There's no rule, precedent, or consensus for banning a person simply for the choice to comment rather than to post. As I said, you could fit illogic or dilatoriness into the current rules, and I add there's a disclaimer against trolling, though that can be easily abused and needs formal definition. But selecting to comment only instead of posting is not trolling.
You're making a personal false equivalence by daring me to delete posts, which isn't a dare I see as useful. The record shows that I do have a habit of hiding some of my biggest contributions in comments rather than posts, because I personally limit posts to established categories with a few specialized one-off ideas; I still want posts to be high-effort and well-placed. So I already have a leaning toward declining to post that is different from your leaning in judging content. That shouldn't be an issue and I'm mystified why your response runs that direction. It may be that I'm disappointing you by not jumping straight to crackdown against what you clearly see as shillery; but that's the point of moderation, namely to find the moderate response to the whole of the community's views. If someone's being immoderate (and the extended illogic, dilation, or deliberate obfuscation might qualify), that gets moderated; but a self-imposed limit on one's contributions isn't immoderate, in fact it's moderate. You can't make someone post.
Looking forward to your thoughts on my swift report to Paleo and his swift use of the suspension tool. Now let's see how I would think about your questions.
How would you recognize a shill?
A shill is defined by insincerity of statement, evidenced by alignment with known movements against community interest. Here interest is defined very open-endedly in the sidebar as freedom, imagination, respect, openness, fairness, and transparency, so those being individualist there's not a lot there to encourage community, collaboration, deliberation, or cooperation.
Now I greatly appreciate and hereby bookmark your Stop Shills post. So let's see. I've already hinted to you that there is pretty obvious evidence (to me) of Forum Sliding toward a particular form of collectivism, and indicated that I tolerate this as part of the territory. Everyone has an equal right to direct the forum, and if the more powerful make it a successful slide toward some conspiracies rather than others then I can't argue against that on the grounds of the forum goals. It's "undue weight" but it doesn't have the effect of nullifying anything else being said. To prevent Forum Sliding there would need to be agreement on what constitutes undue weight among the many conspiracies possible, and I don't see that arising easily. Most free-speech fora here simply let everyone in and the squeaky wheels get, not grease, but bandwidth that ultimately does little for them. Perhaps there might be agreement that shilling for one or more established conspirator networks is straightforward, but I kinda thought the point is that all theories are kept theoretical until broad consensus can arise on them, and I would be hard-pressed to define consensus that has arisen (partly because I haven't read a lot of this forum). So there are many pattern recognitions by which I can suspect a person is shilling via sliding, but the boundary at which point a mod should pull the trigger (use the tool) must be more than on the suspicion level alone. [Add: yes, no-sliding is a rule, so we can work from that for a better definition; objective enforcement would still treat it more like managing spam than like an excuse to censor.]
Topic Dilution is very similarly handled, and if the goal is resource burn then the mod should simply favor quick solutions that answer that goal. (I often don't because I like explaining to myself and others, and I self-regulate how much time I take doing it.) Consensus Cracking relies on disinformation and there a shill need not even be called out (unless there is repetitive pattern) because we have good researchers.
So the mod team, while aware of many metrics of measuring shilling levels, should act when a situation crosses some objective line. Illogic is demonstrated by insincerity via alignment with censorship, disrespect, closed-mindedness, disinformation, etc. Dilation (dilution) usually follows straightforward spam rules. Trolling is ordinary disruption (platform misuse) and is marked by incongruity with social standards. That seems sufficient without a rush to judgment of every comment.
Is any confusing comment worthy to be here, just because you don't understand it?
Admin preaches inclusivism, namely defaulting to retention rather than to removal. The question is, does the confusion cross a line into the objective negative, not does it fail to reach a level I view as positive. Conspiracy discussion should permit confusing theories up to a point. Confusion is not a reason to remove, it's a reason to test for more data to see whether the user is onto something or is just incoherent by communal judgment. Deliberate intransigence about illogic is a reason to remove, but usually isn't judged based on a single confusing post.
If you're truly trying to help people understand something, why wouldn't you post ever?
