Something needs to be done about the conspiracy theories forum

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915730#Comment_117915730

you are the one proposing the change. the onus is on you to justify it.

Much like supporting a theory with evidence.

Supporting a request for a free for all charter seems to be a step too far for some. It's more about wanting a safe space than actually being able to justify why CT OPs should be afforded protected speech😉🤔

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915742#Comment_117915742

The former charter did not level the playing field.

The current charter does not give anyone "free reign" and it doesn't given skeptics an advantage or protection.

Please explain how it does.

weisses

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915703#Comment_117915703

And again ignoring the question

I explained this in 2015 I want to revert it back, Looking at your contributions here the 2015 agreed charter is still needed

weisses

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915755#Comment_117915755

Th old charter allows for any theory being challenged .... Yes ?

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915755#Comment_117915755

I suggest you create a thread about it rather than taking it upon yourself to mold everyone else's thought processes to meet your standards

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915775#Comment_117915775

your question is irrelevant. You want a change to the charter. The onus is on you to explain why it is required. You need to explain why the change 2 years ago was so detrimental.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915749#Comment_117915749

This is nonsense, no poster should be entitled to or afforded protection for an unevidenced position.

I'd argue the same should apply to religion, but funnily enough those lads in Christianity are quite adept at supporting their positions and do so without resort to dogma or claims for protection.

There is nothing wrong with the charter, unevidenced and incoherent hypothesis should be challenged. Where an OP doesn't do that? The means of building a counter argument is asking questions to build a view of their position. Your request to revert to a temporary charter would mean that asking those questions is sanctionable. It's a ridiculous position and one that I am honestly amazed anyone could find themselves supporting as a basis for any form of debate.

No other fora would afford such a degree of freedom for a means of potential dangerous misinformation and nothing you have said to date has made me think their is any issue with the charter as is.

Yes there are issues with the forum, yes it often descends into repeated requests for detail or information as to what supports a posters theory. Quite often those questions go unanswered and the questioners are told to wake up, DYOR, don't be sheeple and so on.

You want to invoke protection for that as a matter of course, whilst placing a burden of proof on anyone seeking to rebut. It's nonsense, unworkable and to borrow Nullzero's word, inequitable.

Proof, evidence, and supporting information works 2 ways. If people want to make claims? Fine, but not unfounded ones!

Signore Fancy Pants

I'm not a CT head but I do believe in exploring alternative narratives to scenarios.

From my brief browsing of the CT forum over the years, the problem isn't the concept of CT itself, nor the Charter, nor the forum.

The problem is that that some CT heads that put forward alternative theories, do so with little ability to rationally defend their argument.

If the argument is not underpinned with a valid explanation of how they came about to consider the alternate, it discredits the poster.

If the only defence you can offer is calling someone "sheeple", "wake up" or "prove me wrong" etc.....well don't expect to be taken even with an ounce of seriousness.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915781#Comment_117915781

LOL ... you give me way too much credit. !!!

Im not trying to mold anyone thought processes. Im trying to ensure that the infrastructure upon which certain opinions are voiced is designed so as not to be dangerous to others. If people are to voice certain opinions (notice i didn't say "hold" i said "voice") then they should be held to the consequences of voice such opinions. for example, if a poster says that vaccines do not reduce the spread of covid than there absolutely should not be any protection for such views. in fact there should be consequences for voicing such views, and being asked to provide evidence of that statement is the absolute minimum a poster should be required to do.

If you want unquestioned safe spaces, i cannot see whats stopping you creating them.....

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915558#Comment_117915558

What conclusion is being looked for in the threads? "Yes there is a great reset" is the answer, then what? The goal is to discuss theories and look at evidence and see if there is signs that these might come true, this means that people have to admit when they got it wrong and what might explain that, not run away and dump back another misleading link weeks or months later.

There does seem to be a very strange resistance to asking questions:

"Should the Conspiracy forum have a template to start each topic?" is a simple one that a lot of those complaining about haven't answered, if they can't answer that, then what hope does the forum have with them?

