I think that a moderator's overarching philosophy should be "I'm here to put out infernos, not campfires." I.e. let the community self-govern through upvoats and down-voats, etc., and only step in when shit's about to get real . And even then, it should be a private, gentle hand, unless one or both sides of an inferno grab their gas cans, then you can use the heavy hand of moderation to extinguish the proverbial shit-flames.

That'd be my approach. In fact, I wouldn't even want to be listed in the side-bar as a moderator just because I think that's something a lot of people want out of vainglory.

Cheers!

mod terms for this sub might do well to be limited to a year or so.

Being transparent is a pain in the ass, be transparent anyways. Erring on the side of freedom is scary, err anyways.

I can't come up with Mother Teresan words for the rest.... um,,,, be active, this place needs thought leaders to develop a high quality. I don't know the mods so they can stay. Select mods by existing moderators with posted votes. 2 abstains and you're no longer a mod.

So voat.co suffers from exactly the same fatal flaw that killed reddit: anonymous moderators.

For all we know, you're both the gunman in the grassy knoll and the guy who remote-piloted the planes into the world trade center. Oh, and you're probably Jewish to boot.

It's unacceptible.

Which of these other's is FlyTape's alt?

Neither.

Who can become mod?

Well... The problem is that people have to volunteer for it. And I have a distrust of anyone who volunteers for a position of power, as that proves they like to have power.

I'm not feeling the hands off approach. Not in this subverse, which is prone to attacks from shills. Mods should be on top of things when such attacks occur (like drowning out important topics). This can easily be done in conjunction with the community by providing recurring threads like 'This week in...', 'Best of...' Etc.

Also, mods can provide the community with a focus point, like the ideas PrivateJoker suggested and a community project. Not necessarily as stewards but more like magnifying glasses. Providing a meta post to gather ideas of movies to watch and then starting the thread for the chosen movie discussion.

What would you say are your biggest issues with /r/conspiracy mods? What sorts of concerns do you have about them being mods on this subverse?

I think a hands off approach to moderation is key.

I've always viewed mods as "janitors" not "editors"; which means that we should only be removing site wide TOS violationsand spam in my view.

This subverse should be largely unmoderated. A free speech platform. I mostly disagree with any form of censorship on the web.

However, attacks on this subverse are likely and attempts to disrupt discussion here should be dealt with, but only in extreme cases and anything removed should be posted in a sticky or another subverse along with who removed it and an explanation why.

I like the hands off approach where the mods delete any spam and ban any griefers and trolls. I wouldn't require them to post but encourage them to do so and take part in the community. No reason they shouldn't really unless there's nothing for them to do.

This should be a civil community for people who want to discuss conspiracy theories. This isn't a 'mock conspiracy theorists sub'. Griefers shouldn't be allowed full reign just because of 'free speech'. They can make their own sub to mock people. Anyone who has an agenda to disrupt should be removed.

When it comes to moderating you have to have an open mind and if someone posts something you disagree with you can't just delete it. The obvious exceptions being flame trolling posts .

What I'd like to see is mods and regular users that write content for this sub. Actual articles with links to sources. Also it was mentioned to me the idea of short videos that are informative and at the same time have some humor or something that makes people think. Like conspiracy vines. I like that idea a lot and would love to see what this community can come up with.

Some previous discussions specifically about moderation (generally this list is in reverse chronological order):