That sounds like ideating that membership should be vetted on their attempts to help understanding. Free discussion isn't about attempting a coordinate goal. I suppose we could argue that obscurantism goes against the goal of increasing transparency, but most conspiracy theories don't start out with fully transparent explanations but are hunches, and it seems that freedom to work is still needed. Now, this user does make plain, when asked, that as an individual (a one) he has little concern for other individuals (as they are different expressions of a one), and specifically he doesn't suggest explanations but only interacts for himself (and whomever will). I don't do justice to his language, of course. So should we ban him because he was no interest in community? That doesn't seem the purpose here, but as I said that could be a community question (what are we here to jointly do, that if we go against we can be disciplined for).
And if you're too soft on shills, then why would anyone need you in a conspiracy forum?
I learned that conspiracy theories include "The conspiracy theorists are manipulating the world!" I question everything including the questioning principle. There are many interpretations here. If evidence indicates that there is, or has been, a strong consensus for certain conspiracy theories being well-established, then shilling against those might be better indicated. But a mod usually doesn't judge a shill based on a single report (unless the violation is very objective). If the community wants a crackdown, they can make that clear right now (but they haven't). But we started with the goal that they do want activity and communal access to appoint a moderator to use tools.
If you stay with your beliefs and allow mods like this, then there's no value in you being a mod, is there?
There's not a value in being soft on violations and getting mocked by the violators (disrespect, another violation). My beliefs are that violations should be (um) transparently codified and (um) fairly enforced. Your question seems to go to the idea that a harder-line interpretation than the existing objective rules would be called for. Well, if the community agrees then I would too. But (getting back to individual morality) we each have different ideas on what is good behavior and we are in the process of improving those ideas to better reflect God's. So if we two disagree on best practices that can be worked out in time. To me the evenness of enforcement is more important than the particular ruleset because the community can modify the ruleset (or the moderator independently at need) but uneven enforcement is forum-sliding against the rule of law.
if you can't think of ways to defend this community from them, then what is your real goal?
I didn't propose moderation with enemies or defense in mind primarily, but with collaboration and community-building (and ultimately witness to truth). The basic free-speech approach is well-summarized by respect, and telling everyone if you don't like another's speech that's tough. Only clear violations are deleted, not offenses against emotions. I haven't conceived this community as having a narrower goal than letting theories rise out of free speech. When I went to c/Christianity I had a goal in mind ("study and forum"), shared it with the community, got their approval, saw God's hand moving in it, and we've operated pretty smoothly since. Here I don't have a vision that we should force a goal. The closest idea I've had so far (not having reflected on it much) is that a mod could assist in crystalizing consensus by analyzing roundtables and posting summaries to establish settled paths of (improvable) conclusions. Much of that could be done by a mod who has an agenda; but I don't come to Conspiracies with an agenda beyond seeing what God wants of me. Perhaps you have an agenda (which is fine) about what constitutes a shill or an enemy. That can easily be elaborated on and vetted by others so as to gain traction for moderation.
As I implied, I write things out partly to clarify them for myself as well as the audience. I hope that helps you, because it certainly helps me to clarify position by handling hypotheticals. If we select a mod team I'm certainly going to direct certain views toward those forum goals like transparency and fairness because that's an established community agenda. It's possible we might not have a mod team that agrees with my direction and my Scored participation might regroup otherwise. But I have high hopes that we will get admin permission to move forward (assuming the community is ready to leave anarchy).
I agree with u/Graphenium in part, Paleo: 1ARK0Q58fj does show up in Trending/new when you keep scrolling; but I understood your point to be that it doesn't hit the algorithm for Trending. I'm pretty sure the same is true of the porn poster, and this is true indefinitely for as far back as the scroll permits. For instance, to get that user's quota of 5 daily porn posts today, click https://scored.co/c/Trending/new?from=1ARK0OvvGz [content warning]. It seems this should be the expected behavior, because a great benefit of Scored is the power of New to review all live contribs in a group; but if there's something amiss about it we should be aware.
In general, it's probable that c/WizardDuels should have is_app_safe FALSE, because it's gunfights, and the moderator should probably also be told with some authority to remember to flag the post in question as NSFW (I merely used the ordinary report). But those seem like one-offs and not the endemic issue u/Graphenium appears to perceive.
