I have serious questions about the moderation of this sub. Is this a good forum to discuss it?

I think right now given the crackdown on "fake news" and the clear presence of CTR on the whole of reddit as little as 2 months ago make this is a very, very, very dangerous decision. I do not know you, 9000SINS well enough to make claims. This could very well be ushering in a new era of censorship on /r/conspiracy. I am not accusing you. I am just saying this is probably not the right time to be trying to make this decision.

Exactly what I was thinking. The ideal mod for the /r/conspiracy sub is an absent one. Now, because someone loves us, they want control over us, just in case.

Where have I heard this before?

hear hear

I don't want control over you. Exactly the opposite. And yes he is absent now. But what about the future?

I am the longest running active mod of this sub and I helped to establish this sub as the free speech zone that it is now.I've never been one to censor content and anyone that has been around here for 4 years or longer knows this.

Can you prove you're still you though? I realize this is a ridiculous request, but you're using longevity of a thing as proof, but how do I know that it's really the same? There is a price that you would('ve) accept(ed) for this account. What is supposed to give me confidence that this scenario hasn't happened? Your word?

I say if you want to do this lets just do it in 6 months. After the election shit has gotten less crazy. After the Inauguration. After the fake news/censorship battle is either won or lost and you can be free from potential blame.

I didn't think anyone would think the timing was odd, but rarely can I account for all opinions before taking any particular action. My account has never been compromised. I am still me. I can give you my word but what good is that, really?

Exactly. I am one person out of 410k. I think this should be put on hold. I am not against it happening, I am super against it happening right now. The JFK-ish level event of our generation is happening and it's actively being blacked out of the media and now this?

Please just wait a few months, please.

[deleted]

He's not the one who gets supermoderatorship, it would go to Sarah_conner. This is important.

[deleted]

He wants to effectively make sarah_conner lead moderator of this sub

The way it works is that there is a lead mod for the sub. This can't be changed. Currently it's illuminatedwax.

;)

I get where you are coming from... I don't know much about the individual users or moderators here... But a "slumbering giant" looming over this sub could potentially be dangerous... you never know what mad science will reanimate the corpse... now alive with a hunger for flesh.

Exactly. I just wanted the sub to be in our hands finally. Donbueno needed to go, and now it's time to remove the last roadblock to having our sub finally be free from super mods.

I'm not privy to what happens behind the scenes, but this just seems like good security... Who knows if someone could gain control of that account and uses it contrary to how the original owner intended. Even Warcraft passes on guild ownership after the leader has been absent for an extended period of time.

Seems totally reasonable to have them removed...

This isn't a good time to be ushering in a new guard. This is a dangerous time for a dangerous//questionable decision.

Yeah... but from my point of view illuminatedwax is kinda like leaving your fully upgraded X-01 Power Armor parked unguarded on the outskirts of town... you never know when some scavenger will climb into it and use it to easily obliterate your now out gunned settlement.

Not in the least. It's like leaving a your Sentry Bot unplugged and then it suddenly coming back to life. YOu have no idea what programming it has, but it SHOUUULLDDD be there to protect you.

In any case if it's not an issue currently, why fix it? What can a super mod do that the normal mods can't do? Why is it an issue? Why now? If it's fine to wait why not just wait. 6 months? 3 months??

seriously, this is super fucked up.

I don't see how this helps me. I'm suspicious of change.

Especially right now.

Long story short: A reddit supermod (Illuminatedwax) who never participates in the community and literally moderates several other high profile subs (not so many any more apparantly) has FULL control over this subreddit. And I mean full control. He could wake up tomorrow and shut this community down with a few button presses if he wanted to.

Who would get that power if illuminatedwax loses it? There are some mods on this sub I am highly suspicious of. This decision being made at this time makes me highly suspicious of you! No offense!

Sarah_conner would be one to gain that power if illuminatedwax were removed. If not her then Mr.Dong. I was higher on the list originally and it would have been me, but I was removed by another super mod a while back and our order was jumbled.

