I agree with the meme banning. This sub should be for posting intellectual articles for discussion and analysis, not for making childish jokes. Memes are just a time wasting distraction.

Im posting under you to get light to my post.

First off, as a mod, we will follow you, as long as logic does also. If you see a post that is shit, a sill, or purposefully propaganda, mark it and we should all come to agreement to down vote and res tag the user.

I cannot stand when I see an extremely insightful post with one comment, being a fucking joke. We need to take things seriously and have intelligent discussions, otherwise we are the 'crack pot Jew hating conspiracy theorists'.

Finally, memes are a waste of time. Unless an intelligent discussion comes from one, there is no place for them here.

I agree but we haven't really been getting Meme's lately. What I find has taken over the subs front page are images with quotes etc. Now some are great posts and I'm happy they were posted here.

However, it annoys me when a quote or image is just presented for its pathos, it doesn't engage the community. It doesn't expose us to something new but rather reinforces our beliefs.

Here is a quote from another conversation on this sub that sums up my point: "These meme's should be posted to other reddits if they are true. We already know what's going on here!"

I agree that some pictures are great statements, we shouldn't ban them, they are effective in their ways.

I just made r/conspiracymemes happy to an the mods from here

If you read the whole thread only the mass produced images with different text macro's are banned original content is not.

When you pluralise many words, including "meme," you generally add an S without an apostrophe. Apostrophes are used to make things possessive.

If you read the whole thread only the mass produced images with different text macro's are banned original content is not.

After clicking that last link, I am also in favor of banning all emoticons ;)

ditto.

As long as the criteria for banning are expressed in the rules, I don't understand everyone's problem.

Would you refuse entry to a bar if they held the right to kick you out for bad behaviour ?

I think we should be discussing the fine tuning of what the new rules should be gentlemen.

I'm against the memes as well but I don't think removing them is an option. As soon as you remove one who's to say what is or isn't a meme? Some memes are pretty tasteful however.

So how do we decide? Use the downvote button!

Try not to ban people who have been with Reddit for 3 years or more. The offenders need to go and they haven't been here long. They should be easy to find.

Reddit needs a Reddit wide 'block user' option that is set by each user on each sub. If someone doesn't like me, then they should be able to block my posts from showing on their page of this sub, and I should be able to do the same to the ones that are an affront to my intelligence. It would kill the govbot trolls/shills, crybabies, etc. It would make their efforts a waste of their own time, not ours. Let them wither on the vine. It is only fun for them when they get attention and distract everyone.

I switch my accounts regularly because of government surveillance. Judge by the comment quality not the amount of time spent here.

Are you worried that you'll be put on a list or something DOUBLEFUCKMonsanto?

Because as William Cooper said, "Oh There's a list. But you nor I am on it, and its the their only list."

Meaning: Don't get paranoid and waste your time switching accounts. If they want to find you, they just have to follow your ip (at the very least) if not other (more notorious) means of finding you.

You are only truly free when you are unafraid and unintimidated by them. I know this is extremely hard when they deal specifically in fear and intimidation tactics, but it is the only way we can win.

Switching accounts only takes away validity of your post. By posting with the same account you show your lack of fear, you show your strength and it will help us identify those provocateurs and dis info artists on here.

thanks. There's a difference between strategic caution and fear. If I was afraid I would say nothing

Well then you should probably get the tor bundle and tunnel through tor nodes to reddit to make your comments (with a new account you created while running tor obviously). Hooray anonymity.

There is also a onion version of reddit but IIRC it is bunches of CP.

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is this by choice?

I have RES and use chrome?

Chromeium has better privacy

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limited to posting one news article every 2-3 days at the most

That is not a lot for someone like my self. I tend to catch up on all 'the news' in short sharp chunks. Which means I can post up to 5 posts in an hour.(edit - not for 5 hours straight 7 days a week.) Not all have been liked here, but I feel it is important to let good posters post everything they find as and when

This is the main problem a lack of reddiquette. Read it. I got down voted for having an opinion I believe that people didn't agree with

Moderate based on quality, not opinion. Well-written and interesting content can be worthwhile, even if you disagree with it.

I would go for an all out ban...so I created this /r/Conspiracymeme (took me 1 min) I don't like them but they need a home.

I'd say if it's an original picture, with macros on it, like the Iranian and US olympians or original informational post like the one up at the top today they should be okay. But, if it's a re-hashed tired meme like scumbag steve, or Keaneu or whichever that they should be removed. This should be entirely at the discretion of the mods. Repeat offenders can be warned/banned.

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Just done that before I read you post /r/Conspiracymeme

Sorry, but 9ksins doesn't agree.

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/yar63/okay_guys_we_have_become_infested_in_the_last_few/c5tyki8?context=3

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To get rid of unoriginal mass produced text macros?

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IMGUR is just a site anyone can upload shit to, like photobucket or flickr only it doesn't require an account to upload anything.

For the love of God (who I actually don't believe exists, at least in any form described in religious scriptures) do NOT BAN THE MEMES:

This article explains very thoroughly why they are our most effective weapon:

http://www.gagnauga.is/index.php?Fl=Greinar&ID=217

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3qi6xq/

I'm fine with banning. Who's to say they won't game and slide this sub until it's nothing but complete disinfo and nonsense on the first 3 pages? Yes, some innocent people may get banned but not having the option to do it really leaves the sub open to anything. At least the threat of banning will make them work harder to be discreet.

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Who are the people who would get banned? I don't like real people being banned, so we should know each and everyone that will/gets banned.

Make a list and post it, so we can all research who the troublemakers are. I've actually reported several people for posting knee-jerk reactions almost all the time and insulting people immediately and destroying conversations.

This. I'd do this, and just block the offenders with RES.

/r/NolibsWatch

Make a list and post it, so we can all research who the troublemakers are.

Witch hunt much?

No, just knowing who gets banned, so real people don't get banned.

Saying that you want to "research" people and make "lists" is pretty stalkerish to me.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I have been a member since February 2008 (original user name) the quality of r/ has ebbed an flowed with a general downgrade since Conde Nast bought it.

The internet - across the board - is gamed now. Trying to fix this through some sort of "rules" will only play to the PTB. It takes bottom up, individual responsibility that spreads through a community to effect real change - anywhere.

Be the change you wish to see people. Everyone always blames others but rarely looks to what they can do personally to make something better.

• Don't up vote crap.
• Don't up vote lol-brat circle jerks
• Don't up vote blatant talking points
• Don't up vote posts that mock reasonable ideas, opinions, theories or evidence
• Don't down vote serious inquires or speculation

More pointedly, each of us needs to add genuinely valuable discussion to the topic. Those true users of this sub should seek out that which is brilliant or insightful and upvote it (duh). I'm simply saying that this sub should be a place for very intelligent conversation, peaceful communication, sourced intelligence, and the occasional self-post mind-fuck question (those often kick ass in this sub). I appreciate you sentiment.

How about a 3 strikes policy? Too much volume for that?

And, if we must ban, we must make the criteria for banning VERY clear.

Do it.

You can disrupt communications by intercepting the message (censorship), or you can drown out the message with static (sliding). People need to understand we are already being censored, albeit indirectly, whenever these people knock another good link down a notch towards oblivion. And I don't think they're going to stop. Eventually they're going to overwhelm this sub. There is a distorted perception of censorship in this situation. We wouldn't be censoring opposition per se, we would be filtering out redundancies and artificially upvoted fluff. What we would be doing is making reddit work like it's supposed to. It will amount to a slight form of censorship, but if it means the sub will be working like it's supposed to, we should do it. On the other hand, the sub could die or become some kind of strange, disinfo circlejerk.

The irony is thick; here you are talking about censorship while claiming it's not about censorship, on a forum where you frequently accuse the GOVERNMENT of talking about censorship while they claim it isn't censorship.

It's gone full circle. You are what you hate. You're the ones stifling the discussion, you're the ones who have turned r/conspiratard into Emmanuel Goldstein so you can have the two-minutes hate, and now you're the ones talking about bannings and censorship while using euphemisms to hide this fact.

Congratulations, 9000Sins. You're officially 1984.

I'm glad you're taking this stance.

People who say censorship are just perpetuating a meme or don't understand what censorship means.

You know that banning won't stop so-called gaming right?

There's no way to stop gaming without changing reddit. The only thing we can do is make their job harder.

It doesn't make the job harder. Why would it?

Why not?

Being banned from a subreddit doesn't block bots or from posting links to the subreddit from other subreddits. It just blocks comments.

Edit: Presumably a bot wouldn't be commenting so you'd never know their name to ban them.

Wouldn't it be worth it to stop them from commenting? Mods can remove links right?

Wait, are we talking about people truly trying to game, or just people you don't agree with and don't want to talk to?

For your second comment, look at /r/nolibswatch. I'm banned from there. I can upvote and downvote but not comment. But they clearly post links to invite people to vote a certain way. Their mods have no interest in removing links either. And, I can post links to their threads in any other subreddit without any punishment at all.

So, bans are useless against "gaming", and only serve to silence criticism and dissent.

Edit: Answering your question, no I definitely do not want to silent dissent. We need it here to understand all the angles.

What about the fukushima commentor? We could solve that problem. Something needs to be done or else the sub will be useless. What can we do?

Here's my conspiracy theory. 9000sins comes over to conspiratard and gets downvoted constantly, and he wants to get back at us. Just like we get downvoted in /r/conspiracy.

When you get down to it, is there actually a problem with allowing /r/conspiratard to post here? Or is someone's feelings just getting hurt?

I'm not sure about this fukushima commentor that you're talking about, I'm not aware of that situation.

Fukushima

I don't mind r/conspiratard coming here, but there is certainly another seperate party(s) spreading disinfo. As for your conspiracy theory, I can't speak to that since I don't go to r/conspiratard nor do I know 9000sins that well.

Honestly, there's nothing beyond being skeptical for things like that. On the other hand, I'd say /r/conspiracy would rather claim a conspiracy than admit they're wrong about something.

The entire premise of that fukushima post is that new accounts are created. Ok, well you can't pre-ban anyone, so there's nothing you can do about it.

Then we should do nothing? Let the sub get gamed until it's just nonsense? Business as usual? Whatever who cares? We give up?

I don't think you're listening. There is literally nothing that can be done

You ban an account, another one can be made. It's easy, takes 10 seconds. If someone actually has an interest in gaming, it is not that hard to work around a ban. Welcome to what every reddit has to deal with, and they've all figured out how to suck it up.

