For fucks sake, why is every community on planet earth obsessed with this shit. Don't worry, I know why, but seriously... wouldn't it be nice if there was a place, somewhere, where there were no games, no power struggle, no avarice, narcissism or vanity.

O you mean www.CriticalThought.me ? It's not live yet but i've been living hand to mouth building this for r/conspiracy for 8 months. We aren't live yet but the website launches tomorrow followed by both an IOS and Android app, also the website is FULLY mobile responsive and SECURE AS FUCK. O and Email is always optional.

This is the thread that started this project http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1qh6zh/im_a_creative_directorui_designerdeveloper_in_sf/

EDIT: It's live for r/conspiracy and we'll be giving out some early adopter badges and verified / trusted source accounts. JOIN US!

The user interface on your site is extremely awkward to navigate and isn't particularly intuitive, it needs some work, I would recommend getting some advice from a UX&D guy. The aesthetic design is rather nice though, so well done on that, and the concept overall is great, maybe a place to finally move on from Reddit?

Who the hell is buying you gold? Why the fuck would anyone commenting in this topic want to give reddit money?

Honestly i think someone who works with me gave me gold for this once, the other 3 might be cause by group think haha. I feel like once someone buys gold others feel obligated to follow line.

Buying reddit gold would be a rather shitty way to "game" reddit. So hopefully nobody thinks i had anything to do with this shit. However we do plan on buying reddit ads :(

Is there a way to give back my reddit gold? haha

Buying reddit gold would be a rather shitty way to "game" reddit.

Gaming reddit by establishing "credibility" with gilded comments is the exact intended purpose of gold.

So hopefully nobody thinks i had anything to do with this shit.

Hopefully.

I promise to NEVER introduce any payed functionality that improves or increases the buoyancy or discoverability of posts. I personally think reddit is trying to pivot currently and they could careless about the democratic nature of their discovery algorithm, this is why they're trying to hide vote ratios and vote transparency. Soon Criticl will display ALL users who Up or Downvote anything as well as display everything ever deleted.

EVER, ever

Hiding votes was always intended to be a way to suppress dissent and make it seem less noticeable.

Buying you reddit gold could actually serve to de-legitimize you in a place like this, so there's that.

I'm interested in the site, I will make an account.

reddit is corrupt

hey let's give them money 4 times over

Looking forward to the finished product and I hope, hope, hope it is successful

Good luck.

Glad to see someone doing something about it instead of just complaining.

Thanks!

See you there.

Nice.

I just registered, took a look around, and like what I see. A much needed change. Thank you for grabbing this by the balls and running with it. Kudos, my friend!

Thanks for the kind words. Know that this is the "MVP" (Most viable product) We have an entire laundry list of features and design clean-ups coming in coming versions of the web app.

Also don't forget that the web app is fully mobile responsive and our IOS / android apps are about a month away from launch.

As well as some HUGE performance increases to come in the next couple of weeks.

Many thanks for the selfless work you have put in to bringing this to fruition. Seeing as I use the phone 99% of the time a mobile app is even more of a blessing. Glad to be aboard!

Count me in

Mod impeachment. This is key!

That's very interesting!

I've actually been working on an idea myself, although more oriented towards letting the community gather evidence and research, for any given topic. It would make it easier for newcomers, say; someone new to 9/11 conspiracy theories to look through all research/evidences collected and ranked(credibility ranking) by the community, instead of wading through all the rubbish which is out there on the web. I would also love to include tools like event-timelines, 'persons of interest'/witnesses encyclopedia, 'evidence rebuttals', to mention some..

If you guys could create an API which I could hook into (ie. for user accounts and posts), that would be even more awesome! :)

Hi irradiance,

I'm Jesus, if you have a minute I'd like to tell you about this great timeshare.

There is! Watch it on fox this fall! Here haha

You are hoping for a place without humans. Personally, I wish I were a robot and such a place sounds appealing to me, but probably not to everyone else that likes being human.

So basically, everything that we have been getting called "paranoid" for saying and getting vilified for not being able to provide proof for, was actually happening all along.

Again.

The mods who are not in the "special circle" are not going to know the circle exists, so if asked about "secret" meetings with admins, they're going to deny them. The mods who have "free reign" over their subreddits are those who share common goals with the admins. If you have a goal of something the admins don't particularly care for (such as /r/netsec, encrypted communication, etc.) , then the admins will helicopter over the subreddit, watching for content that might get popular, to shut it down quickly.