The one that has no comment/post history at least?

Wat.

This is the worst idea of all time. Let's just wait 6 months. In 6 months it will be 0% suspicious this is 5000000000000000000% suspicious

Sarah_conner is a valuable moderator and has been extremely active here in the past.

I see 0 post/comment history for him/her

Yeah I think maybe she nuked her comment history. I did the same thing for a while.

:\

But he can and he hasn't. Can we say the same of you? Maybe he's dead and can never shut it down. I hope not. Nothing against you. Please don't take it as any thing personal. But dead men are very trustworthy. Seriously, I wish you all the best. Just saying.

Are there some functions we're missing out on, by not having a present top-mod?

Is it just the button? Can you vote to just not have a button?

What does that really mean? What if he is dead? Who says he isn't and that his computer has his reddit password stored and it's just sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting to be bought by someone not so trustworthy. I mean this is just one hypothetical situation that I can think of. What if someone wanted to buy his account? How much would someone pay for a supermod account?

I'm wary of change. Very cynical. And in a conspiracy sub.

I mean you are hyping that bad stuff is going to happen, so we need to change now. If that doesn't sound off some warning bells in a conspiracy sub, then what does?

Again it's not you. Just bad timing in the sub. Coupled with an alarmist pitch. I'm not going to go over to your post and protest. I'm an neutral on you. The plan for emergency change, is what I am not down with.

I don't know how I feel about this. You should have probably consulted the other mods before going all rogue.

I just don't think right now is a very good time. Literally the timing alone makes me question the motives of this action.

The timing was simply a matter of noticing that he was inactive for a very long time. No other reason.

So then what's 6 more months? It might be too soon to say for sure but there will likely be no issue with changing things in 6 months.

I'm just super suspicious. Pizzagate got shutdown. MSM is shutting down PG hard. Reddit made /r/all filter. Reddit made it so that high voted conspiracy posts (we can get them up to 4k! still do) don't show up in /r/all.

And now we're trying to usher in a new supermod for /r/conspiracy, the last bastion of pizzagate? No sir I am too suspicious.

a super mod is someone who mods at least 2 or more major subreddits. By that definition we have no other super mods.

Lead mod. Whatever. Who is gaining what power by booting illuminatedwax?

It's more about him losing that power than anyone else gaining it.

What is the power that is being lost? Why does this change matter?

I am getting the distinct impression that you are trolling me. I may be wrong, but I have already laid this whole issue bare to the bone. If you have any more questions, please refer to my previous replies as I have already answered this question in detail.

Seriously not trolling you. I am not entirely fluent with moderator shit on reddit though so I'm sorry. You're making nobody the lead moderator? Or the users? What does it mean to be a lead moderator? Or what does it mean if there is no lead moderator?

Unfortunately due to the way reddit works, there will always be a moderator hierarchy. There will always be a lead mod, and it's up to the community to decide who would be in the lead spot really. Really it should be put up to a vote.

Can we vote not to have a change? I don't trust the vast majority of subscribers to this subreddit. I fucking don't trust reddit, I barely trust this sub. I don't think a vote is a good idea in the least bit.

How hard would it be to buy a russian botnet to create a gazillion fake accounts, sub them all to /r/conspiracy and then swing the vote? You can even be slightly more sophisticated and buy a shitton of real, karma'd accounts and use those.

No sir a vote is not a remotely proper way to deal with this. This is gonna bring in some dark pizzagate censoring bullshit. No fucking way.

How long have you been here?

Longer than it looks :)

7 years.

So have you been a regular of /r/conspiracy that whole time?

about half

Was I already a mod when you started here?

I think so? I may have first realized you were a mod here roughly a year in? I remember seeing your name and being like "tf is up with his name"

In all of that time have I ever done anything to make you question the integrity of the sub or the moderators?

