The history of Stolen History site

[Gladius]

It was revived some years ago and is still up and running.

True but I meant in the original format as this is something quite different.

Even a brief scan of the thread topics illustrates your points (and mine) very effectively. I'm not sure if 'gatekeeping' is the right word as, having been accused of it many times, it implies that information is being hidden and protected from the prying eyes of the hoi polloi, which isn't the case with the sh forums.

I don't know what's a better word but I mean gatekeeping in the context of online community. We're not some lords or tycoons capable of actual gatekeeping, right?

To be fair, I think the mods were simply following Dreamtime's lead.

Yes.

I notice that the statistics regarding 'tartaria' and 'mudflood' are all from the USA, which - with all due respect - is where they also believe their 'professional wrestling' is something real. I only mention this to illustrate how the concepts of tartaria and mudfloods have been promoted with a similar intensity to the WTF ...sorry WWF.

I chose US for the english filtering. If you choose Worldwide the results are a bit less coherent due to unrelated searches.

 

[Gladius]

The level of some reactions also strikes me. Could it have something to do with the syringe? Because, I visit many sites and see that decline of level elsewhere too. The intellect seems to be lulled to sleep and become woke. So it may not have to do with the management of a site, but with the decline of human feeling and reason. We are now in a time of fascism and now many trolls are being deployed to defend the policy. You know that they lie and play a bad game, they are mean in their double-dealing language and thus play a psychological game to justify what is bad and to worsen what is good. I see that in general on various sites. But yes, that is also logical given the time in which we live. We will have to persevere. There is no other option. I am deliberately writing this somewhat vaguely, if you know what I mean.

I agree with the first part but I don't really follow the woke/fascist approach here, they're more like the exception I think.
It continues my point of the "youtube crowd" (they could be from elsewhere too) of people who don't come from a culture of or experienced with basic research/analysis, and don't wish to learn either.
Even worse, some pretend to be, resulting in posts made up of completely imagined "information", then they defend emotionally once questioned, as if this place is a personal blog.

 

[AntiSoof]

I agree with the first part but I don't really follow the woke/fascist approach here, they're more like the exception I think.
It continues my point of the "youtube crowd" (they could be from elsewhere too) of people who don't come from a culture of or experienced with basic research/analysis, and don't wish to learn either.
Even worse, some pretend to be, resulting in posts made up of completely imagined "information", then they defend emotionally once questioned, as if this place is a personal blog.

Again, it has struck me, for example, in the last comments here, that people become sharp and personal in language. Ad hominem is then used as an argument, which is of course stupid. But the stupid pull you onto their playing field and then you lose. By fascism I mean the striving of business people and tptb for a totalitarian world; when business people join forces with politics, then it can go wrong, we learn from the past. And that is the time we are in, I think.

 

[CL Cromer]

Mainly, All I do around here is read, with a sparse amount of comments. I was around for several years before the original site went dark and still hanging around now. My comments are crude and cobbled together with an handful of brain cells. Just slightly more beneficial than the corn fillers in all of your favorite gas station cuisine, so I’ll be brief, or maybe not.

I dropped some money on the donation page without hesitation. Didn’t look into it, didn’t think I was getting swindled, maybe the money is funding someone’s drug habit, maybe it’s wrapped up in hawk tuah hell. Where it went? don’t know, definitely isn’t building houses in Haiti, that’s why they all moved to Ohio. Im going to assume that it’s actually funding this forum, and that’s the best contribution I can offer at this time. I know well enough not to interfere with the genuine research and tremendous amount of time and energy it takes to formulate some truly brilliant insight, but let’s not get our panties in a wad. None of us pixels on the screen would be here if not for the controllers and their constant thievery. We owe them our gratitude, because if they weren’t stealing, we would be.

 

[AntiSoof]

Again, it has struck me, for example, in the last comments here, that people become sharp and personal in language. Ad hominem is then used as an argument, which is of course stupid. But the stupid pull you onto their playing field and then you lose. By fascism I mean the striving of business people and tptb for a totalitarian world; when business people join forces with politics, then it can go wrong, we learn from the past. And that is the time we are in, I think.

And of course there is, at least in the Netherlands, the flattening of education that does not seem to lead to thinkers but to followers. The older generation thought more for themselves, I think. And since we have only been using the internet for about 20 years, the novelty has worn off and the younger generation, the mobile phone viewers, is coming.

 

[Gladius]

And of course there is, at least in the Netherlands, the flattening of education that does not seem to lead to thinkers but to followers. The older generation thought more for themselves, I think. And since we have only been using the internet for about 20 years, the novelty has worn off and the younger generation, the mobile phone viewers, is coming.

