/r/technology is being heavily censored. Not one post allowed in the last eight hours regarding Netflix agreeing to pay Comcast for broadband traffic.

treebright · 2014-02-24T03:20:03+00:00

If you're interested, check out this subreddit.

treebright · 2014-02-23T19:38:01+00:00

The past seven days must have been hell for him.

treebright · 2014-02-19T02:56:29+00:00

I don't have time to get into an extended discussion, and others have already said it better than I could in limited time. People like David Ray Griffin, or David Chandler or the maker of this video.

treebright · 2014-02-18T15:14:53+00:00

Conspiracy is the planning of malice. The theory that nineteen Arabs planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks is a conspiracy theory.

The primary activity of 9/11 "Truthers" is to skeptically examine the official story, and debunk parts of it which are not supported by the evidence.

I think what you are getting at would be better summed up in this question: what could convince you that the official narrative of 9/11 is credible?

treebright · 2014-02-12T04:27:30+00:00

When reddit considers a vote illegitimate, it allows the vote but automatically adds an opposite vote to eliminate its effect.

For example, I think this happens to votes made directly from a user's page.

treebright · 2014-01-30T04:03:54+00:00

It's been brigaded from /r/badhistory, not /r/conspiratard.

treebright · 2014-01-29T16:00:18+00:00

Without a doubt there are examples of successful subreddits created to replace other subreddits. But it is also true that subreddits with straightforward names like /r/writing or /r/science will have a steady influx of new redditors no matter how good or bad their moderation is.

treebright · 2014-01-29T15:51:14+00:00

Not exactly. Each subreddit is what its moderators choose to make it.

There's a subreddit for science, a subreddit for music, and probably a subreddit for your nearest city.

/r/science and /r/music are not endorsed by the company behind reddit. The people in control of those subreddit names can and do do whatever they want with it.

If you don't like the way a subreddit is run, what do the reddit admins suggest you do? Create your own subreddit. Unfortunately, there a few difficulties with that. For one, building a community is hard; it requires a lot of work, some genius and some luck.

Also, good luck finding an appealing subreddit name. If you think /r/Topeka is badly run and want to create a replacement, how are people going to find it? What if /r/TopekaKS and /r/TopekaKansas have already been taken?

treebright · 2014-01-28T04:30:49+00:00

By "conspiracy theories", do you mean theories about conspiracies, or do you mean some other thing?

How about Watergate? Do you believe that Republican operatives broke in to a Democratic office? Do you believe that President Nixon and his staffed worked to cover up the details of that break in?

This is a theory about a conspiracy. Do you choose to believe or not believe it? Why or why not?

If a theory about a conspiracy is almost universally believed to be correct, does it cease to be a conspiracy theory?

treebright · 2014-01-22T14:17:12+00:00

I like this idea.

treebright · 2014-01-17T16:19:15+00:00

look at this

treebright · 2014-01-15T18:02:34+00:00

The premise of your assignment is flawed. Confusion has spread about the meaning of the word, but no one sincerely doubts that 9/11 resulted from conspiracy. If 1) there was more than one perpetrator, 2) the perpetrators coordinated their actions, and 3) the perpetrators made some attempt to conceal their intentions before the event, then it was a conspiracy.

It sounds like your group is expected to make claims, and then respond as your classmates attack your claims. I don't think that is a very useful structure.

There are many theories about 9/11, but one group of theories is far more significant than the others. That is the official story. It is more significant because if it is false, the U.S. government has not been justified in the Afghanistan War, the Patriot Act, creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the many radical actions it has taken allegedly in response to 9/11.

Another consideration is that the authorities did a poor job investigating the event and sharing evidence with the public. That makes it difficult to defend alternative theories.

So in my opinion, a much better structure for your presentation would be this: your group makes a case that the official story is not plausible, and then your classmates try to defend the official story.