Edit: On top of the ridiculousness of the discussion started by a single piece of evidence of gaming, of course.

Ahh well thank you for the clarification. I will instead ignore your advice to give up. I don't believe in "There is literally nothing that can be done."

Ok, so you tell me what can be done? I'd be super interested to hear.

No I can't. But I'm not going to give up and I'm not going to tell you that I give up. Ever heard of that? It's persistence.

Be persistent all you want, you're playing in Reddit's sandbox. Go on planetinfowars or something if you want more strict moderation.

We should preserve this sub. Even if people jeer and laugh at the stuff that makes the reddit front page at least they look at it.

Great! How?

fuck I don't know! lol

You realize that he is a moderator of r/conspiratard right?

Good for him.

Here's my conspiracy theory

Son, you clearly do not understand the definition of a 'conspiracy'. This explains a lot.

I'm banned from there. I can upvote and downvote but not comment.

I'm reluctant to burst your bubble son... but those votes of yours don't register to others. Your whole premise here is false.

That's terrible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8NLckiziyA

By the way, you're wrong. It's easy to test. Open a browser that isn't logged in, and vote on an article in a reddit you're banned in. Then look at it in the browser that isn't logged into reddit. Magically, the vote count will change.

Like I said, it's virtually impossible for gaming to be prevented on reddit.

The r/conspiracy sub thinks it's under attack? No cliche there.

Seriously, I think we're taking ourselves too seriously. If we don't laugh at things, we become like neophyte vegan pretentious assholes. We have to have a sense of humor about ourselves and everything that's going on in the world, or else this becomes a subreddit of doom and gloom.

I don't mind memes. But I also am willing to let them go if outvoted. (And since you said 'unanimous', I assume that I'm the only one who isn't bothered at all by memes. In fact, some of them are quite funny.)

Also, we have no facts. No matter what the conspiracy is, we don't actually have facts most of the time. We have allegations, circumstantial evidence, rumors and he-said-she-said anecdotes.

So do we really even always know what we're talking about? What the "most important" theories are? Seriously? I'll tell you what my theory is. Reddit takes it self too damn seriously. The whole world is just a serious, serious place, seriously! -- where every post in our subreddit needs a right to be here and has to be "important."

Just fucking listen to yourselves. So pretentious it makes me want to puke.

Save the sub from what? Posts about chemtrails? Zionist conspiracies in the Olympic games? How they're going to bury us in mass graves in Denver after the Dept. of Homeland Security attacks us with 900 million rounds of ammo and / or puts us in FEMA bunkers?

Let's take a step back and look at ourselves in the mirror a second. I come here for the perspective: the contrasting points of view. Things I might have missed in the normal course of the day. Let's please not get high and mighty and be us vs. "sheeple" (why don't you ban that word, instead of memes?) And all "serious" and "important." We might as well be r/politics then. Which sucks.

Seconding banning the use of 'sheeple.' I would also really like to see the word 'shill' go away.

Also, thanks. It's nice to know there's others around who share my view on the matter.

These two words - shill, in particular - do coincide with the people in your community who provide the least evidence, while supplying the most vitriol.

I have a community? I consider myself a freelance human, thanks.

eta: Perhaps the community at large can come up with another word to describe "one who is paid by my enemy to cloud the waters", one that doesn't sound so annoying.

i vote for memes as well, the shit will be downvoted and the good will stay (and i have seen some good ones as well) its not like we are flooded with them

Sounds right and reasonable, i agree.

Zionist conspiracies in the Olympic games?

I once saw a submission in here about how the lighting on top of the Olympic stadium looked like the eye of providence. People in the comments didn't question how idiotic that is, and instead talked about how clear the message is and how much sheeple everyone is.

I'm not saying everyone in this subreddit is like this, or even most. But we really have to consider what percentage of us have outright paranoid type schizophrenia. No, really. Actually ask yourself this. What percent of us can be diagnosed with schizophrenia?

I knew a guy, but he wasn't schizophrenic. His friends eventually convinced him that if ... geez, I can't remember what it was. But if something didn't happen by a certain time, he'd consider that maybe it was in his head.

David Icke. Swerdlow, Stuart.

What these do is take common psychological ailments or impediments, habituation -- whatever you wanna call it -- and present it as externalized. Which is what you mean when you say 'schizophrenia.'

I will say that the Olypmic games were somewhat interesting. Watch the full documentary if you get time. It's definitely interesting. There are so many... This one's okay.

The opening ceremony seemed to be a celebration of serfdom, industrial revolution, etc... basically the consolidation of the world's financial control into a cabal of a handful of people -- much less than 1%. Why would the 99% celebrate something like this?

It's easy. The people in control are relishing their control. And nothing tickles their pickle like paying people to dance like monkeys on international TV. So you can put whatever symbolism you want and let them make conspiracy videos -- you don't care -- in your arrogance, you think your work is nearly complete.

The r/conspiracy sub thinks it's under attack? No cliche there. Seriously, I think we're taking ourselves too seriously.

Finally, a voice of reason.

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I personally dont edit the titles. But I guess I should start.

When a person links from activistpost.com it appears here as a post by iemmawriter. So it is hard to say then that emma is submission flooding. However, Emma has an id page so I think the issue is spamming.

I use to provide 80 to 90 percent of the content in this subreddit. Those days are long gone. These days I usually find "that post has already been submitted". I don't think I am submission flooding. But if there is some guidelines you would like to suggest I will give it serious consideration.

BTW I am probably going to abandon this user ID if JA makes it to Equador. Can I sell it?

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Is it possible for mods to limit the number of submissions per username in a given amount of time? Not comments, just new submissions?

If so this would improve the s/n ratio and help prevent forumsliding...

But I know next to nothing; just trying to learn!

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Thanks for the education my friend!

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You bring up a good point that I'll discuss at a meta-level. Does exacerbating the problems of some system encourage the evolution/contradiction resolution of the system itself? As problems become more obvious, does it not make it easier to pick out general themes of malignancy or contradiction?

(perhaps we can have a conversation about the hegelian aspect of this vs the process of learning from our mistakes, at a cybernetics level)

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So to really get meta with this, (although off topic from the OP) -- Are many of those "illuminated" elites attempting to exacerbate problems so that solutions become more obvious? Is this like social-engineering-hacking?

Yet some could subscribe to the hegelian dialectic. Attempting to set up ones own solution for the problems they create. To me it seems as though the later is what actually happens, (supersedence) because ultimately control and the big con never works. The hegelian synthesis control method will ultimately be overcome IMO, as the collective consciousness, or us all, individually and uniquely assessing contradictions and providing solutions will learn from our mistakes and create that which makes old orders obsolete.

That was kindof a rant, but I hope it made sense

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I looked back on what I wrote and realized that I actually meant a different kind of "social-engineering-hacking" - I remembered the legit information-hacking operation that happens after I posted that. However, you again raise an interesting point: Using others as pawns to get what you want---exacerbate the problem while providing the solution that you have pre-packaged.

So my larger, socially-meta point is just that as problems arise, the "social-empowerment" provided in the solution could actually just be an inventive mode of control.

This point:

... assuming you meant "having the solution to the problem you just exacerbated". Because the solution I offered before I exacerbated the problem is identical to the solution I still have to offer, after the fact. i.e., nothing has changed in that respect. However, I didn't exacerbate the problem to increase emphasis on my solution. I did it to increase emphasis on the problem they were refusing to address.

...really speaks on what I was trying to get at earlier by asking, what if these "social-engineers", those with the influence to arrange and manipulate society, create problems so that the core contradictions within the problems are made glaringly obvious, and appropriate methods of supersedence could be realized?

The solution (the meta solution - the collective consciousness solution) is awareness.

I agree, there must be a dual awareness of the fundamental inconsistencies that cause a problem, and the education of how to create that which enables the obsolescence/irrelevance of those problems.

I always enjoy these conversations!

No, it won't do anything since they use sock puppets to flood out important posts...

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Selling your reddit username seems gauche to me. That being said I've never had one that anyone would want to buy, So I am perhaps not really qualified to say.

Just to add to what Homegrown said about the /new queue. If you really care about what is in this sub, or any other for that matter, spend a little bit of time there. It can actually be fun, and there are opportunities for discussion that disappear once a submission gets popular.

Bonus: you can be the first to tell someone their post sucks, and since they just posted it you'll know they're reading your comment.

For the love of God (who I actually don't believe exists, at least in any form described in religious scriptures) do NOT BAN THE MEMES:

This article explains very thoroughly why they are our most effective weapon:

http://www.gagnauga.is/index.php?Fl=Greinar&ID=217

Just trying to get relevant news into the queue. I try and space it out, but I don't always have all day to wait around and wait an hour between each post.

The new section has more than one page there is a "next" button at the bottom which means an entirely new page of new submissions is always just one more click away. This fits into the "crash course" I was talking about in my post. users should check at least 3 new pages every time they come to the board and +K AND COMMENT on any thread they think should go up.

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I think your comments about the new queue are worthy of attention. It's worth reitterating that the algorithm weights earlier votes more highly than later ones . A submission can effectively be killled relatively easily with a few downvotes , so there is an opportunity for manipulation there. If more people are active in the new queue that threat can be reduced.

know there is opportunity because I've been watching it happen.

Not mad or feeling bashed on, just voicing my position.

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There is a difference between censoring content, and doing something to prevent cross-sub links that massively pull down comments in the targeted sub. That effectively acts as censorship by burying. The Digg Bury Brigade and their current incarnations have slowly built up a force for this through things like EPS and side subs of theirs. Keep in mind they actively ban and censor any opposition, running their controlled subs as little fiefdoms. If they stayed within their filthy domain that would be acceptable, but the problem is they now use controlled mods infiltrated into other subs, cross-linking, and mass complaints to mods to take out opposition. The question is how to do something here about that.

I am wondering whether the concept of 'aged accounts' is applicable. That is, inflammatory new accounts that appear to be single-purpose probably should be banned. Accounts that are older and more likely to be legit, that say something controversial might be allowed to stay. There needs to be a mechanism to reduce utility of puppet accounts, which are used for attacks and to game the system to make it look like there is more support than there really is for some things.

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No.. not really. you get banned, your IP is hidden in the database and if you don't some how change your IP you likely to see any other accounts get hit with auto restrictions as well. Yes trolls can circumvent that but many can't.

Furthermore, the longevity of an account+karma should be considered first and foremost. Its unlikely - but no impossible - that a troll has a long standing account with high karma.

Ip bans dont work because its easy to bypass them with proxies.