Ok I see the point, but in the context of SH, I don't think we're dealing with younger users or more, let's say, brainwashed users.
The type of users that started coming here have always been around the internet, it's just something opened the gates for them.
Back then, until '22, I don't think anyone was promoting SH out there. You simply had to find it by clicking enough backlinks or references, usually on other forums someone would refer to SH for information.
From '22 you begin to see SH links present in the description, comments or in-video of various popular channels on the conspiracy tag spectrum.
+ media productions that aggregate alt history info into shady youtube channels like Aewar (45k subs) and other operations made by fictional characters. Those have the highest reach since they can inject funds into SEO tactics and don't need organic reach. Their viewers listen to hours long of conspiracy hypnosis and then they find this forum.

 

[trismegistus]

It was revived some years ago and is still up and running. Even a brief scan of the thread topics illustrates your points (and mine) very effectively. I'm not sure if 'gatekeeping' is the right word as, having been accused of it many times, it implies that information is being hidden and protected from the prying eyes of the hoi polloi, which isn't the case with the sh forums.


To be fair, I think the mods were simply following Dreamtime's lead.

For what it’s worth I made an effort to keep the forum similar in spirit in the beginning. As someone who also fondly remembers and participated in the high level discussions it only made sense.

Over time this strategy led to conflict. Preapproving threads was an early decision, and I think was a much needed one - but then it came down to subjective opinion. Is this thread worthy of the high level posts from KD and others? Sometimes it was an easy decision sometimes it was not. Those that were new to the site would not understand why their thread was not approved, even after explaining why, or making good examples easily accessible to use as a guide. When many people were contributing at a high level, and creating new threads with exciting research or adding context and filling out other threads, it made it easy to filter the low effort ones out. But when that activity dips what do you do? Is it better to have a stagnant site with higher levels of standards or do you start approving threads and allowing comments that are not quite up to par with the content from the past?

Dreamtime felt it better to do the latter, and the relaxation of the content was enforced by me. Was it the best choice? I have no idea. Hindsight is 20/20 - it definitely led to a diluting of the sites content. But to Gladius’ point the research itself also became diluted in a second wave of popularity from social media.

In any case Dreamtime is absent from the site for the most part these days, and in terms of moderation there is no explicit direction. I am basically the only active mod on the site, and the amount of time I can dedicate to that task has dwindled over the last few years - though I’ve never left. If I were to start enforcing heavier moderation at this point - would it make a difference? Banning people is never popular, outside of the obvious trolls and agitators. I have far more patience for the more difficult people on here than anyone else, even if my mod decisions have upset others on the forum. If I unbanned the users others have brought up in recent past what would that really solve? I probably wouldn’t want to come back to the site if I were them.

I do agree that the larger reason for the lack of high effort content is that there is not much new under the sun these days. Much of the older research regardless of its origins was unique and interesting, but is no longer novel. So with that in mind - how to properly manage a forum that is adrift? Not sure I have an answer yet.

 

[Gladius]

I do agree that the larger reason for the lack of high effort content is that there is not much new under the sun these days. Much of the older research regardless of its origins was unique and interesting, but is no longer novel. So with that in mind - how to properly manage a forum that is adrift? Not sure I have an answer yet.

That part kind of sums it.
And it's important to stay in perspective:
We're dealing here with the unknown, a big and complex detective case made of a network of lesser cases.

Just imagine for how many years those subjects have been around in niche circles before people picked them up and made progress over the internet. Certain major works discussed on SH were already 20-40 years old before gaining exposure.
We experienced a boom of new information in only a few years, but progress is not linear. We shouldn't expect the same levels of new information to maintain themselves.

In relation to that, another point that is never discussed is the lack of practice. Very, very few people do anything about the things they have learned, such as visiting locations, conducting interviews, hunting for rare books or maps and etc., which is a crucial step to complete the missing pieces, and is expected of researchers in most fields.
I don't remember the last time I heard about any prominent blogger, writer or youtube guy in alt history actually going out there to gather info or evidence for his research. Since there are cases in literally every country, it's not a matter of travel or money.

 

[Deleted member 1432]

For what it’s worth I made an effort to keep the forum similar in spirit in the beginning. As someone who also fondly remembers and participated in the high level discussions it only made sense.

Over time this strategy led to conflict.

As others have already pointed out, the conflict came from the influx of social media-ites bringing their bad manners, bald opinions and "here we are now - entertain us!" attitude with them. This was the result of a deliberate decision by Dreamtime to open up the forum by directly participating in YouTube. This decision itself caused a lot of conflict amongst the existing forum members at the time who warned against it - Felix was one along with Silveryou and JD755. Funny how all three of them are no longer here, the two latter having been banned while Felix resigned. There were others as well, but many simply cleared off and never came back.

A mention on YouTube created an invasion of social media-ites from Russia, most of whom seemed to be mentally challenged and after creating chaos and conflict on a scale that had never been seem before, the worst offenders were finally banned. This was just a taste of things to come.

The SH YouTube Video series was also another cause of conflict, as it presented sh.net as being a site where the Mudflood, Tartaria and some kind of 18th century 'Reset' were it's major themes. Clearly this was a total misrepresentation of the forum, but all objections were shouted down. It was around this time that legislation was put in place prohibiting criticism of the admins/mods. Tyranny in other words.

