THIS said, lately several things I've pinned have turned out to be blatantly false. Sorry, guys, I would absolutely be remiss if I didn't admit that I could do, er... slightly better, in that department. Thanks for understanding.
The one with the tweet about teachers needing to bully unvaxed kids was one of them from yesterday. The headline was something about forgiveness, I think.
If you have the time, try reading through catsfive's posting history the past few days for things he self stickied. That sounds gross. Anyway, read through the comments and you'll see where people are calling them out.
Um. A word about self-stickies. Want gross? Look for how many of my posts one from PATRIOTS.WIN. How are we okay with letting them beat us to the news all the time?
What is it you'd say you do around here? What is your role? Just read stuff, comment, and that's it? Serious question.
What is it you'd say you do around here? What is your role? Just read stuff, comment, and that's it? Serious question.
Yes. I read and comment. That's it.
I don't understand this idea that people have that if you don't start posts here, your contribution means nothing.
I honestly don't feel the need to make new posts. I'm not a very creative or inventive person. There is no topic out there that I'm interested in that hasn't already been covered. Multiple times.
Usually by the time I learn of something new that's happened, 20 people have already jumped online here and posted about it. Why should I add to the clutter?
Seriously, switch the post order to New, and look at how many people are trying to start posts about the exact same thing. Do we really need more of that?
What I am good at is fact checking (which goes over like a turd in a punch bowl here), looking at things from multiple view points, being objective about hot button issues, and trying to explain basic concepts to people who somehow have gotten this far in life without learning them (for example, that the Supreme Court doesn't have to hear every case that is petitioned to be heard).
So basically I try to keep the excessively crazy and excessively stupid from making us all look like crazy idiots to the normies who come here. Maybe I can get a title like " 'Tard Wrangler". Or Neo-Nazi Buster?
But I have noticed that quantity over quality is valued here. Just shovel out as much stuff as possible, no matter if it's dogshit or gold.
Which reminds me. I've never figured out who funds these boards or how they make money. No ads. No fees. Any insight into this? Are our posts used to make content for other sites? Is that the obsession with having people post new content all the time? Serious question.
This counts strongly as well. Mods consider reputation and comment histories too before giving bans. We go on the information we have. But you raise a very fair point, and it's yours, here. You are also right. I can seem very black and white sometimes (always protect the board, the board = posts), but I want to make sure to acknowledge that you make and defend a very good point here as well. Duly noted. Carry on, frog.
I also look at it like this: Cats does a lot to contribute to the board. Given the volume he puts up, hitting a few clangers now and then should really be seen as forgivable on a percentage basis. Also, so busy looking after the board means well, less time for doing the diligence, so again, I think we can afford to be generous.
Another point: It's easy to accuse and blame, but how many who do also contribute to the same level, or even to a comparable level?
Note: Calling out a mistake or clanger is NOT the same as accusing and blaming. Big fan of the former, not so much of the latter.
I am frustrated with the conflicting instructions given! What happened to “verify before you post”? The volume of Cats posts is legendary. Certainly they could not all have been read much less verified. The fact that cats is a moderator and can “sticky” her own posts allowed these to escalate. This is this sites equivalent to a BLUE CHECK.
I am frustrated with the conflicting instructions given! What happened to “verify before you post”? The volume of Cats posts is legendary. Certainly they could not all have been read much less verified. The fact that cats is a moderator and can “sticky” her own posts allowed these to escalate. This is this sites equivalent to a BLUE CHECK.
I could not agree more.
Some days this place looks like catsfive's personal soapbox, because all you see is post after post of articles penned and pinned by her.
How about, no more stickies at all? Let top, hot and rising threads become top, hot and rising threads because the community determines them of being worthy of such recognition?
Or at the very least establish on the site rules, some clear guidelines about what makes a post worthy of being stickied?
Thank you for your volunteer time & best efforts. I can only imagine how cumbersome it must be to try and maintain cohesion with pedes & frogs. Thanks for the deport reminder.
Thankfully we have many discerning members among us!
It's good to get on this stuff as quickly as possible and verify / debunk. Bad actors, glowies, shills and general faggots come in here all the time in order to look for those gotcha! moments in order to bolster their point that we are a community of loonies.
Thankfully we have many discerning members among us! It's good to get on this stuff as quickly as possible and verify / debunk.
Yeah, how often have you done that? I'm going to say not often. Because if you had, you'd know that you're putting yourself at risk of getting banned if you call out a mod on posting fake stuff.