Thanks Guy, you're not one hosing this thread. I respect your view that return to active moderation brings great censorship risks. I'm still counting on you as one who's good at seeing how to bring people to consensus on how to proceed in life, especially in a forum where by default people are skeptical of everything, especially religion. If my statement about the suspiciousness of voting are borne out, then the fact that we vote differently shouldn't actually reflect that we have a core problem but only an opportunity to find best paths for the community together along with everyone else of many ideas. Looking forward to the continuing convo.
All the 100+ I listed have IMHO enough claims on truth to be pedigreed. I believe that any formal theological disagreement among any of them can be resolved into unity on essentials, liberty on nonessentials, charity in all (many more semantic questions are nonessential than we realize). The post is so that we're aware of our pedigrees and so that there's clear information that is compiled by the same objective standards.
If you see satanism in it, I don't. I omitted suborders, movements, and infiltrators deliberately. The Society of Jesus is fully part of the Roman Catholics (not a split) so either it shows itself redeemed or it falls just like any other work arising within the body. Freemasonry is an ecumenical movement, and Rosicrucianism is a gnostic movement, that never pretended to be or to come from denominations. The major cults (to pick on JW and LDS as examples) are not denominations of Christianity but objectively distinguishable from them. There are a couple splits that originated as cults but have been overcome by evangelization and recast themselves completely (to pick on SDA and GCI as examples), so I give them credit for the present but not necessarily the past.
Also, it's possible to list 100 sects of Judaism or of Islam, but I don't find it worth my interest to go beyond a few main divisions. Yes, Christianity is over target, and is the most often so, but satan hates Abrahamic religions just because they hang out close to us, and hates any pursuit of truth ultimately for the same reason.
Hope that answers your questions!
We must exclude some users, so the rest are safe!
I like you, so I'm convinced you didn't think about how that sounds in this forum.
They also killed some people, so just be reminded of that.
Since our good friend u/Paleo noticed our reports about spam, he banned u/persianprince sitewide within minutes of my giving him the details, because that is a known issue (demonstrable alt of CSAM poster). So I can use force. That's one of several issues I alluded to indirectly in the previous. However, most other people here know how to avoid becoming known issues, and that takes more subtlety. Consensus-building is a good way to work that, especially with several fronts to deal with.
our progress
Let's get that consensus.
If you had to ban permanently someone, can you do it? And under what circumstances?
Aside, I've found that on Scored there has never been a need for a mod to ban for more than a year (I've given a year a couple dozen times). A person who returns to an account after a year ban with the same violations as before might warrant permaban but it hasn't been worthwhile for anyone here (there's evidence that on other sites people do find it worthwhile). So, yes, but it's been unnecessary. There are a few circumstances, like the CSAM just mentioned, where admin has suspended the user, which is worse than mod permaban; they've been very responsible about that and it's never needed to be an ongoing issue for mods.
One theorem doesn't make you understand math... And how can you prove this theorem is correct? Because someone said it? That's not how math works.
It'd be funny if impartial math triggers us both! Arrow's theorem is what I meant, but I'm certainly open to there being conspiracies in math (I put Georg Cantor at the center of some of them) as much as in history. 2+2=1984.
What is being manipulated in an open vote? We're not the government... I don't have paid shills to promote my position... It's nothing like an actual vote. I understand your point, but it's not applicable in a forum vote that is not controlled by the government, for the most part.
Let's see! We're all anons; we all persuade by our words, actions, and inactions; we all have equal power to game the system incrementally (even as obvious attempts are scuttled by the platform); we can bring in (paid or unpaid) shills easily especially if we already have, so we have unequal resources that might bear upon the forum; we can use drama like appearing persuadable or changing our vote; the vote itself is not called for by a published process but only by individual anons picking when to initiate dialogues, making it arbitrary; history shows counting is arbitrary (we already have one conditional vote); the governments have certainly infiltrated our forum already; and the crisis of the situation (mods who disappeared silently, etc.) can also be used manipulatively. Is that enough answers? Mathematically, we could all be perfect logicians and deliberate with perfect rationality, but then Godel would come along and prove that we'd be forever incomplete about it.