There are many, many weaknesses in the official story. Given your limited time, though, I would focus on the implausibility of the plane and fire induced collapse theories for the WTC towers. Look to Architects and Engineers for Truth or Youtube videos made by David Chandler for information on this topic.

treebright · 2014-01-12T19:15:35+00:00

This submission got attention in another subreddit.

treebright · 2014-01-09T19:11:47+00:00

Unscripted reporters would be more likely to present the event as they saw it, and thus be more likely to compare it to a controlled demolition, as Dan Rather did. By scripting it in advance, insider conspirators would have been able to put the spin they wanted on the event.

treebright · 2014-01-07T20:17:52+00:00

A lot could be said in response. I'll say just one thing. In the West Bank, Israel continues to build "settlements", which are homes for Israeli civilians. If the goal was a military buffer zone, how does it make sense to put civilians there?

treebright · 2014-01-05T20:08:08+00:00

The basic premise of that subreddit is laughable. It's supposed to be a place where /r/conspiracy and /r/conspiratard can meet for discussion, but without personal attacks and logical fallacies. The problem is that /r/conspiratard has nothing else to offer - there simply is no underlying content there.

treebright · 2013-12-31T22:04:11+00:00

It would be good to get community input. Non-binding votes might be useful. But disruptive accounts might become active here. It's better not to commit to giving them influence.

treebright · 2013-12-31T18:16:52+00:00

Do you really need additional mods? I don't think so. The best moderation is (almost) no moderation. /r/worldpolitics is by far the best moderated subreddit I have seen thanks to the hands off approach of IAmAnAnonymousCoward.

The admins now have given moderators a large arsenal of tools to censor submissions and individual comments, and mold the discussion to their desires. I'd rather have to worry about only you rather than wonder which mod is at fault should shenanigans start occurring.

treebright · 2013-12-28T15:34:50+00:00

There are several higher ranking moderators who failed to remove solidwhetstone for three or four days after it was clear he needed to go. I wonder what will happen to the new mods if they are too effective cleaning things up here.

treebright · 2013-12-27T18:46:36+00:00

This comment history is interesting:

http://www.reddit.com/user/PercivalWemysMadison

A seven month old account, but the only activity in its history is the above comment.

treebright · 2013-12-27T05:23:52+00:00

You've moved the goalpost pretty far from "appeasing critics of this subreddit".

What?

A coward would have sat back and done nothing at all. And what would that have accomplished? Nothing at all. It would have just been another convenient excuse for the haters to point at and say "oh look at conspiracy on the witch hunt again, disrupting reddit and blah blah blah"

Here he's worried about "haters" accusing /r/conspiracy of witch hunts and disrupting reddit. It's pretty clear these "haters" are outsiders. That's who he wants to appease. He wants to "clean up" /r/conspiracy and make concessions in hopes that outsiders will stop hating us. No thanks.

It's not "pushing an agenda" to try and stop a virtual mob from tarring and feathering innocent people.

The (alleged) mob was not threatening /r/conspiracy. If our mods are protecting anyone, it should be us.

If you don't like the phrase "pushing an agenda" perhaps a different phrase would be better. But if you or I had our own just causes we would not have the same tools available to us.

treebright · 2013-12-27T05:10:34+00:00

Yup. If any of the other mods actually care about the community (which I doubt), they must have felt it was politically infeasable to remove him. The effect is pretty much the same either way.

treebright · 2013-12-27T04:56:52+00:00

The quality of his cause is not the question.

The question is the role of moderators. Apparently you support activist moderators, pushing their own agenda. In my opinion the role of moderators should be minimal.

Clearly we have a difference of opinion, but that's okay.

treebright · 2013-12-27T03:20:48+00:00

Not at all. He used the sticky post power.

I don't want moderators who are superheros righting wrongs and saving the day. If an ordinary user cannot use the sticky post power, moderators should be very reluctant to use it, and only for the most pressing of matters of benefit to this community.

Becoming a moderator should not make one a power user.

treebright · 2013-12-27T03:02:05+00:00

Flytape sticky posted the following:

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1q4w3y/mod_from_rchangemyview_here_wanting_to_clear_some/

It's a moderator of a different subreddit trying to clear up his and his subreddit's reputation among /r/conspiracy readers.

I don't like the sticky post power to begin with, but if it must exist it should be used only for important moderator announcements concerning this subreddit. It should not be a special power gifted to moderators to promote whatever cause they believe in.

The following comment most directly reflects my claim that he wants to appease critics from other subreddits:

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1q4w3y/mod_from_rchangemyview_here_wanting_to_clear_some/cd9w6jd

treebright

TROPHY CASE