And then you get called a shill or glowie or one of the 3 letter agencies if you dare to pop someone's fantasy balloon by telling them whatever they're so excited about is not real. Some people get VERY UPSET when you try to give them a reality check.
And then we have the people who think things like "fact checking is gay". Yes, I had someone here say that to me. Hyper defensive and thinks that taking the exact opposite stance of the enemy is smart, no matter what. And since libs love to post their fact-checking...🤷♀️that MUST mean it's wrong.
Sounds like a cop out, imo. Aren't we supposed to verify before we share? Who cares if it's 30 minutes later because you had to verify it. So both the poster & mod who stickies don't care about verifying before posting /stickying on a research board?
If you're unsure about the veracity of your content this has to be clearly marked as such in the post title, not some small flair 5 hrs later.
Sounds like a cop out, imo. Aren't we supposed to verify before we share? Who cares if it's 30 minutes later because you had to verify it.
Sad thing is, it usually doesn't take but a minute or two to fact check a post. If it's a questionable photo, do a reverse photo search.
Questionable Twitter comment? Check the user's official Twitter account for the comment to show up in their feed.
Some warning signs posts might be fake and need more research:
Does it seem "too good to be true"? Also, do you want it to be true? If you see a post where some leftist is blatantly admitting they did something illegal, after years of claiming innocence? Yeah, you need to check it. Read some Twitter post saying someone you hate has been arrested? Yeah, you need to check it.
People tend to more easily believe things that confirms opinions they already have.
Does the post make you extremely angry, happy, or scared? Chances are that it's counting on a sensationalist headline to get clicks. Provoking outrage and anger toward a particular person is one of the most common fake posts that I see, personally. If it makes you feel very strongly about it, check it.
READ BEYOND THE HEADLINE. This is something that just boggles my mind that people need to be told. Don't form opinions based on headlines only. That's just STUPID. And I see it done all day, every day.
Not on this forum, but on a Facebook group I was once a part of, there was a huge problem with people sharing posts from satirical websites, thinking they were real. Not the Onion, or the Bee, it was a leftist that had several websites. "America's Frontline of Defense" was one of them, I think. I'll have to go check. Anyway, people were constantly sharing headlines from there, because they never bothered to read the articles, which were clearly satire. 🙄
If a photo seems dubious, do a reverse image search. Also, if a post seems dubious, and it includes a photo important to the article, do a reverse image search. It will sometimes lead to the original article that was changed.
Look at where you find the info you want to share. Look for the "About Us" section. Do they even have one? Look for the byline on articles. Does it not have a name, instead saying it was written by "staff"? That should be a red flag. If you can't find info on anyone who founded, funds, or writes for a website, it shouldn't be trusted. Especially if the screen is covered in ads. Or they're trying to sell you some miracle vitamins or magic water or such. "Follow the money" shouldn't be something reserved only for leftists.
Can you find the story you want to re-post on more than one site? If not, you need to look into it more. Can you find more than one article for the story? As in, is it just the same article reposted over and over with nothing else written about it? If not, you need to check it.
Try copy-pasting blocks of text to see where else it can be found online. Quotes are particularly good to find this way. Compare the articles to see if anything has been changed or added.
Beware Twitter or other social media posts where the time/date stamp has been cut off. It's gotten to the point where if a Tweet has a missing time/date stamp, I automatically think it's bullshit. But I check anyway. And I honestly can't remember the last time it wasn't bullshit.
Don't automatically believe something is true just because you like/admire the person who said it. Last I checked, the only perfect person was Jesus Christ, and he's not giving press conferences or tweeting right now. Humans are imperfect and make mistakes. Some even knowingly lie, sometimes. 😲
I'm going to leave this list at 9, just for the autists and OCD who fixate on lists being made into 5 and 10 number intervals. 😁
You ain't getting many upvotes from folks that pride themselves on being The Connoisseurs of Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth they bill themselves as.
El Mod Teamo has emphasized this to me a number of times whenI have whinged, moaned, chucked a wobbly (look it up), or complained about false content stickied, etc.
"The stickies are to highlight and bring to the for to discuss, NOT necessarily to endorse or promote the content!!!"
Still a lot of low-effort stuff that only generates negative reactions about the fact it was stickied. Then it becomes a back-and-forth because people want quality and not low-effort trash to be the first thing they see.
Yeah. I make no comment about the low quality stuff that gets stickied. Your comment here is more than sufficient (and on the mark, imo).