And now here we are some years later facing the exact scenario that was warned against by Felix, Silveryou, JD755 and others.

But when that activity dips what do you do? Is it better to have a stagnant site with higher levels of standards or do you start approving threads and allowing comments that are not quite up to par with the content from the past?

Dreamtime felt it better to do the latter, and the relaxation of the content was enforced by me. Was it the best choice?

Dreamtime was wrong. He had taken the decision to create an 'organic', free-form, unstructured, 'anything goes' forum long before that. Unfortunately, those who are able to attest that it was a deliberate policy are all gone. Personally, I don't understand why it would have been such a difficult decision given that the "activity dips" were obviously a direct result of Dreamtime's policy or did no one dare question it? So instead of revising that policy, he simply decided to make matters even worse.

If I unbanned the users others have brought up in recent past what would that really solve? I probably wouldn’t want to come back to the site if I were them.

I'd like to share this with you and the forum. It's a personal message to me from JD755...

"I would much rather see the forum be reestablished as a place of open discussion then it would be worth asking pushamaku to lift my ban."

He was banned by Dreamtime for "back-seat moderation," not for anything that he allegedly said to him in a PM. KD used to call this "self-moderation" and considered it a beneficial feature of his forum. When any administrative body makes it a punishable offence to criticise that body, then it becomes a tyranny. Of course, KD also ran a kind of tyranny, but he always allowed criticism.

I do agree that the larger reason for the lack of high effort content is that there is not much new under the sun these days. Much of the older research regardless of its origins was unique and interesting, but is no longer novel. So with that in mind - how to properly manage a forum that is adrift? Not sure I have an answer yet.

Sorry, but I find this attitude ridiculous. As I said in an earlier comment, without the passion, enthusiasm and interest of the forum's management then what's the point of continuing? You seem to have given up already - job done, nothing more to see here, turn the lights off and lock the door behind you. It may seem like there's nothing new, but that's only because the social media-ites have no idea how to use a Search facility and simply regurgitate their borrowed opinions as new threads - and nobody stops them. Furthermore, some long-running threads are just on a 'rinse-and-repeat' cycle, but in reality are going nowhere. Does it not occur to you that the members who once produced the kind of quality research that was once the trademark of SH, are still out there? Perhaps they left because they grew weary
of the futility of posting in an atmosphere where bald opinions, blind faith proselytism and a total disregard for quoting sources, gets preference over genuine research?

As I've said many times before, I truly believe that you have made the most of a thankless and difficult task in an increasingly difficult situation. The forum now stands on the edge of a precipice. None of us can do anything about it. It's entirely in your's and Pushmaku's hands.

 

[Oracle]

Folks,looking at this thread, it's time we were all reminded of this postCOINTELPRO Techniques for Dilution, Misdirection and Control of an Internet Forum

These savage attacks coincidentally started straight after @pushamaku posted about unmute, the donation plea is relevant too because some entities want this site destroyed, but unmute I believe to be the trigger.
A peaceful and joyful new year to you all.

 

[trismegistus]

In relation to that, another point that is never discussed is the lack of practice. Very, very few people do anything about the things they have learned, such as visiting locations, conducting interviews, hunting for rare books or maps and etc., which is a crucial step to complete the missing pieces, and is expected of researchers in most fields.
I don't remember the last time I heard about any prominent blogger, writer or youtube guy in alt history actually going out there to gather info or evidence for his research. Since there are cases in literally every country, it's not a matter of travel or money.

Completely agree. Criticisms of the "truthfulness" of academia aside - the intellectual rigor and hunger for information that exists within that realm is something that is generally missing amongst most. It is uncommon to find people who have the skills of research and writing that also delve into the topics seen on SH. Most come across it via youtube or social media where the content overall is lower effort - with some exceptions.

SH should be a place where people who are interested in learning more and want to participate should be able to do so without feeling shamed or rejected for their lack of rigor. I found the original SH through reddit, and I barely ever posted anything on that platform much less research. I had never applied any of my own skills to this type of research, but decided I was going to dive in regardless. I tried to model the rigor that I saw others utilize, and in turn that sharpened my own skills.

I say all of that because these are not impossible skills to acquire and sharpen. How to find and use sources, how to format a post, how to interact with other's participation, all of these things can be learned over time. We should be guiding others to do better, not chastise them for not coming in immediately with these skills. In the past we have created resources on the site to help others craft posts, whether these are used or followed I can't say. Perhaps that is something we need to make more visible to those that haven't been here long.

What I do not want is for SH to become a bunch of gatekeepers. Recent moderation by the staff will reflect these changes. We are all going through our own journey of awakening at different times, and it is useless to make someone feel like their attempts at participating are not valuable if their intentions are good but may need some work. That does not mean that there won't be disagreements over the arguments or research provided - that is actually a very important part of the process of learning. But if we have too many gatekeepers that attack the character and not the content then we are no better off than reddit or other gatekeeping communities.