There is a dedicated community on this website for Flat Earth [FE] stuff:
https://scored.co/c/flatearthresearch/new
There is no need for FE here on conspiracies IMO. If people want to explore FE they can easily seek it there or elsewhere on the internet.
My position: FE doesn't belong here. I believe the proponents of FE are ruining any chance this forum has to gain a larger following. They are time wasters and trolls who reject logical and reasonable rebuttable of their assertions. If someone disproves their idea they say it's lies and fakery without justification or evidence. If it's tiresome for me it must be annoying for others too, and perhaps it is dissuading lurkers from taking the leap and interacting here. No one should have to spend time wading through FE madness if they didn't seek it out.
My position wont change through argument. That's not what this post is about. I want to know:
Do individual, regular users on Conspiracies support banning FE posts and "discussion" from this forum?
If this motion of mine passes, the FE users would be allowed to stay, but submissions they make claiming the Earth is flat would be removed and result in a 3 day ban.
Comments arguing for FE would be removed too, if they are reported or I see them.
A note on the side bar would be added, making it clear that FE is banned here, and a link to the scored/communities FE community provided.
I think that's fair.
Since voting is easily manipulated, the way we'll decide is this:
Reply below, a top level comment, with either a YAY or NAY
YAY= I want FE banned
NAY= I want FE allowed
1 vote per user
Caveats:
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Any top level comment without a clear YAY or NAY at the beginning of the comment will be removed.
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YAYS or NAYS as a reply to a top level comment will not count and will be removed.
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Provide justification, opinions or suggestions about all this along with your vote, if you like, but place it on a separate line below your YAY or NAY.
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Replying to users is fine too, as long as you yourself have also made a top level comment with a yay or nay.
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If a top level comment is edited, the edit history will be checked and the comment may not count or may be removed.
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We have about 100 regular users/contributors, my estimate, so I hope everyone replies with a YAY or NAY. We'll give it plenty of time to ensure everyone sees this post.
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Upvotes or Downvotes on comments or on this post will be completely ignored
We're counting YAYs or NAYs from individual users only.
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Top level comments without a clear YAY or NAY will be removed.
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Duplicate YAYs or NAYS will be removed.
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Handshake account YAYs or NAYs are welcome, but they will be scrutinized and possibly ignored if they seem like sock-puppets, regardless of how they are voting. This is to ensure the minimum of vote manipulation.
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Older accounts with little to no history - or where their last comment was several months or years ago - will also be scrutinized and may not count.
I reserve the right to edit this post based on interactions and suggestions below. I may not have thought of everything. Edits will be labelled and placed at the end of this text.
EDIT
Vote over
Minus sock-puppet accounts it's 61 Nay, 44 Yay.
Most of the nays are casual, non-contributing users banging on about censorship and free speech who don't give a damn about quality content nor FE. I encourage those users to engage with FE instead of ignoring it. If you did that you would probably come to regret voting to allow it in this forum.
This topic gets amazing engagement which handled properly could grow the community. Are you honestly saying the topics of spam, pornography, etc. should be banned? Or, is it low quality instances of these topics? Obviously, it's the latter.
The solution is more high quality moderation, not shooting the community in the foot with misused banning powers.
Counterpoint: this .win gets some very interesting topics. When I used to try to engage here it was difficult to scroll through all the FE posts, and in a convo decidedly NOT about FE, somebody would always have to try to bring it up.
Amazing yes, but amazingly stupid. I rarely look here since.
Completely understandble. That user should have been restrained, not all users.
It's never been a single user, always the topic itself.
Would you also vote to ban guns thinking it would reduce the violent actions of men?
I concur.
There is simply no such thing as a high-quality FE post, even from the stand point of defending it as a topic. FE posts are by definition made in complete ignorance and are of extremely low quality. This post, my motion to ban FE, is probably the highest quality FE as a topic discussion post that there has been on this forum.
In a struggle between honesty and dishonesty, the only way to win for the honest is to stay honest against the struggle; the only way to win for the dishonest is to claim victory.
If the yays have it, expect congratulations on your victory.
The people telling you not to ban it are either useful idiots or shills.
You are so correct that he should just not count the nays because of this obvious fact.
Please remove this guy from a mod position
Are you saying you want me to remove the shitty low effort posts? Many users do want this. Those posts are reported all the time. I don't remove them because of the free speech thing. It will only be my opinion what is low effort.
My position is FE posts specifically don't deserve that courtesy because those posts are a specifically destructive and toxic obscenity for this community in the long run. It's a specific topic that is always wrong, no matter what angle to come at it from. And they try and insert it into every other topic. It's a cult and FE people are members of that cult trying to convert new people.