I'm speaking only to the stuff that gets sticked NOT because it is right or needs to be promoted, but to be highlighted for discussion.
I still don't know if this is really the best use of the sticky function. I'm just saying that this appears to be the mod teams rationale behind their approach to stickiness.
I think there'd be value in discussing whether this is actually the best use of stickies, or whether it should really be reserved for NOTABLE and HIGH QUALITY etc. Worth discussing, imo.
I get it. Life moves fast. Stickies moves fast. This is a research board. Sometimes posts come fast and anyone that's just sitting around believing everything they read here is the antithesis of what GAW is.
I like seeing the BS get stickied sometimes. Makes it easier for it to be shot to pieces before this place gets flooded with 100 toppics all discussing the same thing.
stickies mean that the subject matter is juicy enough that mods feel everyone should give it special attention. should it end up as misinformation, or patently not true, say so in the comments. that's what debate is about. but do not attack the mod for being fooled, they are trying to bring attention to certain subject matter that should be important to us. that said, what are you people doing here? there is more important posts to be reading, and memes to be made.
I actively encourage mods to sticky their own posts. The bigger question is, why are so many good posts coming from PATRIOTS.WIN, often hours and hours after being posted? We have too many skaters on this board. Time for some of them to consider other avenues for Q content. Again, you have no posts. What is it you do here?
Also an attempt to not have ifty posts on the same topic.... Note: fifty memes on a topic is ok but fifty posts saying essentially the same thing crowds out other important events!!! Please join another thread on the topic otherwis we dont have a discussion we have repetition of a phrase....
I remember, before the onset of the bot wars.....when we would have "please check new before you post" stickies.... but who knew how bad the bot onslughts would be.....thank you for fighting the bots!!!!
THIS said, lately several things I've pinned have turned out to be blatantly false. Sorry, guys, I would absolutely be remiss if I didn't admit that I could do, er... slightly better, in that department. Thanks for understanding.
They don't. Everything is manual here
OK, now I am curious.
Which sticky posts turned out to be fake?
There were a metric buttload of stickies yesterday... all gone now. Which ones should I mentally disregard?
Up vote for "metric buttload."
I'm Canadian and didn't know that metric
The one with the tweet about teachers needing to bully unvaxed kids was one of them from yesterday. The headline was something about forgiveness, I think.
If you have the time, try reading through catsfive's posting history the past few days for things he self stickied. That sounds gross. Anyway, read through the comments and you'll see where people are calling them out.
This user has no posts.
Um. A word about self-stickies. Want gross? Look for how many of my posts one from PATRIOTS.WIN. How are we okay with letting them beat us to the news all the time?
What is it you'd say you do around here? What is your role? Just read stuff, comment, and that's it? Serious question.
Yes. I read and comment. That's it.
I don't understand this idea that people have that if you don't start posts here, your contribution means nothing.
I honestly don't feel the need to make new posts. I'm not a very creative or inventive person. There is no topic out there that I'm interested in that hasn't already been covered. Multiple times.
Usually by the time I learn of something new that's happened, 20 people have already jumped online here and posted about it. Why should I add to the clutter?
Seriously, switch the post order to New, and look at how many people are trying to start posts about the exact same thing. Do we really need more of that?
What I am good at is fact checking (which goes over like a turd in a punch bowl here), looking at things from multiple view points, being objective about hot button issues, and trying to explain basic concepts to people who somehow have gotten this far in life without learning them (for example, that the Supreme Court doesn't have to hear every case that is petitioned to be heard).
So basically I try to keep the excessively crazy and excessively stupid from making us all look like crazy idiots to the normies who come here. Maybe I can get a title like " 'Tard Wrangler". Or Neo-Nazi Buster?
But I have noticed that quantity over quality is valued here. Just shovel out as much stuff as possible, no matter if it's dogshit or gold.
Which reminds me. I've never figured out who funds these boards or how they make money. No ads. No fees. Any insight into this? Are our posts used to make content for other sites? Is that the obsession with having people post new content all the time? Serious question.
This counts strongly as well. Mods consider reputation and comment histories too before giving bans. We go on the information we have. But you raise a very fair point, and it's yours, here. You are also right. I can seem very black and white sometimes (always protect the board, the board = posts), but I want to make sure to acknowledge that you make and defend a very good point here as well. Duly noted. Carry on, frog.
I respect your willingness to admit fault.
That's more than I can say for a lot of mods elsewhere.