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There just needs to be a warning system before handing out a death sentence.

I happen to agree with this. with the caveat that the accused be permitted a chance to respond publicly. what is important to remember is that 9000sins is not going on a witch hunt. those of us who are regulars are aware of each other, and many of these have grown quite familiar with the shills, spooks, and trolls haunting these halls and hiding behind claims of critical thinking and anti-censorship.

I favor banning too. But because I am a bit silly too, I would prefer it, if you could send a warning, so that innocent silly people could adjust to the new standards of /r/conspiracy

I say no memes. Also, I'm exhausted from all the constant disinfo reposts, like that OBVIOUS piece of garbage disinfo about James Holmes having a double. Is it ok that I reported them all? All I could see was a painfully obvious attempt to cloud of real issues with even worse than tabloid-like trash.

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I thought about checking it out earlier, but I was exhausted. And now I'm busy........so, I'll check it in a bit. Thanks though. :P

I subscribed to this subreddit expecting real conspiracy content, but all I got is some shaky posts and when I enter comments, people are like this is bullshit and other non-related. Why isn't this sub filled with real conspiracy mindblowing stuff? I we seen many good conspiracy stories, but not here...

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Anyone that disagrees with anything is immediately branded a shill or a paid agent

This is pretty characteristic of any conspiracy theory forum.

That's why I started reading here too, then realized it was mostly ancient aliens crap and 9/11 hyperbole and crap about chemtrails.That's when I discovered conspiritard which pokes fun at some of the ridiculousness like Alex Jones.

The level of delusion in here is frankly mind boggling. Anyone that disagrees with anything is immediately branded a shill or a paid agent,which is laughable really.Getting butthurt about conspiritard is the icing on the cake of irony though.

Conversely, it's posts like this that keep me from participating much here. I found the same behavior at ATS, too.

9/11 hyperbole

Never forget.

crap about chemtrails

I can see you are willingly ignorant, but are you blind, too? Are you too young to recall when the lines in the sky were not there? Have you ever spent a day just watching the planes that leave the persistent contrails? How about a week? Month? I am betting no, after nine years of personal and pointed observation myself...and nine years ago, chemtrails were cRaZy TaLk to me.

The level of delusion in here is frankly mind boggling.

Projection is a troll's best friend.

How about a simple warning system before banning someone? Serious. Imagine if the government just one day say oh that's against the law and the penalty is death because me and some other gestapo officer's decided so.

Basically, that's reddit's ban policy. You don't even know you are doing something wrong and regardless of the amount of months/years or Karma you have on the site one day out of the blue you learn a couple of mods decided this or that is justification for a death sentence of your reddit account.

That's pretty damn shitty. And those receiving the virtual death sentence feel they have been targeted for political reasons in many cases show substantiating evidence the appears to make their claims valid.

Hmm... at least tell someone they are breaking a law/rule before handing over a death sentence/ban.

Fully agree with that.

I don't know if something like a /r/conspiracy trial is possible.

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This, from the guy who spews anti-semitic slurs as if they're arguments.

It's amazing that this forum thinks Nolibs is trying to make you look dumb; they don't have to. You do a fine job on your own.

See now, here is a great example of a Needs To Be Banned:

This, from the guy who spews anti-semitic slurs as if they're arguments.

This has nothing to do with the discussion. You are pointing a finger and casting an aspersion offhand, no actual evidence of your claim present.

It's amazing that this forum thinks Nolibs is trying to make you look dumb; they don't have to. You do a fine job on your own.

It just called the entire subreddit dumb. That's you, you know. How does this benefit anyone here for discussion? If this 'person' was banned, would it HELP or HINDER the subreddit?

Censorship? Moderation. Where is the difference? That is the important bit here.

I have watched these organized trolls (EPS, et al) for several years now and seen how they operate. They get banned, they make a new account, they do it some more. No win, right? Wrong. You fucking ban them for specific behavior and no matter what name they use, they are removed. I have used this method to moderate a particular conspiracy chatroom that I am involved with and the conversations have become FAR better for it.

Now cue the trolls jumping up and down on me via text...same as it ever was.

And you, Graped_in_the_mouth...don't even bother. You got tagged as a 'Fanatic' some time ago and ONLY particular sorts get this tag from me. You can seriously just go eat a...pie. I know what you are.

his has nothing to do with the discussion. You are pointing a finger and casting an aspersion offhand, no actual evidence of your claim present.

I'd love to provide evidence of the times when texmex called me a Jew, or the time when he said he only had a problem with "Zionists", and when I told him I didn't support Israel, he said "no, you're still a Zionist", moving the goalposts when proven wrong...but I can't. For some VERY curious reason, I am unable to view his comment history properly, and thus unable to link you to his particularly egregious posts.

You got tagged as a 'Fanatic' some time ago and ONLY particular sorts get this tag from me

Well, if I got the tag, then it must be accurate. TAUTOLOGIES FOR EVERYONE!

Your subreddit is sick, and 9000sins has failed to identify the cause, instead choosing to believe that it's us who are making it sick. We're not the cause, and censorship SURELY isn't the medicine.

I have one account, and one account only; but if it gets banned, I assure you, it will do more to your subreddit than anything I ever could have said. I provide a criticism, a dissenting voice, someone who calls people on their bad logic, who demands evidence where others believe without question. If that's what you wish to crush, so be it.

I don't have a subreddit, fanatic. Go babble at someone else.

Well, if I got the tag, then it must be accurate.

My opinion is completely accurate and only actually useful to me. In my opinion, you behave like a fanatic, yes.

Enjoy your weekend.

This is all I can hear when I read your postings, Brappie.

Coming from you, that's funny. Whatever. You have one of the worst cases of littlebitchitis that I have ever encountered. :) When you insult me, it's about as effective as a Nerf gun 6 months after first being handed to a small child. I know you just crave my attention, but take heart that you will always have the memories, kiddo...as fabricated as they might be; you only see what you want to see and refuse to even entertain the idea of removing the blinders.

My worldview and yours are so drastically different, insults are all you have. On the internet. Oh no. Your new tag is Nerf Boy, in honor of this rare interaction. I was tired of the old one anyway.

9000sins, I've been a fan of yours for quite some time, but I have to disagree with the ban hammer coming down on the idiots. Not because I agree with their posts, but because it IS censorship, and censorship is something we, as a community, are trying to combat. I joined reddit because of this sub, this sub IS the reason why I am here, I, like most of the other folks who lurk or post this sub can figure out what is complete bullshit, and what is an actual story. We need to be more active as a group to downvote the bullshit we are being fed from other groups, and I agree that some of it appears to be posted to discredit us.

As for the memes? I've no problem banning them, but be sure to make some guidelines. All pictures with words are not bad, I've seen some great political satire here, and do enjoy the some of the recent flair, but as a whole, memes really offer nothing to discuss.

[deleted]

Think I speak for the majority when I say that we don't want to see you step down. Your posts are usually great finds, and your comments are normally spot on. Your input to this sub and active involvement make this sub what it is.

I'm not kissing your ass, I'm just saying we appreciate your roll here.

[deleted]

hey 9000 I have too have been a fan of yours for quite some time and I really do enjoy engaging in conversations with you and the others(you know who you are, specially the ones who have argued with me :). Do what you need to do, as much as I hate to say its censorship, its almost worse if we don't get rid of the trolls causing a lot of b.s. Major respect for bringing this up to us before actually implementing it. Great mod...for sure.

I think you do a good job. I see your point about not having all the tools necessary. I think in some ways that is a good thing. Mod power abuse is a real thing in any community and having the ability to have access to more granular data would add to the power and risk of power tripping. Many of the problems the sub is facing are a result of rapid growth . We should be careful about accusations of trolls, disinfo agents and the like. there are a multitude of motivations for peoples behaviour and it is easy to jump to conclusions.

At the very least one thing the mods can pay attention to is 'maintaining civility' . This would apply to not only suspected trolls but 'believers' (for want of a better word). I think a debate on what is acceptable conduct in the comments and what actually crosses the line. Perhaps moderators assuming the mod batch and pointing out bad behaviour may be an approach.

I'll happily admit that there are no easy answers. No one really likes having mods coming down on them and the anti authoritarian nature of the sub means we here are even more averse to it , which makes the mod job here very difficult and frustrating .

I've seen Contheoryspiracist have a bit of a blow out before and I am guessing that is out of frustration at trying to be a good mod and being overwhelmed by the sense of ingratitude and thankless nature of the job.

9000sins, I've been a fan of yours for quite some time, but I have to disagree with the ban hammer coming down on the idiots. Not because I agree with their posts, but because it IS censorship, and censorship is something we, as a community, are trying to combat

Excellent summary.

9000SINS, you're here talking about censorship, and calling it something other than censorship. That's some Orwellian shit. Which is incredibly ironic.

If users are purposely filling this sub with bs posts to dilute it of any real and useful content then I feel they should be banned. It's not censorship, they themselves are the ones trying to censor the real information out of this sub by burying it with their shit posts. Please ban away.

I think the key here is to understand the real definition of censorship, and to steer clear of damning terminology like "ban" and "censor."

We can break down the participants in this subreddit into two distinct categories: truth seekers, and truth suppressors. Now think about that word: "suppress." What happens when you stop something from being suppressed? You "lift" or "free" it.

By removing objectionable users, posts and comments, we're not "censoring" them, we're "freeing" our truth-based information from suppression.

If we refer to the new practice as "user lifting" it could go a long way in preventing outsiders from getting the wrong idea about it.

We can break down the participants in this subreddit into two distinct categories: truth seekers, and truth suppressors

Hear, hear.

If you are so convicted by your beliefs then why not try to win the conspirtards over?

There is no end to this conflict until we unite against our oppressors.

Stop being so easily defeated by trivial divide and conquer techniques and learn how to win our adversaries over to our side

Upvoted just for being Alexander Higgins.

Psychopaths can't be won over.

One cannot argue with a fanatic to any successful end. Would you argue with The Westboro Baptist Church? If your answer is yes, I suggest you start there, as I think you will have an easier time of things than with the group in question here.

Good point but discussions like this have become nothing but a waste of time when sovereignty of countries have been handed over to financial hit men, there is too much information out there to just ignore it, the way I see it is you are either with us or just get the fuck out of our way.

Maybe when these people start getting shunned en mass they will get the whats happening.

I'm glad this issue is being addressed, my only complaint about what's been going on lately here is the strange shift to blaming the Jews. I'm half Jewish and have never really followed the religion or anything, but I'm also not down for blaming an entire race of people with no more than crackpot rhetoric.