• Moderating Conspiracy on Voat?
• Transparency is nice, how about randomness, rotation, and counterpowers?
• Why its important to discuss if we need Mods at all
• Why it is important to prevent a takeover of this sub by unknown mods
• Does anyone else here feel uneasy that the same moderators from r/conspiracy are the moderators here?
• How Does One Become a Moderator on Voat?
• v/Conspiracy Moderation Discussion Thread
• Something to think about
• Private Joker has a long history of brigading with dozens of alts - he is controlling what you see in this sub
• So, were putting all the trust in alllie. i am fine with that
• Why /user/allie is a bad choice as a moderator of conspiracy
• Do you guys want me to add more mods to this subverse?
• Rules and Moderation
• Potential Whoaverse\subs corruption.
• Priority #1 mods Priority #2 allow mods to delete posts Priority #3 set rules about memes etc. Obviously the trolls are here and in FULL force..
• Is AssuredlyAThrowAway reposting everything from reddit to here? Is that what we want?
• Make All Moderator Actions Public
• Moderators for v/Conspiracy
• Fuck the rconspiracy moderators
• Thank yourselves..../v/Conspiracy is Alive!
• Lets bring this place alive!
• Our New Reddit Alternative

Edit: These are drawn from this (hopefully comprehensive) list of meta-ish posts i compiled a short while back: A brief backlog roundup of some meta-discussions on vconspiracy
Edit2: My posting of these links is not an endorsement for their content.

Hello! I've been lurking here since I joined up with Voat. I enjoy the community so far, but the whole reason I joined Voat was to contribute to something worth while. So, to that point, here is my input. I tend to ramble sometimes, so I'll try to keep this sort and concise.

• 1. Responsibilities of Moderators

I am of the mindset that mods are janitors and stewards. Their responsibilities are to keep this subverse clean, legal, and to facilitate discussion and discourse. That's is, and that is all that we should need, barring that I've made an oversight.

• -Removal of Spam
• -Removal of Off Topic Posts
• -Removal of Reasonably Illegal Content
• -Sticky Relevant Threads
• -Post Mod Level Topics (Like this post)
• -Ban Users When Needed

One thing I would like to add is that I understand that Mods will (And should) have personal opinions. I want the mods to be able to express them without the risk of having someone cry 'biased oppression' or some other silly nonsense. I suggest that Mods are to be required to distinguish their comments when acting in their official Mod capacity, and no other time. This should also help with tracking down Mods who are actually abusing their power. I see it as a measure to help protect the community and Mods from the volatile portion of each other.

As for banning users I would like to suggest an idea for discussion. I feel that we could hold a small court session for a ban/appeal. The sole purpose for the session is to post evidence for both sides. This way no one has any chance to say they didn't have their voice heard. I think /v/conspiracymeta would be a place to hold them. I haven't worked out any details however. I felt it necessary to put to the community before anything else.

• 2. Moderator Activity Levels

Mods should be given a window of X amount of time (Say two weeks?) of inactivity, without prior notification. I understand, life gets in the way sometimes and I don't thing people should be punished for that. But if a Mod disappears I will assume they have abandoned their post. What count's as activity? Sometimes things slow down and there isn't much work to go around. Periods of time like this should help encourage mods to make posts and comments to help move the community forward.

• 3. Transparency and Accountability

If we want true transparency, everything thing mod related should be public. Open and clear. I also feel that private conversations with Mods (While acting in an official capacity) should be allowed to be posted in a relevant context. I don't expect nor would I state that a Mod should be responsible for posting all of their conversations, but a person should not be punished for posting them when applicable.

Mod misconduct should be held in pubic, with supporting evidence. I would suggest another court session, same as banning. I also think that mods should not be allowed to hold position in /v/conspiracy and /v/conspiracymeta at the same time, to avoid abuse and blanket suppression.

• 4. How moderators are added

I would suggest Mods would be elected through a data driven community vote.

• -Why should you have this job?
• -Why do you think you can do this job?
• -ETC

Sort of how I think an election in a Technocracy would go. Mods should be held to term limits (A few months), no consecutive terms past X (Unless by default), no limits on how many terms can be held. Also, would a system of at least X mods per X members help establish a baseline?

• 5. Should any changes be made to the mod team right now?

I am unsure we should make any immediate changes, until we know exactly how we want to structure Mod operations. I would like ask, why do we have (what seems to me) so many Mods? Is there enough work to go around that we need that many? I may be out of touch, so if I am mistaken, please let me know.