I also look at it like this: Cats does a lot to contribute to the board. Given the volume he puts up, hitting a few clangers now and then should really be seen as forgivable on a percentage basis. Also, so busy looking after the board means well, less time for doing the diligence, so again, I think we can afford to be generous.
Another point: It's easy to accuse and blame, but how many who do also contribute to the same level, or even to a comparable level?
Note: Calling out a mistake or clanger is NOT the same as accusing and blaming. Big fan of the former, not so much of the latter.
I am frustrated with the conflicting instructions given! What happened to “verify before you post”? The volume of Cats posts is legendary. Certainly they could not all have been read much less verified. The fact that cats is a moderator and can “sticky” her own posts allowed these to escalate. This is this sites equivalent to a BLUE CHECK.
I could not agree more.
Some days this place looks like catsfive's personal soapbox, because all you see is post after post of articles penned and pinned by her.
Did you just assume my cat's gender
Nope, I've referred to you as "he", "she", AND "they", if you haven't noticed. So I covered all the bases. 👍
With about a 30/70 accuracy
I doubt there's a single person on this board who hasn't accidentally shared misinformation over the last couple years.
It's coming at us from all directions.
It's this humility and honesty that builds trust!
How about, no more stickies at all? Let top, hot and rising threads become top, hot and rising threads because the community determines them of being worthy of such recognition?
Or at the very least establish on the site rules, some clear guidelines about what makes a post worthy of being stickied?
Bring back voat!
Then maybe a downvote on stickies is needed?
Without having to change the theme. So everyone can do it. Having a quick sticky at -8 will help people know it's probably fake.
There are two ways in which you can signal the mod team to take a closer look at a sticky, or a thread.
First, you can deport the comment, thread, or sticky in concern.
Second, you can also feel welcomed to message the moderators with your concerns at any time.
Does this apply for stickied threads created by mods?
I ask because I did this once and was immediately given a temp ban.
To be clear, this is an attempt to seek clarification, so please don't twist it into an opportunity to label it "griefing" or "gaslighting" mods.
Agreed, I've commented on blatantly false stickies and gotten banned each time for 24 hours, so I've stopped.
Message to mods...
u/#trumpflag
Wow. name checks out.
Thanks. We stopped trying to be perfect long ago. Appreciate you understanding.
Remove community styling and you can downvote posts that aren't accurate.
what is this community styling? because I haven't used it in ages because of the shills here.
See settings icon
Thankfully we have many discerning members among us!
It's good to get on this stuff as quickly as possible and verify / debunk. Bad actors, glowies, shills and general faggots come in here all the time in order to look for those gotcha! moments in order to bolster their point that we are a community of loonies.
WWG1WGA, Frens
u/#wwg1wga
Wait..... Are you saying we're NOT loonies?
Dang. I'm in the wrong place!
Yeah, how often have you done that? I'm going to say not often. Because if you had, you'd know that you're putting yourself at risk of getting banned if you call out a mod on posting fake stuff.
And then you get called a shill or glowie or one of the 3 letter agencies if you dare to pop someone's fantasy balloon by telling them whatever they're so excited about is not real. Some people get VERY UPSET when you try to give them a reality check.
And then we have the people who think things like "fact checking is gay". Yes, I had someone here say that to me. Hyper defensive and thinks that taking the exact opposite stance of the enemy is smart, no matter what. And since libs love to post their fact-checking...🤷♀️that MUST mean it's wrong.
Mods are called out with reason and tact all thru this post. No bans have been given. Stay classy is all. We're in this together.
You mean you haven't banned someone on this thread where you're being called out for banning people who have called you out?
Shocking.
Doesn't mean that it hasn't happened multiple times in the past. "Classy" or not.
You obviously get twitchy when people criticize you. Just look at some of the responses here.
Sounds like a cop out, imo. Aren't we supposed to verify before we share? Who cares if it's 30 minutes later because you had to verify it. So both the poster & mod who stickies don't care about verifying before posting /stickying on a research board? If you're unsure about the veracity of your content this has to be clearly marked as such in the post title, not some small flair 5 hrs later.
Sad thing is, it usually doesn't take but a minute or two to fact check a post. If it's a questionable photo, do a reverse photo search.
Questionable Twitter comment? Check the user's official Twitter account for the comment to show up in their feed.
Some warning signs posts might be fake and need more research:
People tend to more easily believe things that confirms opinions they already have.