I'm sorry if I contributed to that problem with this recent submission.

The author of that quote, Benjamin Fulford, is notorious in the conspiracy research community for his often unhinged and audacious statements and claims.

In this instance, Fulford certainly seems to blame an entire race of people using crackpot rhetoric, though he does go on to specify that he means a very tiny minority at the top and that the vast majority of Jewish people are innocent.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter what race or creed.

As for using that quote in the title, I often take Fulford's more provocative statements and post them to /r/conspiracy, mostly just to see what people have to say.

Usually my Fulford submissions get downvoted to 1 or lower, and people frequently leave derisive comments attacking Fulford's credibility and sanity. This time, however, the provocative nature of the quote attracted that element of /r/conspiracy and I was shocked to see it rise to the top spot in no time at all.

/r/conspiratard got wind of it and soon the place was flooded with over 500 comments...some insightful, some offensive and some offended.

The most surprising thing to me about it was that some of the /r/conspiracy regulars that frequently bash Fulford when I post quotes from his blog were uncharacteristically up in arms and in full support of this anti-Semitic rhetoric.

There is a certain element here that trolls the rest of us when it comes to "Zionism" and "The Jews". There are the Zionists themselves, and there are those who are so ferociously anti-Zionist that it borders on coming full circle back to the other side. Funny how that happens in the political spectrum too.

Don't let these individuals distract from the real issues. I was pleased to see some intelligent comments in my submission the other day, as these issues can be presented without approaching extremism.

So don't be offended about the whole Jewish thing. I think you'd be surprised how many of the so-called "Jew-haters" on here aren't actually being sincere, for whatever reason.

All in all, it's beginning to give /r/conspiracy a bad name, so perhaps whatever they're trying to do is succeeding.

Thanks for this post 9000sins!

Thanks for the info. I'm pretty hard to offend so its not really a big deal. I just figured I'd mention it as I think it helps to discredit this subreddit.

I'm half Jewish and have never really followed the religion or anything

If you don't really follow the religion then you stop being Jewish. Judaism is a religious belief like Islam and Christianity and not a race.

That's a tough one though, as people seem divided on the subject. I technically don't consider myself at all jewish, but some people feel like its a race rather than a religion.

I dont think this was a real issue before the concept of Zionism as a national movement. To me, I don't consider you Jewish (and even if you still practiced I have no problem with that - its just Zionism that im personally against).

I can understand that stance completely. I'm not as well informed on the subject as I should be I believe, but I'm definitely going to read up on it now.

I'm going to drop the act of "all conspiracy fans are retarded" for a moment here, because I know that's not the case.

I post a lot on /r/conspiratard, and I'll tell you straight up that we don't need to "game" this subreddit.

Pretty much our entire content base comes from finding nutters in this subreddit, and I'll tell you, it isn't hard. Sure, sometimes an article (normally on politics) will be posted and it'll be critically examined and some pretty fucking believable shit will be drawn from it. But for every time that happens, there will be a million NWO/Illuminati/911 Denialism/Anti Jew/chemtrail/anti vax articles posted.

At the end of the day, believing in shit like that is what makes this place an embarrassment, it has fuck all to do with us. Hell, this sub is 10x the size of ours, we couldn't successfully vote rig if we wanted to.

So fine, down vote this comment, call me a shill, tell me I'm wrong. But a month from now, when we're all banned, the content here will still be retarded. You'll still have morons like that bubmlingmumbling prick and krugman running around the default subs spewing nonsense. You'll still be represented by a base of people who are known for being thick.

The reason r/conspiracy's content is crap is because most conspiracies are crap, not because we are fucking with this sub.

But are you that surprised that they would blame someone else?

Most conspiracy theories rely on some sort of unknown shadowy force controlling or influencing the situation.

It only makes sense that /r/conspiracy would apply this logic elsewhere.

In all seriousness, a subreddit of 8k members would not be able to influence another subreddit that's x10 its size.

Pretty much our entire content base comes from finding nutters in this subreddit, and I'll tell you, it isn't hard

Thats the problem. These nutters could be exactly who 9000sins is talking about, trying to false flag the important shit with nonsense. Just because you aren't a shill doesn't mean they aren't there

This is a community of 70,000 people, most of whom are inactive. Nothing posted here is of any consequence to anyone. Even if a real conspiracy was hit upon here, it wouldn't matter.

trying to false flag the important shit with nonsense.

1) I've never seen anything objectively true posted here.

2) To suggest that this sub is important enough to warrant a large group of people organising en masse to make you all look like idiots is unbelievably asinine.

As I said before, the content here is shit because the content here is shit.

Ban all memes, there's enough of that shit on the rest of reddit.

For the love of God (who I actually don't believe exists, at least in any form described in religious scriptures) do NOT BAN THE MEMES:

This article explains very thoroughly why they are our most effective weapon:

http://www.gagnauga.is/index.php?Fl=Greinar&ID=217

Banning on a Conspiracy and basically Freedom themed subreddit, isn't this just hypocritical !

IMHO NO to banning. Let the system of up/downvotes work for themselves.

Note to subreddit mods: Please place somewhere visible a reminder of what are the up/downvotes meant for Relevancy and not an exclamation of your opinion. Posts like this IMO, of course, deserves a downvote

• Stop letting them disrupt this /r/.
  

Many of them will play the victim, or like they do in libertarian/voluntarist subreddits say you are violating your own philosophy or "censoring" in the case of /r/conspiracy which holds itself to a high regard in not censoring news stories or opinions.

This is a bullshit tactic to play to what they know is your genuine desires so they can continue disrupting the board unmolested. Let them make new accounts, some of us are skilled veteran troll hunters and will be able to ferret them out rather quickly, especially considering all the veteran troll accounts will be banned leaving only new accounts of interested disruptors left.

Go to their subreddits and actively try and disrupt/derail their boards and see what happens to you. You don't hold yourself to a higher standard by letting them fuck your board up, you are just getting played like chumps

• Meme's are a hard one,

I'd say if it's an original picture, with macros on it, like the Iranian and US olympians or original informational post like the one up at the top today they should be okay. But, if it's a re-hashed tired meme like scumbag steve, or Keaneu or whichever that they should be removed. This should be entirely at the discretion of the mods. Repeat offenders can be warned/banned.

• One other thing.

Please put a simple crash course on how to stop this from happening to the board, like not just going to the hot page, but starting on the new page and upvoting and commenting on any articles they think should move up so they get bumped quicker and can't just be quickly buried.

[deleted]

/r/occupywallstreet became garbage because the entire movement was subverted from it's onset. Hell they even hired the /r/enoughpaulspam and /r/conspiratard jerkoffs to mod the board for a hot minute. That should tell you the mindset of the mods there.

I was in the GlobalRevolution IRC with Dan Feidt aka HonPong and the rest of the people from DAY 1 I watched it all happen I warned them what was happening some listened but it was beyond their control, some didn't listen. That's how it goes.

I'm not talking about just banning critical views, I'm talking about people who are impervious to facts/sources/information and clearly have only an agenda of disrupting the board. You can be critical or disagree without trying to be disruptive. If they think everything we post is bullshit and we are all idiots, then there is no middle ground for them and they should probably find somewhere else to bash the people they disdain so much, like /r/conspiratard.

[deleted]

So then does banning meme's include images that are informational?

[deleted]

So then most, may be all of the images I've posted don't fit that category. I think it may be important to elaborate to everyone what is appropriate images and what isn't for those not as savvy about meme's otherwise they may just begin voting down and reporting any images posted period.

I feel I need to correct that they aren't Reddit meme's most of them started on something awful/deviant art/ 4chan. / YTMD that are getting re-hashed here like they are new.

No offence to you because I like the stuff you post. But most of the time your images with macros are redundant. We already know whats wrong that's why I come here. I'm looking for more news, which you do post a ton of of, don't get me wrong. But could you please cut back on stuff like this, I get that it's though provoking but for most of us it isn't a novel idea:

• http://i.imgur.com/LsFbt.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/8lRpd.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/f4X19.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/xOtm5.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/2um53.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/W4N7Z.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/4A8up.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/b9M6a.jpg

It'd be ok if they got some discussion but only one of these got over 100 comments. And that was the US-Iran war comparison, which people sought to correct.

No offense to you, but I get tired of posting relevant news stories and getting buried by one of four groups.

1. Alex Jones/ Infowars haters

2. Israeli sock puppets

3. /r/conspiratard losers

4. Useful idiots who are in love with the medical establishment priest class and hate anything that challenges it.

More often than not these groups overlap. So instead of singling me out for those posts try giving +K and commenting on relevant stories instead of letting the other asshats bury them.

I do upvote your news articles. I think the controlling factors also prefer upvoting images because they don't get any new information out there.

1. alex jones is a conspiracy to himself. it's not that he is hated, it is that he is not trusted, and certainly not a primary source. besides, his production company is a Sacred Cow.
   
2. what israeli sockpuppets? this r/ is dominated by ant-jewish sentiment.. a derailing tactic in itself.
   
3. Ban them fast and often.
4. not sure what this is.

It is my opinion that replacing Israel, IDF, Mossad, Zionist, Jewish Bankers etc with Jews as is happening here is a deliberate tactic of sockpuppets that is being enthusiastically embraced by the naieve.

I also think debasing the conversation from useful analysis of the stranglehold that the ADL has over congress to "OMG does anyone else hate the way jews always cry anti-semite when you criticise them". Is also a deliberate undermining of this subreddit.

The only answer to this IMO is people on the subreddit downvoting childish and inherentley antisemetic anti-jewish sentiment and up voting well thought out criticism on Israeli government influence and policies etc.

So you're saying we are not allowed to criticize Israel, IDF and the Mossad because that offends Jews?

No. Im saying the opposite you should criticise Israel, IDF and the Mossad as you should criticise Saudi Arabia. Religion is a smoke screen. The people behind these institutions want you to descend into anti-jewish anti-islamic slogans rather than staying focussed on the institutions themselves.

The Royal family of Saudi Arabia hides behind Islam, Israel hides behind the Jewish diaspora. Refuse to be distracted by the camouflage.

Oh my.

So, basically, everyone who disagrees with you is a shill/sock puppet! What an unbiased narrative you have here.

1: Alex Jones is a liar. He lies for a living. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. Infowars is INCREDIBLY unreliable.

2: This class includes anyone who won't agree that all Israeli's are heartless monsters.