Now then.
So far, I've been reflecting with relative idleness about, somebody should mod, maybe I could, maybe it's a bit much for my schedule. You alluded to beasts and so I said from that standpoint we do have a little game theory to work with. But I also don't have anyone to regard as a beast metaphorically. I know there are enemies of Christ that are revealed as wolves in sheep's clothing, but my defense against them when they are unrevealed begins with the circumspection that protects all my interactions, and here I can also major in the skepticism that no interaction is necessarily what it seems. I learned (mathematically, in public-key cryptography) that the best defense is one you can tell everyone about because it's unbeatable. So I can talk long about strategy because if I keep it implemented as God directs I'm always safe even in my sharing my secrets. There is nothing about any enemy of mine that is undefeatable or fearful (Is. 54:17).
Yet establishing actual enemies (focusing on demons, satanists, and pseudoprophets), identification friend or foe, is not straightforward especially in a conspiracy-based forum. If you have a battleground mindset about anything other than the eternal then it's not a guaranteed victory. I don't rapidly dismiss someone as shill or troll, although I have a record of making quick judgments about an action being shilling or trolling. The right use of mod tools about actions like that need to be based on (1) a careful analytical understanding of the published rules (I already missed one and will need to edit my list), (2) consistency with prior mod rulings, and (3) community support. If I were to moderate a forum that is 80% rah-rah over topic A, I could see that there might be consensus to ban 20% of the community, if that were the published rule. But getting that level of agreement isn't easy, and is often dangerous because performative. This community has enough ambiguity that it will take soul-searching for any moderator.
TLDR on that: I just showed I can recommend for suspension, which is worse than permaban. Most cases are not as clearcut. Establishing "The Purpose" of c/Conspiracies is not clearcut beyond agreement around a few sidebar sentences. Moderation should remain moderate by definition and should account for history, promulgation, and consensus. Consensus-building is ongoing but takes time for congealing.
You are right that, in any well-regulated community, the truth will flourish and particularly the truth of Christianity. It's easy to use mod tools against a person who breaks an objective rule, so easy in fact that mods must constantly beware the intrusion of subjective rules. If mod tools (use of community-authorized force) are only used in accord with objective, promulgated, transparent, circumspect principles, then you're right it has nothing to do with the process of debate. But we haven't established that Conspiracies is a place that wants deliberative debate to be the norm! It may be possible for 3% to make it such a place if they are motivated, but asking God whether I'm motivated to set up such a place with this history and population is a question that takes time for me to answer. c/Christianity over time has been established as being willing to entertain civil debate, formally or informally, on all worldview issues, but I'm not sure that c/Conspiracies is or was such a place. Perhaps Axolotl intended that, but we have what we have today and not yesterday. Anything can be done and the question is which thing we will do.
Paleo, the new username is persianprince, he has no contribs to c/Conspiracies outside the two foci of misandric gore and pedophilia. Thank you for your attention.
This will make 22 comments and I can see all of them: Main, Sub 1, Sub 2. The most likely explanation if those don't resolve for you is that you've forgotten who you blocked, and you probably blocked them for good reasons.
Topics cannot be shadowbanned, but certain keywords are in the sense that they enter moderation immediately. Having an active moderator would assist in establishing community-agreed filter policies and exceptions. Shameless plug: I started a vote on moderation.
I'm sure there are users where you could get a good consensus going for action against them. And that's the risk of politicizing and of using rules without transparency and circumspection. I don't have an immediate vision about how to deal with the divisiveness that exists in a way that fully convinces me. I do know that the mod team should respect, and use their position to analyze and report, the community consensus; but that also requires being aware of the rights of the minority, the ordinary procedures of forum discipline, and in particular the risk of process being manipulated. In particular, the user you mention does have much to say that relates meaningfully to conspiracy theory, despite the locution being repellant, the position having a nuanced nihilist leaning, and the contribution being erratic (botlike before bots were popular). The comment also does meaningfully interact with the OP on a deep level. (I don't defend, but I do explain what I know.) If the community wants to make a case for a boundary line such as illogic or dilatoriness, that can develop through consensus.
