Removal of ban on "conspiracy theory" material on KSP forum

[lajoswinkler]

I was told by a moderator that it is no longer forbidden to post threads and materials that support conspiracy "theories" on this forum. This is one of the worst things that could've been made for a forum policy.

What's going on? Did this happen because a lot of new, unknown people suddenly became moderators and admins, as the old ones went away?

 

There is nothing good about such material. It's always spreading lies, uncritical thinking, confirmational bias. It teaches young people it's ok to ignore facts. Sometimes it's offensive (and people running this forum obviously know a lot about that, with all the censorship of simple words), sometimes/often it's downright racist, nationalist, jingoist.

 

You're opened the doors to the worst scum trolls destroying forums out there.

If you're all so very overprotective of kids here like Ned Flanders, you should revoke this... Or you're hypocrites.

[Gaarst]

It's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as moderation watches closely.

Trolls set aside, there exist some people who believe in conspiracies because they were influenced by some theories stating facts (justified or not) that made them question themselves. Most of the time these people are open-minded and will listen to a rationally built argument, accompanied with scientific statements. I see no evil in there.

Unfortunately these are a small part of conspiracists and you're often facing people that firmly believe what they say and that will not listen to any argument disagreeing with them, heating the debate really quickly (because let's face it, no one likes when people are not listening to what they say, scientists or conspiracists alike) and ultimately causing moderator actions (trolls are basically the same except that they have fun doing so). So, as long as moderation watches and calms people down quickly before things heat up, most harm could be avoided.

Now, as a personal opinion, while I don't agree nor disagree with this decision, I believe it makes little sense when seeing the other rules of this forum. Conspiracy theories are, by definition, closely tied to politics and ideologies, which we are still not allowed to discuss. I'm not sure what would really change de facto by allowing this, other than trolls being more tempted to start such discussions.

Maybe the details of the new policy were not stated in these terms. I'm really feeling like we're missing a part of the story.

[sal_vager]

54 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

I was told by a moderator that it is no longer forbidden to post threads and materials that support conspiracy "theories" on this forum.

Quote

2.2 Forbidden content

Messages which contain, discuss or link to the following are explicitly forbidden:

1. Copyright infringement or software theft;
2. Discussions of a political, ideological or religious nature;
3. Adult content, such as nudity, sexually suggestive or explicit images, gore and drugs;
4. Insults and threats, stalking or any other behavior construed to be of a potentially rude or otherwise harassing nature to/of other users, members of the mod team or members of Squad;
5. Any discriminatory (racist, sexist, etc.) language, actions or iconography, with or without historical context;
6. Disclosure of private conversations without the consent of all parties;
7. Use of vulgarity, profanity and any technique that skirts the language filter;
8. Accusatory comments that lack merit, offer no proof of concept or are of a potentially slanderous nature;

No, it's right there, just worded differently, and it's been worded this way for over a year, you really need to check the rules more often.

Your post is an "Accusatory comments that lack merit, ... or are of a potentially slanderous nature" by the way.

Closing.