3: Again, people who disagree with you, and are therefore "losers"

4: BEEP! BEEP! FULL CRAZY MODE! Are you actually defending your insane anti-vaccination bullshit by implying that doctors are "priests"? No. Science is not religion. Vaccines are not ritual. This stuff is proven to work.

R/conspiratard doesn't need to come here to discredit you; if YOU are representative of the r/conspiracy community, then you're doing a fine job discrediting yourself.

For the love of God (who I actually don't believe exists, at least in any form described in religious scriptures) do NOT BAN THE MEMES:

This article explains very thoroughly why they are our most effective weapon:

http://www.gagnauga.is/index.php?Fl=Greinar&ID=217

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

This is how i see memes

Read the whole thread, only the mass produced images with different macro's are banned, not original content.

How is it unanimous? 73,000 readers total, and you get 177 comments. That's unanimous?

Again, stop deleting stuff. You are not needed.

[deleted]

And you wonder why the subreddit has gone to shit...

Someone is giving you his critical opinion and you dismiss him outright.

Why even bother to poll the plebes if you clearly don't care about what they think?

I know you think of me a an enemy(since the internet is serious business and all). But I understand that you're just trying to make your sub-reddit better. Some advice from someone(me) who has quite a lot of forum moderation experience:

1. Ban memes if you wish, but if you don't give some other channel for them to be posted, you'll be spending most of your time removing links. Why not start /r/conspiracymemes or add to the sidebar a better link to /r/conspiracyhumor.

2. Bans on allegations of Trolling won't do anything. Anyone who enjoys trolling will just come back. Also you'll create a lot of drama if slide into banning people based on their opinions, misconstruing a dumb question or unpopular opinion with "trolling". You'd be going the way of /r/srs, /r/anarchism, or /r/lgbt if you're liberal with bans... these places are drama minefields and this detracts from the quality of the discussion.

So what to do about trolling? Do what moderators have done since the early days of the internet, ignore it, don't feed the trolls is an important rule to uphold.

Also on a more personal opinion, if you're concerned about vote manipulation, remove posts any time someone x-post a reddit link to /r/conspiracy to "raise awareness", "educate", "whatever". It's hippocritical to claim vote rigging when another subreddit links to yours but see nothing wrong with your subreddit linking to others. You'd avoid a lot of drama by implimenting a rule like this.

Best,

if you're concerned about vote manipulation, remove posts any time someone x-post a reddit link to /r/conspiracy to "raise awareness", "educate", "whatever"

No, no, no. That would be exactly what the shills and trolls would want.

Assuming you're being serious, wouldn't this be a huge double standard of forum policy? To allow x-posting threads to /r/conspiracy but banning people for x-posting threads from /r/conspiracy to another subreddit?

Oh, wait. I was sure of what you seemed to mean but now I'm not.

someone x-post a reddit link to /r/conspiracy

Did you mean crossposting a link to /r/conspiracy to another sub?

Or did you mean crosposting a link from another sub to /r/conspiracy?

I say fuck memes to hell. If I want a meme about something I'll make it. If someone else wants conspiracy memes real bad then make r/conspiracymemes.

Good luck.

Yes no more shitty memes

Just wanted to make my voice heard, I love r/conspiracy and the people on it, but I just wanted to share my thoughts:

1) We should work off a principle of full disclosure. Anything that happens should be fully presented and disclosed to the users.

2) All of us do need to be aware of what is happening on this subreddit. If there is sliding or censorship or any other "underhanded" activity, the users should be made aware under the full disclosure principle.

3) Baning users is a form of censorship, and censorship has no place here. Have a list of public pariahs as well as documentation of the stuff they are doing. Again, full disclosure.

4) Banning memes, while i do understand the arguments for it, is also censorship. I didn't mind the memes to be honest, especially when they were thought provoking. Just wanted to point out that it's not unanimous. Might i suggest instead directing memes to r/conspirameme as opposed to just outright deletion or banning?

Again, I love this reddit because everyone can share ideas of any viewpoint, and we should really strive to maintain that level of integrity within this community.

Thanks guys!

How is the meme banning unanimous when I disagree with it in the most fervent of manner. It would be the single worst thing you could do to this subreddit! I believe this constitutes an attack on this subreddit at the worst caliber and is deliberate CIA propaganda. I think most of the people advocating the meme banning are trolls and those upvoting it to the top are too!

WE MUST NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN!

Memes are only funny if you're 13. They're only original if you've been under a rock forever. My vote: Memes must go.

How about you start by dealing with the censorship of the real members of this forum who got booted in the first place that allowed this forum to be subverted in the first place.

George Washington of WashingtonsBlog.

Deal with the FNuts who attack ActivistsPost.

Get AlexHiggins732 (Alexander Higgins Blog) UNBANNED.

Get iAmJulianAssange back in here.

Get rid of your(No blog spam) rule or atleast modify it so that Blogs that write about conspiracy (Love how government corruption is now cornered into the conspiracy reddit btw) are allowed to post here without being called blog spam because no corporate owned whore media outlet is going to write about the damn truth.

Let the people's vote decide instead of just banning posters based on dissenting political opinion I a mean this is a 'conspiracy forum' right?

Oops did I just get myself banned for ranting about how to fix a forum that got broke in the first place by banning those who actually had the balls to voice their opinion in the first place?

I bet I did (Screen shot :))

I agree with all of it....but please....I do not mean to upset the reddit community...... Isn't banning something censorship? And we or at least I feel this way. I feel there is something to be learned by everyone...it is what we take from it. But that is just my 2 cents. Even fools can help us....we need fools to help us steer through the journey of life. Those are the ones who keep us strong and intent on not being messed with!

Even fools can help us....we need fools to help us steer through the journey of life. Those are the ones who keep us strong and intent on not being messed with!

One fool, or a few fools might be charming and you can further your own understanding of a subject if you try to explain it to someone in simple terms.

But disruptive posters are poison to a forum with their ridicule, ad hominem, hartred and off-topic posts. Upvoted lunatic claims and posted disinformation are poisoning the well and the well is in this case the whole subreddit. Detractors who use vote-rigging and bots can become the death to a lively forum.

In my opinion it is important to remember the classical CONTELPRO intention and tactics.

First, there was infiltration. Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. The main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. They also exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.

Second, there was psychological warfare from the outside. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists. http://www.albionmonitor.com/9905a/jbcointelpro.html

I think if we don't want interested people to go elsewhere, a certain amount of banning is appropriate.

In my opinion vote-riggers and bot-users should be instantly banned. Posters who use disruptive, intellectual dishonest techniques or post lots of ridiculous stuff (forum sliding) should get one, or perhaps a few warnings before they get the boot.

Their subreddit name conspiratard pretty much self explains the mentality of the people using that subreddit, it's poetic.

"You put shit in, you get shit out"

[deleted]

Just because I argue with you dosen't mean I'm some shill.

Yet that's what a ton of people think. We've seen people post in /r/conspiratard that 9000sins has banned them after simply questioning conspiracy theories.

Is there a way to put down all the racism against Jews? It makes this sub look racist, when it's only a few antisemites being noisy idiots.

[deleted]

We see very little actual anti-semitism

Really? That isn't at all true.

I'm a long time reader of this sub. I have believed for a while that this sub is gamed and that there is nothing you or I can do about it. What we can do is change our prospective. Here are some of the things I do to help me when reading stuff here:

• up/down votes do not matter for both comments and links- disregard these completely.
  
• submissions with lots of up votes don't make them better then submissions with many down votes. Read as much as you can and make your own decisions.
• Read new posts and new comments - don't focus only on 'what's hot' or what's ranked best. Rank does not matter.
• Think for yourself and don't judge a post by its upvote/downvote count

Think about it this way. The sub is being gamed. Those who are gaming it will want their disinfo at the top and your real info at the bottom. Comments that speak truth will be down voted and comments that are false will be upvoted. But at the same time 'normal' readers will be up voting and down voting too, so therefore, having either high upvotes, no upvotes or downvotes does not impact the truth of a post or statement. Read as much as possible and make your own judgements.

Memes? Don't really care one way or the other.

Banning trolls and shills? I'm kinda torn about this. On the one hand it gets really, really old having to go through the process of discrediting them every single time they post their ludicrous comments. And they keep posting the same BS over and over again even after having been shown how ridiculous they are. On the other hand they continually show the entire community just how ridiculous their comments are thus discrediting themselves.

They do seem to really take over any really interesting comment thread quite fast which ends up pushing the good info comments way down the page (I always sort by oldest first).

Perhaps imposing the old "8 minutes (or more?) per comment submission" on shills and trolls is the way to go.

[deleted]

If you could that would be great. At least that would prevent them from immediately taking over a comment thread

8 minutes is not even enough time for them to chime in with all of their sockpuppets. It will do nothing helpful.

Yeah, I noticed the sliding and probably a lot of sock puppets... Would be nice if you could sift them out and ban on a daily basis :)

And please, NO memes... We have other subs for that -.-

The biggest thing I've found in regards to the degradation of this sub-reddit is the amount of image / text overlay posts that seem to be frequenting the top posts. I can understand why they're popular but they severely limit the amount of quality posts that make their way to the top.

/Fitness had this problem and the only way they were able to sustain themselves as a functioning community was to change every post to a .self post. I think this should be considered here too.

99% of these "memes" dont deserve to be called memes,they are just moronic pictures and text that fade to nothingness in minutes.

You know r/conspiritard could have been a good counterbalance to r/conspiracy but obviously from the time the name was conceived it exists only to insult and demean. Heres a quote from a post about 9/11

I think they/their brain can't deal with the reality of it, with the emotions of such a tragic event, the senselessness of it. And rather than confront reality, they flee into a fantasy world of their own.

This to me sums up the similarities but vast chasm between the 2 mindsets. Let me try the conspiracy version:

I think they/their brain can't deal with the reality of it, with the emotions of such a murderous event, the treachery of it. And rather than confront reality, they stay in the fantasy world created by the media.

If you watch TV all day,read MSM stories all day and fail to recognise propaganda when you see it nevermind outright lies r/conspiritard is for you.

As someone who's been around here for years, I have noticed a dramatic drop in the quality of comments and posts in a very short time. I really hope we can clean it up...

Please, please get rid of memes and simple joke graphics. I unsubscribed from /r/pics for a reason.

