# New Rules on Thread Derailing



## dreamtime (Mar 7, 2021)

Hello everyone,

As a new rule, we will now solve thread derailing in the following way:

Users who repeatedly derail or do not respect the netiquette will be temporarily or permanently banned from a given thread, depending on the moderator decision
Irrelevant parts in a given thread will be moved into the trusted members area, where they are invisible to the general public but visible to the trusted members of our community (currently around 200). Nothing will get deleted, except insults or spam.
The moved thread will either stay unlocked or get locked depending on moderator decision
The new rule also solves the problem of people accusing us of censorship in our forum, since sometimes we had to delete certain posts to stop thread derailing.

From now on, off-topic posts won't get deleted anymore. Instead, we will move inappropriate content into the Inappropriate and Moved Threads Subforum, where all trusted members (the core of our community) can evaluate our decisions and transparently see what's going on.


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## luddite (Mar 7, 2021)

Must read related info: COINTELPRO Techniques for Dilution, Misdirection and Control of an Internet Forum


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## tobyahnah (Apr 11, 2021)

dreamtime said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> As a new rule, we will now solve thread derailing in the following way:
> 
> ...


Please define 'derail'. To me nothing is unrelated to everything else: that is why I am here in the first place. Capice?


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## Jd755 (Apr 11, 2021)

For myself I'd much rather have a moderator decide on what constitutes derailing on a post by post basis rather than a hard rule that must be obeyed.


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## tobyahnah (Apr 11, 2021)

Hmmm!
Me too!


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## dreamtime (Apr 11, 2021)

kd-755 said:


> For myself I'd much rather have a moderator decide on what constitutes derailing on a post by post basis rather than a hard rule that must be obeyed.



That's how it's intended.


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## dreamtime (Apr 11, 2021)

@tobyahnah  Since you just gave a perfect example, simply writing 'OK' as a reaction to an OP is spammy, and thread derailing. I deleted your post.


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## tobyahnah (Apr 11, 2021)

Ok
Do you actually have a real job, or, is this it?
Ok!


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## tobyahnah (Apr 11, 2021)

tobyahnah said:


> Ok
> Do you actually have a real job, or, is this it?
> Ok!


You must be German?


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## luddite (Apr 12, 2021)

dreamtime said:


> @tobyahnah  Since you just gave a perfect example, simply writing 'OK' as a reaction to an OP is spammy, and thread derailing. I deleted your post.
> 
> View attachment 8207​


It was also a perfect example of how to get banned.


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## Lost In Time (Oct 23, 2021)

I’m done with this site. Too authoritarian. Now gives me a queasy feeling just reading your post dreamtime.


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## dreamtime (Oct 23, 2021)

Lost In Time said:


> I’m done with this site. Too authoritarian. Now gives me a queasy feeling just reading your post dreamtime.



There were definitely some "growing pains" in the beginning, as I tried to find a good way to moderate, but I think when it comes to moderation the forum is in a pretty good place.

We allow any content as long as it's respectful, and if there's a problem we communicate it and try to solve it together. In a previous post you implied that the new forum doesn't allow for free-flowing ideas, but it's hard to follow as we allow all ideas.

If this is about tobyanah, the above posts do not reflect the entire situation, he was spamming the forum at that time left and right and derailing every thread.


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## GandalfTheGreen (May 1, 2022)

To Quote an Admin

Apparently people often need the concept of a flat-earth to realize that heliocentrism is false.

The ridiculously low intellectual level of the discussion in flat-earth circles suggests it is dominated by a few government shills and an army of trolls who have too much time on their hands.

By definition, the flat-earth movement will never be a threat, because it breaks the topic down to a very narrow view of what the opposite of heliocentrism could look like. The flat-earth meme is a very shallow concept, it's not a danger to the PTB.


The flat earth meme is a danger to logic.


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## Apollonius (May 1, 2022)

GandalfTheGreen said:


> To Quote an Admin
> 
> Apparently people often need the concept of a flat-earth to realize that heliocentrism is false.
> 
> ...


It's really funny that there are people who believe in a Flat Earth in 2022.


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## GandalfTheGreen (May 1, 2022)

Apollonius said:


> It's really funny that there are people who believe in a Flat Earth in 2022.


I don't think it's funny.

I very much agree with dreamtime's post.  FE is nothing more than ridiculously low intellect discussion. 

It's a pissing contest for the religiously indoctrinated and scientifically ignorant people who purposely choose not to inspect FURTHER.

Literally, a cult of people who base their reality on observation only.   As if the human eye isn't the machine used for illusion.


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## dreamtime (May 1, 2022)

GandalfTheGreen said:


> To Quote an Admin



You know that I agree with you on your positions - the problem is not your views, but your behavior. Aggressively trying to convince others of your positions is not in line with the goal of this forum. And the more you try, the more resistance you meet.

I have read some FE posts here on the forum that were more consistent and valuable overall than some of your posts consisting of memes making fun of flat earthers, even if I didn't agree with them.


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## Apollonius (May 1, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> You know that I agree with you on your positions - the problem is not your views, but your behavior. Aggressively trying to convince others of your positions is not in line with the goal of this forum. And the more you try, the more resistance you meet.
> 
> I have read some FE posts here on the forum that were more consistent and valuable overall than some of your posts consisting of memes making fun of flat earthers, even if I didn't agree with them.


Then why are Flat Earthers allowed, who call heliocentrism stupidity and ignorance? Is it allowed to curse heliocentrism in this forum?


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## dreamtime (May 2, 2022)

We will probably start enforcing permanent thread reply bans more in those threads that tend to attract one-sided, low effort, spammy posters - examples are the big threads about Flat Earth, Russia and Covid.

If you drop a dozen low-effort posts in those threads, primarily directed at attacking or ridiculing others or defending your position without any new evidence provided (including posts consisting of only images/memes), you can expect to get banned there. Of course you can always contact us and discuss this, since we are open to reconsidering things.

But this is a research forum, and in all 3 of those threads there's a couple members who only think in terms of defending their territory and ideologies.

If you can't post in those threads now when you could before, you are likely affected by a thread reply ban. And yes, this is content-agnostic, we don't care about the belief or ideology.

I also increased the barrier for members automatically receiving the "Active Member" status - now not only a certain post threshold needs to be reached, but also a certain reaction-threshold. If a new member hasn't reached a certain reaction level, the member won't be able to post in off-topic yet.


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## dreamtime (May 2, 2022)

Apollonius said:


> Then why are Flat Earthers allowed, who call heliocentrism stupidity and ignorance? Is it allowed to curse heliocentrism in this forum?



One user is now banned from FE thread for low effort spammy posts defending FE. We aren't biased towards any ideology.

The goal of moderation is to keep a respectful discussion and forum atmosphere, not to control the arguments or nature of discussion.


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