My answer to that question is yes, if you ask me again in another post, I'll answer yes again, I won't direct you to find this post again, I can type 3 (or 2) letters on my keyboard rather than engage in whataboutery.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915810#Comment_117915810

And again, people can totally post unfounded theories to their hearts content.

If someone asks "do you have evidence for this", just say "No I don't." and accept that's a good reason for people to reject your theory.

If someone asks "can you explain this problem with the theory" just say "No I can't" and accept that's also a good reason for people to reject it.

If someone asks "why do you believe this theory", why not just say "because I read it online and I like it" if that's the case?

No one would have an issue with this kind of unsupported and unevidenced post, especially if the OP didn't come up talking about how it was the obvious truth and that anyone who didn't believe it was a sheeple.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915835#Comment_117915835

I say yes to that too. I don't know if I have OPs other than info related ones on the CT forums? But I did post quite a bit primarily on the 9/11 thread as a skeptic and ironically the main poster at the time used to put huge effort into digging out his info.

Unfortunately quite a lot of his inferences from the evidence he found were at odds with the evidence. But by Christ did he at least make efforts to support his positions and lay out his thinking.

sydthebeat

my answer would be yes too. Nullzero posted a very well though out template which i think would be a huge benefit to the forum.

storker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915780#Comment_117915780

Only by putting the onus on sceptics to prove a negative, so effectively, no it doesn't.

storker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915819#Comment_117915819

Or to put it another way "...that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchins, I think.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915854#Comment_117915854

I would say no.

I think the list proposed by Nullzero is too long and would be offputing to most conspiracy theorists because they wouldn't be able to answer all of those questions and it's asking a lot straight off the bat.

I think a shorter one would work and additional information and clarification can be obtained by asking questions. But I think that asking questions removes the need for the template entirely.

bucketybuck

Since this is feedback I'd like to ask why a conspiracy theory forum should be held to different standards than all of the others?

If I went into the Soccer forum and made a claim that a particular player was doping for example, I would be told to either back up the claim with some evidence or withdraw it.

If I went into motors and claimed that BMW track rod ends were made of butter I would be told to either back up the claim or withdraw it.

If I went into politics and claimed that Mickey Higgins was a member of the DUP I would be told to either back up the claim or withdraw it.

So why is there a forum that allows people to make whatever claim they want and never be expected to justify it or defend it?

MrStuffins

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915353#Comment_117915353

Well, no. This isn't the solution.

In 2016, CTs were just "a bit of fun" to certain people. Most CTers knew in their heart-of-hearts that most of it was bull but even if they didn't, the theories and repercussions of them lived and existed solely on the internet.

However, this is no longer the case. In the last 12 months we've seen multiple instances of violence perpetuated by conspiracy theorists who have been riled up by spending too much time in an echo-chamber, having their weird ideas confirmed and becoming a threat to ordinary people.

We saw some of this in Dublin City Centre multiple times.

Let's not pretend that most of the posters in the CT forum are not putting their positions forward as fact.

These echo-chambers are dangerous and while I have no issue with posters putting their theories forward, I think it's laughable that challenges to these theories should be silenced.

These dangerous theories should ALWAYS be checked!

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915886#Comment_117915886

You seemed previously to be all for my proposal (perhaps I'm making an assumption in saying that) at least in the spirit of its intention from what I took from you asking in several posts what conspiracy believers thought of it(in what appeared to be a pointed manner).

I outlined a simple template that would remove a large volume of chaff (and that includes intellectual grandstanding, rolleyes emojis and no small amount of "lols" from either side).

I proposed a simple system that would make the forum a more grown up and reasonable place.

I'm starting to get the impression that a cohort of regulars quite like the mayhem that currently exists.