I've been around for 4 years on Reddit (no this is not my first account obviously) and in and out of /r/conspiracy. I don't think it's any organized effort making this subreddit worse, I think it's just grown in size and every subreddit on this website has gotten overrun by a younger and more vocal demographic. All of the subreddits I visit have declined in qaulity over the last year, some dramatically. Like you said I've unsubscribed from /r/pics and every defaul sub, as well as many other smaller non default subs. They are all suffering from the same "forum slide", and I don't think its intentional, its just filled with more idiots and young people now.

TL;DR: All subreddits have been getting shittier lately.

The growth in this sub been fairly linear, the quality has been dropping much quicker than growth. It's been targeted.

RIP r/conspiracy. We had a good 4 years.

I really hope you don't just start banning people that don't seem to believe whatever conspiracy theory is most popular at the moment.

I myself am fairly skeptic about specific theories, but I am open minded. I do believe that our government lies to us about a great deal of things. I just think that many people come in here spouting the most unbelievable things with nothing but hearsay or speculation to back their claims up.

I feel that this place has the potential to be a great forum for discussion about the possibility of conspiracy, but many times, if you don't get on board with certain trains of thought, you are downvoted to hell and called a sheep or something else. Skepticism can be a good thing, it let's you examine things from the standpoint of "prove it" which ultimately gives you the ability to bring any evidence to light, which only helps the cause.

Oh you mean like that dude linking music videos at 4 in the morning? Yeah I work overnights so I get to downvote that shit first.

Edit: Speaking of forum sliding, it doesn't work as well here (because of the voting system) as it does on more traditional forums, where the last posted in thread rises to the top. I saw it happen a few years ago on the official WoW forums, where a user was editing posts in his post history to bury something, as each edit would bring that thread back up to the top. I didn't understand it then but because of the way Reddit works we can stop those sort of faggotronics with a little diligence.

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Not sure what Immortal Technique has to do with anything, but if it was just a music video in the conspiracy subreddit then yep. I don't post stuff because I don't often find anything worth posting, and this website is clogged up with enough garbage already.

Nothing against you, I'm sure you're like, a really strong dad or something. But /r/music is thattaway.

Not sure what videos are being mentioned , but music videos are not necessarily an automatic no here, imo

pro tip. It is 4 in the morning 24 hours a day :)

shhhhhh don't tell anyone. Also on reflection I'm not sure that's entirely true. I mean what we consider to be 4am based on the position of the sun would indeed be happening somewhere on the planet at all times, BUT 4am according to modern timekeeping would be happening based on time zones, so it wouldn't 4am 24 hours a day. I think.

And i base this on absolutely nothing.

Pretty sure there are 24 timeszones.

Apparently there are 40.

If you type, "How many time" into google, the first thing it suggests is, "How many times has goku died."

Wtf , 40 timezones. I thought the globe was split into 24 lines of longditude

It is, but apparently, and this is the kicker, the 40 zones were divided up for political reasons to accommodate country borders. Logic at its best.

Im one of the newer subs. New to reddit really, but I don't think memes belong in this subreddit, also if you ban users it makes them troll that much more. The best way is to ignore them, when I flip to this subreddit I hit the new tab always so I can see all the posts even if they have negative votes so I can form my own opinion opposed to just looking "hot" posts.

I will not miss the memes at all. Please keep up the good work!

I don't really care for memes being posted in this sub-reddit, The world events we are currently witnessing, experiencing, and participating in, are far too important to be taken lightly. When I come to this sub-reddit I'm looking for knowledge and depth.

I cannot condone censorship. While I am frustrated with trolls, shills, and half-wits, the censoring and banning of these offensive redditors goes against the grain of everything I know r/conspiracy to be. We're better than that.

One more thing. ImJulianAssange was the redditor who kept this sub-reddit from going stagnant for the first few months I was here. I've always backed him up, as I would almost everyone else who has replied in this thread this evening. For what it's worth, I have a lot of respect for all the regulars here.

The goal of this sub is to have an honest, open discussion about various conspiracy theories.

The trolls and shills are not honest nor open, so ban them.

A sound argument.

I understand that being a moderator for a sub that specializes in unconventional thought is a tricky job, but I believe there is a fine line between informative discussion and fear mongering.

As someone who likes to stir the pot, I think playing devil's advocate and questioning hyperbole is a good thing. If you want to ban people that are obviously trolling, that's fine, but if you want to eliminate anyone that doesnt follow the tinfoil hat mindset, then I'll be looking forward to being kicked out any day now.

I think honestly to keep the site open we're going to have to allow dissenters.

We should be able to out them, though, some way - a public shaming is a good way to motivate people. That should be in the TOS of the subreddit though (a warning?)

I don't think there should be stifling of conversations or threads.

Also could you ban headline altering of articles posted

Maybe we just need ONE meme thread to rule them all. LOL! That way we get all the great memes without feeding karma whores.

Also, I just worry anytime any one particular person takes it upon themselves to "fix" stuff. Reddit is user generated content. I get that it means we constantly run the danger of being gamed and we should always call BS on that but I also don't want more rules, drama or a babysitter telling me what's good for me. What needs to happen is that people need to use their up and down votes more responsibly and we all need to run the lol-brats, trolls and shills out of r/conspiracy through shaming them and calling them out on their BS.

Some douche tried to "improve" our experience a while back, changed all kinds of stuff - for the worse - in r/conspiracy and became a mini Hitler of sorts.

It sucked.

I've noticed a severe slippage in content recently too. After i read that entire faq that someone posted about forum sliding I realized that if ANY place there would be some slippage taking place it would be a forum like this and started going to backlogged pages to try and find downvoted and unchecked links that didn't float to the top.

Get rid of the stupid tin foil hat icon and replace it with something more respectable like a magnifying glass or symbol for justice. Also be more responsive when an image like the George Orwell house which was a fake is posted on the upper right and people say it is a fake. That will improve the respectability of this subreddit. Thanks for this thread.

a magnifying glass or symbol for justice

Couldn't agree more.

Perhaps justice scales under a magnifying class?

Yeah. Exactly. Or the little reddit alien holding a magnifying glass? Definitely a lot of room for improvement from what we have now. Thanks.

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You guys are all bigots, nominally. You realize that right?

If critical analysis is bigotry, call me whatever you want. I'm just breaking down why I believe you're having problems.

I'm just giving you another perspective on the issue, but downvote/ban away. Just more proof that this "intellectual" subreddit is nothing more than a huge joke.

You unfailingly rely on using minority slurs. You are nasty, mean-spirited bigots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T549VoLca_Q

I agree with everything you said and I think you should take the action you think is necessary. Thank you for your efforts to making this a great place without trolls! (I love you)

We all love this sub for it's openness and freedom to be free of the constant censorship ... It will take strong moderation and at least one mass banning of the known troublemakers

I know some of the less tolerant here don't like people who disagree with them, or somehow dare use the freedom of speech you apparently offer, but censoring people who disagree with you is still just censorship. Censoring yourselves from people who respectably disagree is an insane way to improve the quality of any discussion.

I've been on the internet long enough to know the difference between 'censorship' and 'moderation'. I am a bit saddened by how many here don't. :(

If you are at, say, an AA meeting and a drunk dude waltzes in and starts shouting into faces, is it censorship to throw his ass back to the street?

If you own a McDonald's and every day some dude buys food at the Burger King next door, only to bring it into your dining room to eat it, is it censorship to tell him to knock it off?

If you are at The Democratic National Convention, why are there no Republican speakers?

I can do this all day. Why can't you?

If all moderation were censorship, the internet would be nothing but spam. Think about that.

Edit to remove doubled text. Oops.

God damn...I read this yesterday, and closed it, but it's been completely pushed from the front page.

I think this is getting out of hand, the forum sliding, you have all these negative forces lashing out against anyone with a 3rd opinion, anyone who questions something that they've been told by the MSM as being this and only this.

I hope shit can get better.

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I think it's a sensitive issue and warrants careful thought. For want of a better word perhaps a commitee of interested parties could thrash out the meat and bones of what the issues are and how to address. This thread of course is a very good start.

I agree with banning memes it doesn't seem to fit here, in my opinion. As for banning people, I think it's a terrible idea. Censorship is bad, even if someone is trolling, manipulating, etc. And once censorship starts it pretty much always gets carried away, so better not to start is my thought.

I come here for news, and go to the main page for memes and humor.

I have no problem with any mass bannings. It won't affect what I see because I don't read comments on this subreddit. When I actually want to have a conversation about one of the topics with someone, I contact them privately. Public discussion of serious topics only invites ignorant people to break up the train of thought.

There's a difference between censorship of a legitimate opinion and censorship of forum sliding. I.e. my posts suck and are insulting, but I'd like to think that sometimes (ok, maybe like 1/3 of the time) I actually contribute to the discourse, whereas someone trying to silence a legitimate topic through gaming the system rather than discussion is always of negative value to the subreddit.

While I'd support banning the people responsible (even if it meant I'd eat one too), there might be an alternate solution. Is there any way to give people uneditable flairs, or remove their voting privileges?

Also I'd rather not see memes clogging up the subreddit, but maybe have a memes sticky?

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I'd be willing to give up having my own personal flair to flag users.

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Do it, give them the old school troll face.

I think you are one of the best mods on reddit personally. I been redditing for a little over 2 years and have run into problems commonly with other mods being overzealous or unavailable. Just wanted to say thanks you man. If you ever need another moderator to help out I would gladly throw my hat in the ring, as my job(graphic design) allows me the freedom to be on reddit during the work day. as far as the ban hammer...use it on the users that your 100% sure are shills/infiltrators. Appreciate your work.

I'd love to see Memes banned in all honesty.

Meta conspiracy

Tag em, bag em, and down vote the shit out of them. We should not censor anyone even If they come here to mock us. We are better than that.

Leave the censorship to r/politics and the media.

My idea would be to highlight (flair tag) the offenders. Make us all aware, and eventually shadowban them (after a number of infractions)

Then we have the option to ignore, or exile them from discussion. We must make an example of them, but leave them visible so that others can learn from their tactics.

• and I don't mind memes if they are on topic, relevant and not reposts. they do bring new views and subscribers. especially on reddit.

I think ALL sub reddits with conspiracy based info or world news the powers that be don't want to discussed, need to implement a ZERO downvote policy. This can be removed after: A certain amount of days (probation period), vote from the community on your username being "released" into the wild to both upvote and downvote (this can be a username that stands out. Maybe a bold green color to denote a greenie), or posts can only be mass downvoted by users with XXX amount of karma. Something needs to be done and this is my two cents on what may work. Hate to say it but it may be time to don our foil hats and remove the fillings from our teeth just to get ALL of the news/conspiracies on here.