Thanks! One thing that most Christianities have in common is that they broadly accept each other as alternate Christianities. They may often not commune but they have a habit of recognizing brothers. A "denomination" that accepts no "Christianity" but its own is rapidly revealed to be a cult because it's not part of an organic body; but an organic body has many parts with different functions and roles, and this division is from the Lord.
So the right response should be: "My denomination has useful distinctives but the rest of the church, which happens to be missing out on these distinctives, still has the core truth held everywhere." Most say this. We have some great creedal formulations of the core, and we have broad agreement on the 66 protocanonical books that are founding that core. Then the truth found in the rest of the universe is also there, but misses out on enough of the core that it doesn't constitute itself as Christianity but only as insightful truth-based movements.
Any large group, the US government being a good handy example, has crazy fragmentation and specialization, some functional, and a whole lot personality-driven and political. In OP there are divisions that inspire mourning over misunderstanding, and divisions that inspire rejoicing over revelation. And we don't immediately need to know which are which. But none of this indicates that we don't have a Thing going, and most of this does speak in favor of the health of the Thing. I was inspired to do this because an X Catholic proposed simplistically that it's only the Protestants who like to split (because our system enables us to do it faster to make up for lost time). I tried to be fair to all the splits that have gone on, and have omitted many that are more minor. With all the 501(c)(3) and parachurch orgs out there you could easily get to 30,000, and I don't remember the sourcing of that number.
But we preach unity in diversity and not the loss of either or the overbalance of either. So I stuck with those that (apparently) still have representation today, as being a default baseline that keeps away from judgment. It's also true that there are splits that fall off the vine, dry up, and die; there are splits that regroup after time (I included the most famous); there are mass imports that change the character of a continuous group. These are all potentially healthy dynamics, with the issue only arising if there's a belligerent attempt to overpower another group. There are plenty of wars between some of these groups, which I didn't mention because sooner or later they realizing fighting is pointless. The only test of walking in the truth is the continuation of walking in the truth; if that is not disproven, usually by Jesus removing a candlestick, then we shouldn't presume to close out the test early.
what do you prioritize currently that blocks a discussion about black holes, as you want those answers?
I primarily mean real life, plus whatever things I do choose to take time to comment on in my history. I put out a lot about black holes in comments last week and will do so again, maybe in post(s), but logistics exist.
Henry Robert is famous because Robert's Rules are the standard for how groups of people decide matters with relative fairness. It's based on Parliament and is used with slight changes by Congress. The point is any version of it can be and has been gamed. So we might have a surface consensus achieved by declaration of deliberative results, but it's only as good as its circumspection, and in Conspiracies we don't begin by taking any view for granted. Surface consensus is fine in most cases, and might work here, but the discussions are already demonstrating anarchy coding and less than serious attempts at consensus deliberation.
My mod style and its detractors are well-known. I wouldn't jump into a community to change its existing style, and unfortunately this one now has lots of anarchic style well established. So it's essential that those users who remember what it's been and want to keep that under new moderation are able to demonstrate that to the whole group of contributors, which is usually done by rough consensus even if Robert is totally ignored. And in the American Revolution decisive action by 3% can drive the rest and overcome forum-sliding and solipsism that manifest in larger percentages; but they did it by establishing consensus in pubs and churches.
The new mod team would here have great risk of censoring viewpoints while attempting only to regulate disruptive behavior. The rules are briefly (0) platform rules, (1) respect, (2) no tool abuse, (3) no sliding. (Note to new mod: Those need to be rightly reflected in options available when someone reports, a very easy fix.) [Add: the sidebar "disclaimer" added (4) quality, (5) no "trolling", (6) no stalking, (7) no spam, (8) honesty, (9) no violence; looks like the disclaimer, which I missed, is the source of the justification for most actions.] We could squeeze a lot of speech and logic regulation into "respect" but it would probably need elaboration before long; and if there's no rule about NSFW content it might be asked about before long too. I think that longer rules make it easier for moderation to be circumspect and transparent, but I wouldn't want to change them without input from the past mod logs and from the current community. This week several people have complained about the behavior of one Communities contributor or another, often suggesting moderation; many of these cases press that risk of censorship and, in a free-speech forum, also have the risk of ongoing meta deliberation that detracts from the work of Theorizing.