You have fought against the changes proposed by the conspiracy believers and now you seem on the surface at least to be against any change whatsoever.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915935#Comment_117915935

I think you need to read King Mobs post again. I don't think you understood it at all.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915887#Comment_117915887

Just on this, such claims are potentially defamatory against identifiable individuals and could bring problems for both poster and site. If anything potentially defamatory against identifiable individuals is posted in Conspiracy Theories or anywhere else on the site it should be reported and, at a minimum, deleted by local mods

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915952#Comment_117915952

His post says the the template is a redundant idea.

What did you take from it?

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915886#Comment_117915886

Well how about the 4 question template that I proposed?

Though I do think that null zeros is better and more fleshed out.

Theres plenty of examples of templates on other forums which work quite well in creating new threads. (heat pump thread / pc build thread etc)

osarusan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915957#Comment_117915957

As far as I can see, his point is that the template is effectively a set of questions very similar to those which some posters are unable to answer and are consequently currently seeking not to be asked at all.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915935#Comment_117915935

Yes. I'm for actual well thought out suggestions that benefit the forum or at least don't damage it.

So far you're the only one to make a effort to do so.

I don't think your solution is practical however for the reasons I outline in that post. (Do you agree with those points or...?)

I haven't "fought" against anything. I've just outlined issues I think that the vague unformed suggestions we've heard so far. No one has addressed these issues. So this doesn't fill me with confidence that the proposed changes would be of benefit or are being proposed for legitimate reasons. I'm not in favour of changing the forums charter to protect some opinion and disallow others. I don't support a change that prohibits things like asking questions.

Remember also that there's a good portion of conspiracy theorists fighting to have the forum removed entirely.

Now you've been very liberal about calling into question any skeptic's motivations. Do you not have any comment about the conspiracy theorists? Do you believe that they are all asking for the change in the charter for the right reasons? Or is that just something we're doing?

Why do you think none of them have commented on your suggestion?

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915969#Comment_117915969

I think yours is better because it's shorter and about equally as comphrensive for the purposes of discussion specific topics. Any other things not covered by your version can easily be obtained by asked.

Still though I think a lot of conspiracy theorists will complain that it's asking too much off the bat.

Another issue I thought of is that it should be made clear that not every thread would need to start with this, as doing so would restrict other types of discussion such as ones about conspiracy theories as a topic etc.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915957#Comment_117915957

they also said "I think a shorter one would work". did you miss that bit?

MrStuffins

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915957#Comment_117915957

That's not all his post says though.

It seems you either didn't read the whole post or are taking from the post only what you want to whilst ignoring everything else.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915985#Comment_117915985

I have addressed the fact that both conspiracy theorists and skeptics need to compromise with each other.

I proposed a stringent set of parameters for conspiracy theorists to operate within. That has addressed their side of the situation. Why I'm addressing the other side and proposing an equitable charter that puts neither side at and advantage is because the forum is 90% pointless arguments, typically reruns of old rivalries which the charter caters for.

If conspiracy theorists cannot give basic information for their theories then that eliminates them from posting things you feel shouldn't be posted.

In the end I think you enjoy the bickering, and that's perfectly understandable, I just happen to believe it's a waste of time.

Tork

By their nature, conspiracy theories go against the accepted narrative. So if you believed, for example, that Michael D Higgins was born in Zimbabwe and wasn't even an Irish citizen, it'd only natural that people would want proof of that. Is he really a Zimbabwaaen or is it somebody making up lies? The same goes for the theories posited in the CT forums.

We've seen that conspiracy theories are no longer a harmless bit of fun. I like a good conspiracy theory myself but I fear the line has long since been crossed. We don't even have to look to the USA to see the damage that conspiracy theories and echo chambers have done to people. The events at Letterkenny Hospital last week are proof that "alternative facts" can have potentially fatal consequences.

I read but don't post in the CT forums. I rarely see convincing arguments put forward by proponents of the conspiracy theories. I mostly see link dumping, YouTube videos we're expected to watch and waffle that doesn't answer the questions. Perhaps if they provided a synopsis of what we'd see in said links and videos, they might convince us that their arguments hold water.