TL;DR: We need to Occupy/r/Conspiracy and take back our subreddit.

Maybe we could experiment with removing the downvoting option for link submissions? That way, the heavily upvoted links would remain on the top while links that receive few upvotes would slowly slide down to the subsequent pages.

Instead of banning, what about setting flair denoting the account is not genuine? Banning the account will only let them create a more accounts that will most likely be less active as to not be spotted.

Here is my opinion on this:

Hardcore /r/Conspiratards should be banned from /r/conspiracy, because they are just destroying this subreddit and might even purposefully doing it.

There is really no reason for something like /r/conspiratard to exist. I onced tried to reason with them in this thread.

It is one thing to critisize a point you don't agree with, but it's another thing that the purpose is only to ridicule/mob the viewpoint of others.

There is not only no constructive discussion about topics, they do not even want to have a debate. I can't see any point in this subreddit, because when conspiracy content is bad, it gets downvoted here as well. There is no reason to highlight negative already downvoted things. They highlight downvoted and stupid things and act as the highlighted stupidity is applied to every subredditor of /r/conspiracy, thus ridiculing and mobbing the whole everyone in here.

And /r/conspiratard is not even and independent subreddit. They rely fully on /r/conspiracy for content in a kind of parasitic relationship.

Thus I suggest, that the top 1000 /r/conspiratard contributors, should be banned from this subreddit.

Can we put the users, that are up for banning, on trial?

Post the names of them and let us peruse their submitted/comment history and decide, as a community, whether or not a banning is in order?

Or would/could this process also be manipulated?

yes to bannings

no to memes, i can't stand that bs

So I am kinda new here, and apparently cant separate the bs from the real stuff..... what are some general guidelines to help me weed out the bs and downvote it?

Here is what I do:

• votes do not matter for both comments and links- disregard these completely.
• submissions with lots of up votes don't make them better then submissions with many down votes. Read as much as you can and make your own decisions.
• Read new posts and new comments - don't focus only on 'what's hot' or what's ranked best. Rank does not matter.
• Think for yourself and don't judge a post by its upvote/downvote count

Ok good point man!

So, if I subscribe to r/conspiratard I may get banned? Or did I misread that?

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So let's say I subscribe but never post, will I be banned?

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Ok. Just needed clarification of that.

If it's your honest assessment that we're being attacked, then by all means, ban away.

a sub that promotes freedom, but bans users? seems legit.

Meme banning. Banning obvious conspiratard guys. I'm ok with all of that. Do it.

I think that it would be helpful here if you could provide us with some clear information.

What group is attacking the subreddit? Please name names and be as exact as possible. Is it the military? Is it the Mormons? We need some clarity here.

Memes that are clearly irrelavent should be sent elsewhere. Otherwise, it is a judgement call.

My opinion of this situation is that we should not ban anything or anyone and focus on the awareness aspect of your solutions first and foremost. I do understand the necessity of banning people who are repeatedly and intentionally damaging the sub, however, in the grand scheme of things there are few folks in here like that. Perhaps bans should be publicly discussed and laid bare as part of the awareness aspect of this issue? Transparency and awareness will bring us closer to a solution than retribution and punishment. If more mods are an answer I'd be willing to give it a shot (I have no mod experience lol), but one thing I will do is spend more time in new.

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You are saying there are more of them than us? How many people are you talking about banning? There have always been those that game the system; how is this time different? You seem so sure of the severity of the situation, but we are given little more to go on than your assurance. As far as I'm concerned it's up to the community to step up, but I might be missing something.

It seems the argument is that ethically, in an abstract way, we do want to honor a commitment to honesty and fair play, however, much like our CIA, these people are not operating under the same ethical concern, yet they maintain a front that contradicts this. We should try hard to think clearly and avoid letting an abstract consideration of ethics cloud the very real observation of an unethical assault that will not be mitigated by maintining a moral position, IMO.

One of the things that I do enjoy whether I agree with the OP or not agree. It is the fact that this is an open forum that let's all spout their opinions. I mean in a nutshell that's what r/conspiracy is really all about right?

It's putting up with every kind of outspoken diatribe on a conspiracy. True freedom of speech and no censorship. This is evident by how many posts are on the rights of our ability to protest, and speak freely are being squashed by the government. Even to the point where other subreddits remove or band redditors from expressing their free speech. Free speech is a double edge sword so to speak.

If we try to shut up even a troll or a conspiratard then we are no better, and become hypocrites unto ourselves. You sometimes gotta let the shit flow downriver, and see where it winds up. IMO no censorship even if it's a troll shill. It comes with the territory. r/conspiracy redditors who want to post subjects should have grown thick skin by now if they want to be here. Even the mods need to have thick skin and tell any whiner to shut up, so long as it doesn't violate the 7 basic rules on the right. In fact you should have a rule #8. Think skin is required.

That's what makes r/conspiracy better as there is no censorship. Free speech or die a hypocrite's death.

This will be buried, but I will say it anyways.

1. Good job on no memes. Perhaps a conspiracy memes subreddit affiliated with this one is appropriate.
2. Do what you must regarding forum trolls. I have noticed the quality of the links, (and worse still - the discussions of them) degrading heavily in the last few months. I'd like to second OWNtheNWO - this isn't a libertarian support group.
3. Perhaps we should have "Focus Groups" for the week (month, etc.) on the sidebar, so we can pool our resources for items of interest. The main topic of the focus group could be updated daily with the consensus, and major dissenting views which have gained traction, so that we have one source of high quality information for major topics of interest, rather than having to weed through the shit the forum trolls are throwing up. Recent things that jump to mind: The Aurora Shooting, Israel Gearing up For War With Iran, UK getting ready to pull Assange from Ecuadorean Embassy, etc. The focus groups will (hopefully) keep the relevant information fresh, and relevant on important topics.
4. I'd be willing to write "An Idiots Guide to Conspiracy Theories" if it would please the mods. Maybe a walkthrough of the Business Plot, or the USS Liberty Incident. I find a lot of people who disbelieve conspiracy theories in general never paid attention in their high school history class.
5. I think that flagrant disregards for common sense and basic statistics need to be downvoted to hell as well. We're in the business of highly speculative questioning and attempting to find the signal from the noise of all the facts out there. Not being idiots.

Ban Badgergecko. He's spamming this thread as we speak.

This may be a false flag attack designed to gather momentum for the idea of banning memes on this subreddit, when it is clear that they are our most effective tools of propaganda in the infowar.

Or to put it this way: http://j.wigflip.com/g0LuqNpM/roflbot.jpg

I think you would better serve yourselves by banning the Neo Nazi types who are popular and frequent posters here.

Starting with you?

http://www.reddit.com/r/NolibsWatch/comments/u70lq/jcm267_calls_the_jews_who_survived_auschwitz_and/

http://i.imgur.com/cDOAm.png

Side panel should have a section for MEME archives just so you can go back and take a peak for some light humor...I mean we all get overwhelmed with being so aware at times.

Also, we need to make it clear who some of the people really are on this subreddit...it's way too easy to infiltrate with disinfo.

I had a running argument today with a guy who had 20,800 Karma points. This seems to me to be the type of troll you want to keep your eyes on.

I feel bans and the dreaded "censorship" may be the only way to effectively combat the shills and trolls (that I 100% agree with 9000Sins with) have attacked and have been ravaging this subreddit. Although the word has all sorts of negative connotation, censoring and getting rid of those who come here purely to distract us from conversation may be the only way to keep the real conversation happening (as counter-intuitive as that seams).

HomeGrownTerran made an excellent point that combats my view:

He had posted about 25 troll comments in the last half hour (almost 1 per minute) in r/conspiracy alone. But, here's the interesting part... He only trolled the "hot" page. I.e., he was a total amateur, trolling dead threads. Then, I realized... this guy just got off work, and this is how he lets off steam from his shitty job with shitty pay. He's clueless that he's actually bashing his allies.

but my response is radically different than his/hers. With far less faith in humanity, I want to just say screw that guy who comes home from work pissed off who comes to blow off steam by messing with us, that's like the guy who gets so mad about life he just freaks out and starts ranting and raving in the streets at anyone nearby, except this way they have an "ideological" reason for targeting a specific group. We don't need that person, not only do they fail to further the conversation (nor will her further any conversation in that mindset), but they end up wasting our valuable time by having us sift through piles of trollish bs, which actively slows us down. We can't be slowed down anymore, we can't be in the unflinching "everybody gets the chance to express themselves" mindset anymore as this type of mindset is actively being used against us.

Like OWS, we need to find a new way to compose ourselves as a collective-community, learn new ways to cope with the (often times orchestrated) factionalization and in-fighting that occures, and explore new tactics towards dealing with outside threats to our community. If we don't defend ourselves, no one will.

In a very real way I feel like we're running out of time to deal with these mounting crises going on globally, and wasting time isn't an option anymore.

Jus' my $.02

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That link enlightened me so much to the depths of the battle going on within the internet right now... I've never seen the internet so at war with itself, and, that said, I've been on the internet pretty much since it was a thing. The paid and unpaid trolls have taken gaming websites such as reddit to a whole new level, and the damage to coherent conversation is intense.

At this point I 100% believe this subreddit, and reddit as a whole (at least the news portions), are being gamed, slided, and every other thing you can do to a forum to corrupt genuine conversation on specific issues. /r/politics and /r/worldnews have been turned into a wasteland in the comments section, and its clear the bots are out in force never before seen. Banning, slow-posting, troll badges, we have to do it all, we have to adapt, because the forces that are being leveled against genuine conversation, across the whole spectrum of the internet, is genuinely terrifying.

The subreddit drama is petty, and I think we'll weather the waves, but I do believe that if this subreddit cleaned up the sources it accepted (no memes, more articles from verifiable sources, ect), that we could further influence the larger reddits as I've seen /r/conspiracy do many times in my time on reddit (2 or 3 years across multiple accounts).

Shit, this subreddit was warning about the Homeland Battlefield Bill years before it happened, if that doesn't prove we're bringing truth to light, I don't know what does.

It's unanimous! Memes are no longer allowed from here on out. Thanks for your input!

Amazing news. I honestly hate when someone just puts a corny one-liner and a picture and doesn't even discuss what they think or anything at all. Just karma ploys that don't add anything to discussion.

I too agree with the me me banning. This was a place for clearly written intellectually drafted thoughts, and should not include witty quips.

Fuck I like memes. I got some good ones from here. FUCK. I understand what your talking about but dam,.God dam sub terrorist are winning here too dammit!