I did mean math. Arrow's impossibility theorem says, if there are at least three alternatives for voting, then there is no social welfare function satisfying all of three proposed conditions of rational choice, and was anticipated by Condorcet. History shows its application to politics; but that basically means that, anytime a self-structuring community arises with high truth-seeking focus, there are easy, asymmetrical ways to shove it off its focus, and so a critical mass of focus renewal is important for longterm stability. If people stay focused on truth then consensus is easy; conversely, in a mixed, open-contribution society, staying focused only arises by grace and is preserved by voluntary self-regulation, which is not easy. Voting is sus, well, everywhere, and in this country since its founding; we accept the numbers but they don't mean much, and many recognize that rough consensus is stronger than impassive manipulated vote totals.
So, one math application is, if we are beasts and humans, how do we as anons work out how to exclude the beasts? Mathematically, it's a giant game of Amogus and greater than 1/3 ratio of "beasts" can win the game. That requires strategy and not everyone brings strategy to the table (but the "beasts" can be counted on to be doing so).
If you didn't follow about collectivism, it'll become obvious in due time, it doesn't need to clutter up the meta threads. And I'm not trying to be oblique but to prioritize topics. More important is your hope of "crush these topics through a debate". It's great to have high hopes for deliberation to result in peace. You are here because you resolved not to underestimate the enemy, though? I might meme: "You hope because deliberation is good, I hope because deliberation cannot ultimately be effectively used for evil, we are not the same." I absolutely affirm the idea that the Truth (which I believe to be Christianity as God-revealed) will conquer; but we are in a place among many who have many skepticisms about Truth, and we benefit by that. The uniting banner of Conspiracy Theorists is not known to be Christianity (it might be on Mars Hill), and it can be Truth ("out there") but that needs to be commonly conceived and not just "Truthy".
The redemption of a community from anarchy to order is a noble and involved quest!
Well, first, it's not Gaslight if I'm telling you my sincere report without agenda. Perhaps my seeking to take action on behalf of Conspiracies is in your craw, just as my not seeking to take action on behalf of Conspiracies also gets in your craw, in the same comment. Interesting.
Second, u/Doggos was right that you spoke of c/All when nothing was hidden from c/All.
Third, the politics rule leaves c/Trending and c/Home very slim, but they both have a highlit "All" link, and an instruction on subscribing to additional communities, and a Communities icon, so politics are easily discoverable. You can also add politics to c/Home.
I do see that c/conspiracy is tagged Politics and still appears in the Home feed, but that is a minor inconsistency and anyone could complain about it and possibly have it fixed.
All that said, I don't see evidence at your link that admin "backed down" from anything due to community response. And you were there, Elrond. So if you can inform me about it then we can stop talking about that Bergman flick.
Station identification, the user you speak to has explained, in so many words, that he doesn't post because it's initiating, but he does comment because it's interaction. Finding the contradiction(s) in his walls of text is quite the labyrinth, and I perhaps defaulted on my attempt. When speaking about him I'm reminded to watch words carefully, but for now I'll just use what words flow, and see what happens about it if anything.
Indeed. When my grandparents were kids, what we call ordinary playing cards were of the devil because they are a simplification of the Tarot minor arcana.
Shameless campaigning: I'm asking for a vote on reactivating the power to do such things.
Conspiracies has (always) been a politics-welcoming site and I don't know that is intended ever to change. Admin made very clear since before I got here that politics will not be featured in Trending or similar overviews. Right now it looks like TheDonald, Immigration, and Conspiracies are the top three discoverable communities for people who seek politics (https://communities.win/communities?sort=topics&topic=All).
A little public campaigning: Voting for new moderation might be tieable to a goal of greater Scored visibility.
Will keep your conditional in mind. Too many conditionals complicate a question.