Things make so much more sense now. You no longer have to ask yourself how so many people are mods for so many major subs.

This feels very much like how the press is handled today by the govenrment. You want to ask the president or a whitehouse employee a question? You better play ball and stick to these approved questions. If you don't, you simply don't get a press pass and no one knows any different.

The public thinks the media just sucks now, but they actually have their hands tied so that any good journalists can't even get in the game. Just like mods.

Going back to the private IRC chats, there are multiple "tiers" of private IRC rooms and servers. It's all about making the mods feel as though giving information up the ladder will get them something - more respect, more access to "private" chats, etc.

And this gives you some insight into the type of personality who becomes a high up mod. They seek attention and power over anything in their life.

EDIT: After listening to the whole thing I can probably give two TL;DRs. 1.) Reddit is all about the money. All of the actions the admins take are to try and please the highest bidder. 2.) The mods are being manipulated as much as everyone else is. The admins have it set up so the "good" mods that do their bidding get the power and the ones who don't play along are marginalized.

FINAL EDIT: Listen around 46:00. Get them all in one little area where we can claim they aren't being censored, and we can track everyone who is talking about this subject. Remind you of anywhere?

FINAL EDIT: Listen around 46:00. Get them all in one little area where we can claim they aren't being censored, and we can track everyone who is talking about this subject. Remind you of anywhere?

That was one of the parts the perked my ears up too. There were a couple of teasers in there for me. I just got done listening to the whole thing and besides the topic you mentioned, the flagged words,terms and sites that can get you shadowbanned/flagged, that are maintained in a secret list inside the bot/system was one worthy of further discussion imo.

Man it would be sweet if this was an encrypted sub, that extension he made sounded really interesting. Of course it would make mods have more power over their sub than admins (potentially) so I can see why TPTB at reddit would not like it.

There is no reason members here can't create a site elsewhere free from meddling mods and admins, as well as the trolls, people spreading disinformation, and so on.

Banning people because you suspect them of spreading disinformation is an incredibly slippery slope on a steep incline. The right thing would be to debunk what they say and let the.evidence speak for itself. especially considering how everything conspiracy theorists believe is marginalized as "misinformation".

Banning people because you suspect them of spreading disinformation is an incredibly slippery slope on a steep incline.

That's not what I said.

That's exactly how it seemed.

edit: how else could you possibly keep it free from them as you said.

By having responsible and transparent mods and admins, who are held accountable for the things they do and say, and having users hold each other to that same standard?

Which of course won't happen because we are talking about people.

Yeah there was a quite a lot to digest in there. I'm wondering how fast this is going to get called out for being lies though? Hopefully we have some other mods step up to let us know the truth. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened already.

This was all probably fairly obvious to most people who have been on this site for a long time and paid attention to the "moderation" (aka censorship). It's always good to have some confirmation from respectable sources though.

I always assumed the charges people were making were true, but something in the back of my head said maybe they are wrong, or maybe it was just a one-off event. It's good to know that not only is this stuff happening but the precedent is being set from top down. Reddit sold out.

Ever consider the entire reason reddit was invented was for the very purpose of disseminating lies and controlling the population much the same way FB is used?

Maybe it didn't sell out. Maybe its doing exactly what it was built to do.

Yep, it's disheartening but no surprise. Makes one wonder about Aaron though - would he have stood for this? I didn't know him personally of course but I'd have to think he would have been (and probably was) strongly opposed to the direction the site has taken.

I figured there had to be some sort of "conspiracy" behind the (very successful) push to minimize the politics and (especially) the activism on the defaults.

I've also been saying for a long time that there's nothing to prevent mod accounts from being bought and sold; at least nothing that the admins publicly acknowledge.

Just the whole idea of "shadowbans" alone should be enough to make people think "wtf????"

saying this like for ever.

they are a bunch of douchebags who use the website for propaganda useful for 1%

this is straight level social behavior control

this is straight level social behavior control

There are people that believe human behavior can be boiled down to a mathematical equation and they are trying to build the perfect citizen (slave).

I will be following this story hoping that it doesn't fizzle out.

I wish he would pastebin a list of those words best avoided, domains not allowed to be linked and some of that other "forbidden" information. Just when he was sort of getting into some of that the subject sort of changed.

I know when I posted in, and kept up with r/netsec a lot saying stuff about facebook was bad..very bad. more details on why the admens didn't like /r/netsec would be cool too.

I hope there is a follow-up.