Rampant anti antisemitism is what should be focused on. and I say this as a poster who hasn't a minute of time for the Zionist and apartheid state of Israel. The Zionists create these accounts to drag the rest of the subreddit down into a racist hatred which they, the zionist can point to as a good example of how "anti zionism" is just anti jewish by another name.

I am glad you have named the /r/conspiratard. I suspect a large number of people are unaware of that place and it's possible influence.

I've never really noticed any mods or many others calling them out in any way before. Not to tar them all with the same brush though, because that would be similar to how many there view this subreddit but it is a potential hub for interference with this sub. Many times you can see links to threads here and the comments in the thread here reflect their interference. It's especially obvious with RES installed and you can see upvotes and downvotes.

Would it be appropriate to raise awareness here more and possibly link to threads where they are targeting us. I have done this before a couple of times but they never seemed to be appreciated though.

If they are targeting this sub then should they be immune from retaliation?

Half their subs are probably cointelpro, the rest are a sad joke. Everything you say could turn out to be true and they would still call you a tin foil hat wearing, conspiracy nut. The world would end in a giant fiery ball before these people would admit they were ever wrong.

Works both ways.

what way is that?

You could have your pet theory comprehensively debunked time and again and yet still insist on clinging vainly to it no matter what. Plenty of people like that around, aren't there.

what pet theory? what pet theory has been debunked? I haven't presented any theory, I don't agree with everything posted on r/conspiracy. I disagree with lots of things posted on this subreddit, but I also don't like the mainstream media. You have just presented the king of all strawman arguments. You don't know what I believe or why I believe it. I like the links i find here, I like to hear other peoples theories, I love the way this subreddit is filled with open minded people. If I have a problem with a group of people, I don't find or create subreddits to bag them out and call them tards, my response to the comment hiddenhand made, was that it is pointless to retaliate to r/conspiratard. It wont achieve anything. If i don't like a subreddit, I just wont go there, and I definitely wont go to a subreddit to make comments on purpose to troll them, like many people love to do to r/conspiracy. If people have a problem with conspiracy theorists and they think its that bad, don't go to r/conspiracy.

Wow. You don't seem to understand how the English language works. "Your", in this context, refers to the subreddit in general. Not everything is just about whatever one individuals beliefs are or are not.

I thought when you use the term 'you', you were referring to me, like how I just used 'you' to refer to you. But who cares, what group is perfect and correct all the time, other subreddits are full of people who wouldn't give up their beliefs because someone thought they had been debunked, and in my opinion they shouldn't have to.

That's why I said "it works both ways".

excellent

It's unanimous! Memes are no longer allowed from here on out. Thanks for your input!

Amazing news. I honestly hate when someone just puts a corny one-liner and a picture and doesn't even discuss what they think or anything at all. Just karma ploys that don't add anything to discussion.

I know it might not be agreed with by all either but, I really would like to see just less pictures in general unless there is a ton of explanation and back story.

Just a picture, even with text a paragraph long, can still be vague and not really add anything, especially when the person who submits that doesn't share his opinion or anything what-so-ever.

Maybe an image as a thread with a video inside to show the context of the picture? Or an article that the picture is used in that helps explain it?

Even with pictures like the voting one on the sidebar, I would like to just see pictures like that be accompanied by a decent sized post as well, not just link for karma.

NO Facebook links. All Facebook links are subject to removal.

Given the nature of this sub, this would be nice too ;)

I'm really conflicted about this , as pics and macros are an effective way to portray the general idea of a complex subject and act as a hook. I strongly suspect that a big reason for the growth of this sub is related to pics and memes etc. If you look at the top submissions here a lot are memes and pics.

Memes and pics get upvoted more readily simply because it takes very little time to take in the information so voting is quicker.

I suspect If we drop the memes then growth will be affected, but perhaps at this stage that might not be such a bad thing.

Yeah it's actually really hard for me to convey what I'm trying to say in this regard.

I don't mind pictures at all, what I don't like is a quirky one-liner like "And they said Bush was bad?" and linking a picture of Obama standing next to cat, and then just leaving it for whatever discussion. (Read with obvious paraphrasing and hyperbole of course)

Maybe it's just a quality over quantity thing? Where I'd like posts to have more substance than just shock value?

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So you're going to consider banning people from a list submitted by another user who claims to be able to know who the paid shills are? How do you know he's not a paid shill himself and sending you a list of posters in this subreddit who bring up actual conspiracies the government wants covered up? How is that guy capable of knowing who is and who isn't a paid shill? In my 4 years of experience in this subreddit, evidence for a paid shill is nothing more than "this person disagreed with me once = PAID GOVERNMENT COINTELPRO SHILL AGENT". It's rarely (if ever) solid evidence.

This is such a slipperly slope for this subreddit and it's future. I come in here and occassionally disagree with some of the things posted here (I rarely comment in here though). Am I going to be banned? I'm not disinfo or a paid government shill, but I don't expect someone like me would ever get a chance to explain themselves. Yet if someone claims "HES A PAID GOVERNMENT AGENT", I imagine I'll just get banned.

Personally I don't care if I get banned, because if that's the paranoid route the mods here want to take, then this subreddit will lose all of the credibility it had, and I wouldn't care to read it anyway. You ban everyone whose ever disagreed with the stuff posted here, and you're going to be left with an echo-chamber circlejerk. Even if I don't get banned, but this mass-banning takes place, I'll still unsubscribe after being a member for 4 years just because I don't want to see this place turn into an even bigger paranoid circlejerk.

Something to consider.

[deleted]

I know who my true core is

So if you already know all the people whose opinions you like and trust, why not just make the subreddit private and ban everyone else unless they get invited?

I can spot riff-raff from a mile away. And you my friend fall into the second category.

Well I'm glad to know the mass bannings will be justified by "being able to spot riff-raff". This is exactly what I'm afraid of. I like how you say I fall into the second category, why? Because I'm voicing disagreement now? Because of a small handful of comments I've posted in /r/conspiracy over the last few months? Or because "You can spot riff-raff" and that's all you need?

Do you really believe we are this distant, or that stupid?

The mod team? No. Some of the more vocal users here? Yes.

it's about taking away the ability to manipulate this sub.

The people who you ban in error, like myself, will just leave and never come back and laugh about how paranoid and dumb this subreddit got. The trolls and "paid shills" that you think are waging a war on your subreddit will continue. Again, you're only going to push away people who disagree, the trolls and shills will come back with a new strategy. Bet on it. Or do you think that if there is indeed some form of government attack of subversion on here that they will just give up after you ban some of their accounts? I don't doubt your actions might slow them down if this is indeed happening. But isn't it also possible it's just a bunch of asshats submitting stupid shit?

What you are doing is very similar to McCarthyism, and the type of witch hunts and infringements of free speech that this subreddit used to actually stand against. Again, if this attack and these shills are so successful, how do we know you aren't one of them and this is all part of the plan to ruin this subreddit? Or are mods immune to being labeled shills because they are authority figures?

EDIT: Just making it clear I'm not trying to make a case for myself not getting banned, as if I get banned it's honestly not that big of deal to me. Just trying to get this community and the mods to really look at this mass banning idea rationally because it seems to be a very nuclear knee-jerk reaction.

[deleted]

I don't come to laugh at, I come here because I'm open minded and like to read both sides of every story. I might laugh at some of the more ridiculous David Icke stuff, or the whole Jay-Z and Lady Gaga Illuminati empire stuff, but I honestly come here because I can't truly form an opinion without taking in a variety sources, being my own research, MSM, Reddit, forums, the conspiracy blogs and subreddits, etc. But I digress...

Don't make this out to be some kind of witch hunt because it's not.

My point was is this community is really quick to jump to the "he must be a paid shill" defense with anyone around here who disagrees with them, and I just see going after attackers as leading to a witch hunt. Not necessarily by you (or the mods), who I trust more than the average user here, but some of the more vocal users actually think they know who paid shills are, they actually believe they know for a fact if someone works for the government or not, when in reality they have no clue and are probably just mad. There will be instances where you're going to get threads with people just going "OMG WHEN IS THIS SHILL GOING TO GET BANNED?" and calls for peoples heads to roll.

I know I'm not disruptive enough to be banned, I don't comment here enough to raise any red flags, and spend the vast majority of my time in other subreddits. But I worry about some of the people who are always here, asking questions that go against the mainline opinion here, presenting evidence counter to the story, or giving possible rational explanations for events and different situations, and they get written off as shills and COINTELPRO agents... when they are nothing more than someone, at most, who just likes getting a rise out of conspiracy theorists.

I know the intent isn't a witch hunt, but again, slippery slope, I see it easily turning into a witch hunt. Either way, I support mods in every subreddit I belong to, and always side with them. I just wanted to offer up my points and opinions about these suggested changes. Also banning memes I'm all for and wish more subreddits did it. They are plaguing this website. But either way, lack of moderation leads to complete shitholes, but too much can also lead to shitholes. But I prefer heavy moderation to a lack there of, otherwise communities go to complete shit.

Either way, thanks for listening!

hey 9000 I have too have been a fan of yours for quite some time and I really do enjoy engaging in conversations with you and the others(you know who you are, specially the ones who have argued with me :). Do what you need to do, as much as I hate to say its censorship, its almost worse if we don't get rid of the trolls causing a lot of b.s. Major respect for bringing this up to us before actually implementing it. Great mod...for sure.

That link enlightened me so much to the depths of the battle going on within the internet right now... I've never seen the internet so at war with itself, and, that said, I've been on the internet pretty much since it was a thing. The paid and unpaid trolls have taken gaming websites such as reddit to a whole new level, and the damage to coherent conversation is intense.

At this point I 100% believe this subreddit, and reddit as a whole (at least the news portions), are being gamed, slided, and every other thing you can do to a forum to corrupt genuine conversation on specific issues. /r/politics and /r/worldnews have been turned into a wasteland in the comments section, and its clear the bots are out in force never before seen. Banning, slow-posting, troll badges, we have to do it all, we have to adapt, because the forces that are being leveled against genuine conversation, across the whole spectrum of the internet, is genuinely terrifying.

The subreddit drama is petty, and I think we'll weather the waves, but I do believe that if this subreddit cleaned up the sources it accepted (no memes, more articles from verifiable sources, ect), that we could further influence the larger reddits as I've seen /r/conspiracy do many times in my time on reddit (2 or 3 years across multiple accounts).

Shit, this subreddit was warning about the Homeland Battlefield Bill years before it happened, if that doesn't prove we're bringing truth to light, I don't know what does.