion, and there's no real cooperative effort. I really want /r/conspiracyresearch to be a community that works together to form a bigger picture. If we have a network of people working together, there's a much greater chance that information is not only taken in (eg- you read an article) but put into a greater context that is formed by the input of whoever contributes. Maybe someone will select a topic, and whoever wants to can come and post their personal research and/or conclusions, or people can ask questions about the topic. I'm not sure yet, I want to hear from others.

There must be at least 8-10 spinoffs from /r/conspiracy that have been intended to improve on this sub but none of them have ever really taken off. Don't get me wrong though. I appreciate your effort as I'm sure many here do and I did subscribe.

Reddit isn't really designed for archiving long-term research. Posts disappear; threads expire.

May I suggest using a longer-term website as the option for research? Where threads don't go 404 or close for comment?

Here is one such example:

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/

There is a "General Discussion" section for conspiracy news, and a "subreddit" for every conspiracy you can think of. Archived posts go back 10 years or more.

This isn't the only example. There are many such "boards" out there dating to the 1990s.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Conspirafact/

doesn't seem to be active

create a new one. and good luck.

theres this too http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracyprojects 4 readers lol

If you've got a group of people dedicated to certain voting standards, they will generally abide because it achieves a common goal.

Well, that would certainly be a welcome change. I do get tired of the "us and them" mentality.

Your suggestion sounds a lot like a Wikipedia paradigm. While this would have it's advantages, any "proof" that would result from this would be vulnerable to "white washing", just as Wikipedia is. Given the nature of a /r/conspiracy style sub, this would be more of a hindrance then an advantage. That said, how would you suggest this be avoided ?