Reddit isn't the front page of the internet, it is the front line.

When I read stuff like this a lot of questions come to mind, but the one question I have that is most applicable to this subreddit, is how do we know if this subreddit isn't being manipulated/censored and that our mods aren't compromised?

What information are we being denied even on this sub? There may be no way of knowing, but we have to assume this sub is a thorn in their side and this sub is not below their radar and therefore we must assume some level of manipulate/censorship is occurring even here.

straight to the point about that confining dudes to some corner of reddit, looks like a definition of r/conspiracy.

if I post with this account on any other subreddit about any random crap then immediately some shill show up speaking about tin foil hats.

I have 17 other accounts, some with ten of thousands of fucking karma, no one fucking care.

Once they marked your account you get automatic, computer created comments every time you write about some cat ass.

This would be a fun TIL post! See how long it lasts.

Why do you think bipolar is suing reddit or thinking of getting litigous? haven't heard of it until now, but am curious. even though i hate reddit admins with a passion, i sincerely hope that if it goes to court BPB gets fucked over a table.

Might have something to do with him getting doxxed?

Who knows though.

This kind of power structure has existed since the beginning of time. (Or at least bbs chat boards).

Although kinda conspiracyish, I doubt the government is up there. They like to flank like the dishonorable shits they are.

Accusing people of possessing child porn is a great way to distract from the actual argument.

I've fallen victim to this myself.

If you can't address the argument, just attack the person.

I wonder how many downvotes this post has.

After trying to answer this for you I now see why you still don't have an answer.

It currently has 28 downvotes.

Neat, how did you find out?

These problems are so repetitive. Finally people are beginning to notice and strive for change.

Sounds exactly how the political power structure works. Through blackmail, accusations, and power grabbing on even the most trivial of access levels like need to know and official channels and inner circles and outer circles.

Some people take the internet and reddit way too seriously

A popular reddit post will earn more views than CNN gets in a week, including primetime. What happens behind the scenes on reddit should be taken seriously because it has as far reaching of an impact as mainstream news. Governments and corporations (heh, redundant) are taking this site seriously, and so should we.

http://deadline.com/2014/01/cnn-lowest-rated-week-demo-jeff-zucker-fox-news-msnbc-669364/

CNN also disabled all commenting on the CNN web site. They don't want anyone poking fun at the BS they pump out.

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Control the media control the population

And by "control" (the population) you mean "lie to" because TPTB cannot do what they do if people know the truth.

No argument here, spot on.

It's one of the largest information exchanges on the entire internet. You may do well to at least consider the possible implications of stories like this, the effects they can and do have on the world, and the underlying reasons for them.

Some people take the internet and reddit way too seriously

The ability to manage and control the flow of information = MONEY and POWER.

I agree. Some people take money and power WAY too seriously.

So all in all, take xaviermendel's comments and perspective with a grain of salt, but he does have some good insight.

I think that is the take-away from all this. I am curious about the mod who they won't speak to without a lawyer present. Seems likely it's who I think it is, but who knows?

There was some interesting discussion on SRD about this whole topic, which I'm sure you can find independently if you can be arsed.

It's a pretty ugly bit of fallout all in all, and I think it's super easy to chastise the folks up top without due consideration of financial and ethical pressures.

Well worth a lurk over and a discussion about though. As we all invest a certain amount of ourselves into this site, as users, mods or lurkers.

who do you think it is?

Hmm.. Reddit isn't a way of life so I find this farce a little silly but in all I honestly don't care. Same deal a couple of years ago when someone stole all my gold in my guild bank in Warcraft. It struck me as silly because.. well you know, I have a life..

Comparing all of this to your experience in World of Warcraft?

Now that's some high-level intelligent thinking right there.

Guys! GUYS! Proven corruption among the operators of this website which heavily influences important issues & current events discussed in the media/on the internet is sorta kinda like that one time someone stole gold from me in a video game! Its no big deal!

Terrible analogy. Embarrassing, really.

That's okay. I'm sorry you didn't like my analogy. My point is some people take this site far too seriously. Anyways, I'm happy enough with what I've achieved in my life not to feel embarrassed by anything I see or write on Reddit. Good day and try to remember to breathe ;)

Your on minus points, but you do make a decent point. Not chastising users for having no life, which is a bit out of line and - well, you're here - but this is just a wall to write on, it's not unique or special or anything, and the sands and tides of time will wash it away just as many boards have been long forgotten before.