YES. c/Conspiracies has significant contribution and no active moderation. New moderation would allow featured content (stickies), access to building the wiki including its roundtable history, better ability to facilitate roundtables and other meta discussion, and enforcement of the sidebar rules. Of particular note, in recent hours we've had a repeated contributor with whom many are familiar who shows much potential for bringing the Conspiracies forum into disrepute via platform-deprecated allusion to criminality, and this strongly directs active moderation. [Add: which was finally handled by u/Paleo via admin tools.] If there is evidence the community favors new moderation, we can present that to Meta and have a likelier response window than individual query might yield, even if it's known that we will take time to determine who the moderation team should be. IMHO if there is not significant evidence the community favors new moderation, it will be unlikely to trace back the path to its former glory and will be easily slid into disreputable and closed-minded tracks. I encourage everyone to speak their minds, and also if possible to comment YES.
Looks like every attempt to hose your thread is an indirect Yes vote, my good fren.
being mute
It has one advantage, namely priority on saying and doing more important things (than e.g. black holes).
How can the popular vote be against the community?
You ask that at c/Conspiracies? Henry Robert was smart but has been gamed six ways from Sunday.
Anyone here up to a vote?
Speaking very specifically of that, math has proven that communities cannot make meaningful decisions with more than two options. I'd suggest we first start with status quo (Wild West, no active mods) vs. change (by default, petition for a moderator). During that discussion, consensus may well develop on a list of names without a vote, but a second vote on particular names might help frame consensus. But votes in general are ... sus.
I appreciate your kind words, and affirm your desire to light a fire under the community; but I'm losing track of how many people have suggested themselves for mod (and how many in jest), and part of the rejuvenation will almost certainly involve a very important related community question, namely acceptance or rejection or agnosticism toward collectivism (to speak in code). If my code is unclear, check c/Conspiracies/new to see if there's a majority theme that keeps recurring here that might not be at all aligned with c/Conspiracies/top?sort=all and get back to me.
All interpretations of Christianity fall into two categories, internal and external, depending on whether they accept an Anointed or not ("anointed" being the root meaning of "Christianity").
As Francis Schaeffer noted, all debate between these two over which is "right" focuses on recognizing that people are always moving in one of two directions on the spectrum between them, either toward theism or toward nihilism.
It appears that the nihilism and external side fails basic tests of logic (because nihilism entails that logic is nothing as much as it entails that logic is something); and it also appears that motion toward the theism and internal side is also always challenging due to moral questions for each individual. Yet it's safe to propose that theism is the "right" interpretation even as there may then be further debate about who God "anoints" as representative. You know I've found this very defensible.
This is expressed briefly: He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. The disposition of rewards is the same as the disposition of anointing.
So for the purposes of c/Conspiracies I propose that the Truth, the Way, and ultimately all Christianity is encapsulated in various isomorphic statements of rejection of nihilism and acceptance of a transcendent greatness harmonizing Self and Other. From that, anything can be built, and often is built more wrongly than rightly. But no specific formula is required for this essential concept to be recognized, and no axiom can be proposed universally because the inverse axiom of nihilism can always be offered as an alternative. I often describe this as the responsibility for steering me right falling upon someone other than me, even as the responsibility for seeking to be steered right, to never sway for an instant, is always my own. There are many other core truths that have been accepted by a permanent informal body known as Christianity, a number of which appear in classic formulas, all of which build upon an assumption that the received words of God over the ages are all truth; beginning on the foundation of theism these can all be worked out, but that is done among those who take theism seriously enough to seek structure and relationship among theists.
It needs saying that the person who professes theism but who rejects or judges the concept of Jesus is usually in a conflict that can be resolved by testing motion in either direction of the spectrum: because the concept of Jesus is fully consistent with the concept of theism, and arguments that it is not usually fall apart rapidly upon analysis. As the Python troupe said, we can't make fun of Jesus himself, that's straight out, but we can make fun of literally everything that surrounded him.