Responsibilities of moderators

So I expressed a bit of my philosophy in my intro post, but it was long-winded. I'll put the short version here:

I think /v/conspiracy would be amazing and excellent if it grew strongly in three areas:

• Information organization - skillful organization of evidence, outlines, and capable of responding to discussions intelligently without coming across as a nutter. /v/conspiracy as an effective educational resource.

• Culture of participation and active involvement - community projects, leadership development, proactive culture, proud and supportive

• Ability to handle disruptive elements - identifying disruptive behavior and correcting it. sharp and critical of (d/m)-isinformation - without witch hunting. resilient to FUD and meta-drama.

It's been mentioned on voat in a few places that mods should be like janitors, not tyrants. I think that mods should also be stewards, taking an active role in assisting the community to achieve their goals. Not all mods have to do that, some can help out by cleaning up spam or other things - so if all you want to do to contribute is something straightforward like that, then you should have an opportunity to do that. But if you want to help coordinate some big project, or want to see almost any of the ideas in the brainstorming discussion threads occur, then mods should be ready and willing to facilitate that (if the ideas are reasonable), in fact they should be the ones seeking out such initiatives.

As others have mentioned, voat and /v/conspiracy for a while have been very small and activity has not really warranted anything beyond removing a few posts here and there in terms of moderation. I think it's still quiet around here, but it's going to pick up speed in the near future. I'd like to begin to see /v/conspiracy excel, to become something worthy of admiration and respect from others, and I would like to be a part of facilitating that in some way or another.

I'm all about relatively hands-off moderation and letting the community dictate via up and down voting what they deem appropriate. Mods should be here to assist users, not control them or the narrative. There should be minimal rules and those should revolve around maintaining an atmosphere conducive to discussion and not derision or derailing. If people are here to simply call other people names and add absolutely nothing to the sub, they're the ones i'd boot.

I've been here for almost a year now and have seen Voat grow and mature. I'm surprised that it's still relatively untouched by "cancer". Being of a conspiracy mindset, (and I've told you this personally), I seriously questioned the process that led to your modship here just because no one knew who you were and there have been MANY attempts in r/conspiracy to obtain a mod position through unscrupulous means and figured this was another one of those. You seem like a good guy, but i'm still on the fence.

That being said, I say the community should decide who mods here once it reaches a point where it's needed. I think term limits should be set and new mods voted on every x period of time. Modship shouldn't be a permanent thing, because that's what destroyed reddit. It should be a democratic process and fully transparent. There should be no levels of modship either because once that happens, you open the door for dictatorship.

I think a courtesy message should be sent to the mods here and give them X amount of time to reply. In their defense, not much has gone on here up until relatively recently. I still visit daily but there was a period a few months ago where i probably missed a few weeks here and there just due to lack of activity. I think they should be given a chance to realize it's picking up steam and come back.

Other thoughts, we need to work on AMAs once we grow a little more and having events that bring the community together...be it a featured movie/book and subsequent discussion or something like that.

As a daily visitor to this site, I truly love this community. because when i see my front page, its not just BS lies straight from some media bimbos bought and paid for mouth, but sources, and topics I relate to. Its not hard to see, look at the difference between /r/news and /v/news . /r/politics and /v/politics . The list goes on.

That being said I still love this specific sub community even more, What we have here, is a place where in addition to the veil of lies being striped away, we all get to talk in a free way about why we are so lied to and propagandized in this day. And whom is behind these structures.

Moderation on an internet forum should always be something that comes with being involved in the community, not the other way around. It should be completely transparent all the way to the top. and under the scrutiny of everyone in the community. If that is done then the moderation of the sub will be what it is intended to be- remove inherently off topic material (dogs in a cat sub) and posts that break the rules. That's it. let the community do the rest

edits- words and grammar are hard and stuff