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.
c/FlatEarthResearch
How does that not meet your needs?
It's got nothing to do with my needs. It has to do with censoring ideas which one disagrees with. It's literally why this forum exists.
If we start banning topics and forcing users into alternate subs like c/FlatEarthResearch , it starts to stink like Reddit and r/TheDonald. Once all the contaminating opinions and users are safely confined to their special place on the site...wham-bam close the sub and ban the users. They did it with r/TD and r/FatPeopleHate to start with, and now any voice that doesn't parrot Stalinism is suddenly gone from Reddit.
I've used Reddit since the Digg migration, and I've used .win since Axolotl started this forum. If we start banning topics mods don't like then I think it's time the actual users who contribute content move on and find something better.
It can't possibly, not when you can discuss that idea to the exclusion of all others to your heart's content right on this platform.
So your concern has nothing to do with the OP, you're just worried about it spreading to everything else. Got it, and thank you for your honesty.
I know nothing about the OP / mod, and will not vouch for him; however, I DO know a great deal about our admin and the fact that they're committed to there not being "reddit power mods." The concern you're expressing would be rooted out diligently. I can't say admin would act quickly on it, that depends on them seeing it first. Sometimes they've acted very quickly to user concerns, furnishing the solution in less than an hour. Other times they haven't seen it for days.
I'm confident that even if this one mod wanted to do what you fear, he couldn't.
Your comparing this to Reddit says that you know nothing about .win.
There is no active democracy of mods on this forum.
A few weeks (maybe a couple of months) ago one of the mods (maybe this one) posted a drunken AMA where he explained that pretty much he alone did most of the mod work because the rest barely log into the site. He also explained that on average there is only about 20-30 regular active users on the site. The rest of the user base sporadically use this forum. What this means is that only one or two individual mods are curating the content for a small community. Fortunately he seems to be curating accurately and correctly, but when one of the couple of mods we have wants to ban topics which they personally think are bullshit it sets a bad precedent. True, I think the topic is bullshit also (but at least has some interesting ideas), but the purpose of this site is to allow open and free discussion of conspiracy topics of all sorts and that means sometimes we have to deal with idiotic bullshit we disagree with. Daily there is embarrassingly stupid stuff I see posted here, but the community tends to moderate itself with proper discussion.
Ok, so I really don't want to be a dick about this, but I strongly suggest you not throw stones in a glass house.
The reality is, if you don't know how the entire .win site relates to censorship precedents from Reddit, then you know nothing about .win. If you don't know how Reddit censorship relates to this forum specifically, then you know nothing about this conspiracy forum.
I was here on day 1 .win went public. That's long before this .win got here. I know the history.
I also understand modding a small .win solo, having done it long past the point of burnout.
You are apparently unaware of the existence of admin, and how they compare to mods. That would mean you're also unaware of how to ask admin for help:
c/Meta
Are mod logs public?
What happens when you appeal mod action via modmail? That tool has the advantage that the whole mod board can see it if they so choose.
Those things matter, and could be appealed to admin with no further problems if out of whack. I'd only suggest staying far away from 'boy that cried wolf' status.
In this issue, which the voting is over and settled 44-61, the problem is nobody discusses the topic in good faith. On either side. Conversation is neither informative, interesting, nor civil. It's just monkeys flinging poo, and invading everything. True, that may not be recent as I haven't been back since, but that's the history.
Question: if those interested in the topic discussed it in an existing .win just for this one issue, where the head mod is knowledgeable, passionate, and skilled at getting emotional people to look at facts; if everybody here took time to get better informed and more skillful at discussing this topic and then brought it back here, why would that be a bad thing?