This thing right now. Other moderators have recently done things to make me question their integrity. I have seen massive campaigns on reddit to sway subreddits like, say, /r/politics or /r/the_donald. I do not trust the users. I do not trust some mods. I used to trust you but I am super :| right now.

This was never a rouge action. That would imply an ulterior motive which there was not.

That would imply an ulterior motive which there was not.

Oh, of course. The Cheney "We are honorable men with honorable motives" defense.

Why are mods not elected?

Why do mods have no term limits?

How are mods held accountable?

Why is there no mechanism for mod removal except other mods?

Imagine if U.S. elections worked this way.

Ha yeah I get your point. Hey I let my actions speak for themselves. Have I ever censored you or anyone you know? Hell, I haven't dropped a ban hammer in this sub in over 2 years.

This is called (in CIA parlance) "deep legend." Gives you authenticity to be the "meta-hammer" when the time comes.

Noticeably, none of my non-rhetorical questions were answered.

I can't answer any of those questions. I don't run reddit, and I have zero control over any of the factors you have mentioned. I haven't heard of that term before. I get what you mean. After years of doing this, I can say without a doubt that the CIA has thought of absolutely everything and they have a term for just about any action one could take as moderator of any kind of online forum.

If it ain't broke don't fix it

But it's broke.

How is it broke? What is currently broke that needs fixing?

I have already laid it out as plainly as I can. I wouldn't feel comfortable with any of the reddit dream team sitting above me in the mod list here on /r/conspiracy. Not because of any personal desire for power or control, but because of the powerlessness it conveys to the users and the active moderators.

So you think we need a vote? When a significant group of people still believe that there are CTR shills amongst us? Who are known to brigade and bot the shit out of everything? You're also having this discussion at super-off hours for the english speaking world? I am suspicious.

I have a 3 year old son, so my time during the day is pretty much spoken for. And I do agree that voting on here is pretty shitty at times. I see your point about a vote being taken right now.

<3. I don't want you to feel attacked, you're a great mod. Thank you for understanding.

The request has been rescinded.

Yeah this is not weird. Not at all...

/u/9000sins, thank you.

I was going to ask, without naming names, whether you felt the rest of the mod team here is all trustworthy. But the 2nd half of your post has answered that for me.

It's surprising to me that this sub still appears to flow so freely. Maybe I'm just blind or not quite aware of the agenda. I'd guess it's a combo of things.

Reddit's moderating has gone the same way as American democracy in general: intended for the people, but mostly turned against them. Thanks for being a voice.

This sub in particular is a bastion of free speech and the free exchange of ideas. I am proud to be a part of this and I really feel like I have made a difference.

I love you

<3

I know

What's up with the votes?

I clicked this thinking I would hate it because destabilization of the structure of r conspiracy would be a bad thing.

After reading what you had to say I'm thinking you are right.

Caveat, everything has a duality and I haven't heard the position of the other mods. In general my most enduring thought is stability is desirable.

Thank you! Let there be a discussion! I'm down for a discussion!

Wrong timing, wrong/weird title for your post (lol), wrong method to present your request to other mods, and maybe wrong assumptions about illuminatedwax who maybe is just silent / playing dead for some reasons, was getting married/etc. I think you should reconsider this or at least delay for 6months before doing as you said. Meanwhile you should rather look for a smart (or radical) way to "censor" all those NWO shills and the_donald minions posting non stop pizzagate non sense bs that help feed more and more unsain pedo fantasma/narative into "average people" mind and that occult real conspiracies that might be going on.

We don't censor. It's against our sub policy to do so.

Ye ye I get your point lol, it very noble/ethical to do so but it seems to me some smart ass are now abusing/exploiting this respectable rule in order to fuck up this sub completly. Are you going let them do without reacting ? Ignoring this problem further won't be of any help. Letting them do their sabotage work will just ruin this sub on the long term. Also letting them do is like discouraging or even somehow censoring/insulting "good" / "honest" posters / commenters from this sub. Also nothing personal against you but as a mod deleting your own post is not looking very good/appealing/serious.