It also needs saying that, if you're asking about denominations, they shouldn't be regarded as having "right" interpretations in the sense that others are wrong. Denominations should be about different cultural emphases and practices among the same core right interpretation, and when this fails to happen there is evidence there may be incomplete agreement on the core, which can be analyzed. But you also know I believe in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God such that the "right" interpretation described above as theism will guide all truth-seekers into perfect unity of knowledge on any point.
Well .... there are many ways to go with this.
I'd love to write a main post on black holes this week but it might be discussion-stifling because I tend to go high-effort. That's different from starting a post on a generic topic because I have a lot of opinions coming to the table by suggesting the topic. Plus I can still get called "christiantard trump troll" regardless of its applicability, and that leads to a need for the sidebar rule "respect other views".
I'd love to suggest conspiracy topics weekly for "round table" but I'd hope that it's because there's critical mass to get an actual forward-moving discussion. Weekly topics of varying quality would lead to risks of monopolization (as above), of general disinterest leading to attrition, and of dilution (sliding and echo chamber).
This is also a situation where I'd consider moderating if the community would have me, because there isn't much burden there and I wouldn't promise anything other than objectivity.
I have a few communities, but didn't create one for conspiracies specifically because of this one. My taking the names c/FlatEarth, c/Nazi, and c/Holocaust has not resulted in much. Right now the new c/4thHorsemanNews by u/Tetartos_Ippeas is having a great debut for conspiracies and we could cross-pollinate in either direction.
Looking at it in general, it seems that a combination of renewal of c/Conspiracies along with a continuing boost to c/4thHorsemanNews would be useful if there are enough people and if they don't have axes to grind. Conspiracy theorists recognize that any group of ten or more is always infiltrated by the cabal anyway, so we must work around that. Collaboration is good but I would have no expectation that we would necessarily have instant teaching-learning sessions because there are so many other ways people interact. That's why I limit myself to certain paths, (1) flip answers that I don't have to defend, (2) detailed answers for my own and the lurkers' sakes without any requirement that anyone listen, and (3) requests for commitment to a shared goal (such as "God") so that the goal itself can be held up later as a witness if the discussion goes awry. If someone wants to be argumentative it's not my job or interest to join debate, but I do when I can use a path like one of those. If there are enough people who work like that then maybe "collaboration" becomes community.
I'll write something brief at Meta to see where it goes.
Maybe it's not the best idea, just what was on my mind this week as I'm uncovering new stuff.
I suppose there's a conspiracy hiding how demons use black holes, how deep the black hole goes, how black holes can be used for time travel, how they teach us about the creation of white holes, Star Trek but for real. This week I became a black hole miner.
Anyway, just getting the black hole rolling .... I was also saying the forum needs an active moderator so that important posts can be put in an index that can be accessed from the sidebar or menu and so that the hottest posts can be given a "sticky" code so that they will appear first on the default feed and attract more attention and reflect the forum well.
Short answer, they are for casting lots. Urim = yes, Thummim = no, the twelve stones = answers 1-12. Like the ref flipping the coin before the game. And barefoot, absolutely.
- Black holes.
That's my idea this week. I'll be happy to suggest a topic any week I see a topic request.
Funny, no human moderation here for 8 months, maybe we need a new mod too. I am totally in favor of getting community consensus on important conspiracies, including minority reports as needed; and I'd participate in that too, but high- or low-effort would need to be determined situationally.
You might also want to start by compiling (and possibly annotating) the good past discussions you refer to in a master index that can be kept updated (and stickied when we get a mod).
Francis Schaeffer said every philosopher erased the circle drawn before he came and then just drew a new circle to be erased again.
By contrast, you're right that scientific inquiry emphasizes collation and retention of dependable knowledge, and I've sought to model that.
One point I discovered, salient to Conspiracies, is that scientific inquiry utterly depended upon assumptions of natural law and usually theism until the late 19th century when certain Britons effectively declared war on religion on behalf of "science". However, I've been able to treat inquiry about the unexplained ("supernatural") with the same principles of scientific method that has been used to master the now-explained.
So it's possible to trace a proper developmental and maturing trend in religious scholarship, despite its sometime false starts. But the religious are also often subject to the same failure to grow as the natural philosophers. So each stands or falls to his own master. Thanks for the thoughts.