I deleted it because it is no longer an issue because I have rescinded the request completely . I have learned over many years of doing this job that the best course of action in such a situation is inaction. The users here are smart enough to figure things out for themselves without us the mods holding their hands and guiding them to 100% correct information. I don't know everything, nor do I claim to. My opinion on these subjects is no better than the people who decide with their votes what issues are important to them. Any actions taken by the mods here are held to insane amounts of scrutiny because of the nature of the sub and our natural instinct to distrust authority and anyone that has power over us. I have tried many styles of moderation in that time, and I had it pretty well down for a while. Then the major troll invasion of 2012-13 happened. It was a shit show. I tried like a madman to hold back a tidal wave of organized trolling, only to be chastized later by the same trolls and others in the community who they got to join the mob that I was being too heavy handed in my moderation. If we do nothing, we are accused of letting the trolls run away with the sub. We literally can't win unless we take an almost hands off approach and only step in when it's a priority. I love to be an active user here, and unfortunately being a mod here as well can be a really polarizing thing. Half the people will probably hate you for any action you take. I hope this help you understand things from our point of view a little better. I know I never understood how it worked until I got into it.

Well thx for your explanations, not surprising. Obviously I prefer being a user than a mod in here... 😁 but if I was a mod for sure I would delete every pizza bullshit stuff and ban lots of posters (and even commenters) doing obvious pizzagate disinfo/ shilling. I won't do it for the nazi propganda stuff or the flatearther despite it hurts my feelings and belief but without hesitation I would do it for pizzagate or any similar "well identified" psy op (and pizzagate is obviously one to me) which sole purpose is to fuck up people mind, disinformation, and confuse people so they don't dig further into "conspiracies", disbelieve everything that is not in MSM etc. If you let those people doing freely largr scale psy op in this sub without reacting then the vilains have already won/control this sub and all non shill / clean mods can already leave now.

Like I have said it's a tightrope act. You can't be too heavy handed or the users will start calling for your head on a platter within hours.

Wow. Such generosity. Much astonishment.

It was that simple all along.
Faced with the reality that our super-secret, anti-establishment club is dependent on the goodwill of Condé Nast and its shareholders, all it needed in order to counteract this mainstream bludgeon was a plain request to remove a particular mod. Remove this interloper and r/conspiracy can go back to fighting the good fight!

I wish to express my gratitude. Even though, as you indicate, your request is still pending.
Surely though, the movement you created cannot be stopped. So I wish to pledge my allegiance to you and your ability to resist further encroachment by TPTB.
Thank you for your gift.

Who would get that power if illuminatedwax loses it? There are some mods on this sub I am highly suspicious of. This decision being made at this time makes me highly suspicious of you! No offense!

Yeah... but from my point of view illuminatedwax is kinda like leaving your fully upgraded X-01 Power Armor parked unguarded on the outskirts of town... you never know when some scavenger will climb into it and use it to easily obliterate your now out gunned settlement.

Not in the least. It's like leaving a your Sentry Bot unplugged and then it suddenly coming back to life. YOu have no idea what programming it has, but it SHOUUULLDDD be there to protect you.

In any case if it's not an issue currently, why fix it? What can a super mod do that the normal mods can't do? Why is it an issue? Why now? If it's fine to wait why not just wait. 6 months? 3 months??

seriously, this is super fucked up.

Lead mod. Whatever. Who is gaining what power by booting illuminatedwax?

But he can and he hasn't. Can we say the same of you? Maybe he's dead and can never shut it down. I hope not. Nothing against you. Please don't take it as any thing personal. But dead men are very trustworthy. Seriously, I wish you all the best. Just saying.

Are there some functions we're missing out on, by not having a present top-mod?

Is it just the button? Can you vote to just not have a button?

How long have you been here?

Longer than it looks :)

7 years.