Does the post make you extremely angry, happy, or scared? Chances are that it's counting on a sensationalist headline to get clicks. Provoking outrage and anger toward a particular person is one of the most common fake posts that I see, personally. If it makes you feel very strongly about it, check it.
READ BEYOND THE HEADLINE. This is something that just boggles my mind that people need to be told. Don't form opinions based on headlines only. That's just STUPID. And I see it done all day, every day.
Not on this forum, but on a Facebook group I was once a part of, there was a huge problem with people sharing posts from satirical websites, thinking they were real. Not the Onion, or the Bee, it was a leftist that had several websites. "America's Frontline of Defense" was one of them, I think. I'll have to go check. Anyway, people were constantly sharing headlines from there, because they never bothered to read the articles, which were clearly satire. 🙄
If a photo seems dubious, do a reverse image search. Also, if a post seems dubious, and it includes a photo important to the article, do a reverse image search. It will sometimes lead to the original article that was changed.
Look at where you find the info you want to share. Look for the "About Us" section. Do they even have one? Look for the byline on articles. Does it not have a name, instead saying it was written by "staff"? That should be a red flag. If you can't find info on anyone who founded, funds, or writes for a website, it shouldn't be trusted. Especially if the screen is covered in ads. Or they're trying to sell you some miracle vitamins or magic water or such. "Follow the money" shouldn't be something reserved only for leftists.
Can you find the story you want to re-post on more than one site? If not, you need to look into it more. Can you find more than one article for the story? As in, is it just the same article reposted over and over with nothing else written about it? If not, you need to check it.
Try copy-pasting blocks of text to see where else it can be found online. Quotes are particularly good to find this way. Compare the articles to see if anything has been changed or added.
Beware Twitter or other social media posts where the time/date stamp has been cut off. It's gotten to the point where if a Tweet has a missing time/date stamp, I automatically think it's bullshit. But I check anyway. And I honestly can't remember the last time it wasn't bullshit.
Don't automatically believe something is true just because you like/admire the person who said it. Last I checked, the only perfect person was Jesus Christ, and he's not giving press conferences or tweeting right now. Humans are imperfect and make mistakes. Some even knowingly lie, sometimes. 😲
I'm going to leave this list at 9, just for the autists and OCD who fixate on lists being made into 5 and 10 number intervals. 😁
You ain't getting many upvotes from folks that pride themselves on being The Connoisseurs of Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth they bill themselves as.
But I'll diiiiiieeeeeee without my updoots! I live for them! Almost 60% of my self confidence comes from my updoots. 😪😪
At first I thought it might be because they already knew all that stuff and I was boring them by singing to the choir.
And then I went and read some other threads here and realized that couldn't be it.
So, it's a mystery, I suppose. 🤷♀️
The not reading articles beyond the headline was really shocking to me, all kidding aside. Seriously, people. 🤦♀️
i thought they were confirmed notables. Now I know!
Common misperception.
El Mod Teamo has emphasized this to me a number of times whenI have whinged, moaned, chucked a wobbly (look it up), or complained about false content stickied, etc.
"The stickies are to highlight and bring to the for to discuss, NOT necessarily to endorse or promote the content!!!"
Still a lot of low-effort stuff that only generates negative reactions about the fact it was stickied. Then it becomes a back-and-forth because people want quality and not low-effort trash to be the first thing they see.
Yeah. I make no comment about the low quality stuff that gets stickied. Your comment here is more than sufficient (and on the mark, imo).
I'm speaking only to the stuff that gets sticked NOT because it is right or needs to be promoted, but to be highlighted for discussion.
I still don't know if this is really the best use of the sticky function. I'm just saying that this appears to be the mod teams rationale behind their approach to stickiness.
I think there'd be value in discussing whether this is actually the best use of stickies, or whether it should really be reserved for NOTABLE and HIGH QUALITY etc. Worth discussing, imo.
I get it. Life moves fast. Stickies moves fast. This is a research board. Sometimes posts come fast and anyone that's just sitting around believing everything they read here is the antithesis of what GAW is.
There's a saying:
Trust but verify
So, I can sat ‘the earth is flat’ and you cannot rebut it here because it is up to YOU to verify!
Well, we ASPIRE to being a research board. But to paraphrase the Cat himself: "we could do slightly better in this department".
Yeah, pretty much got that right. Upmcdoogle. (That's scottish for updoodle).
No, it is your responsibility to make sure the shit you post has sauce especially if you are an admin
100%
☘️Thank you Fren! ☘️ That is all🐸
stky plz thx
I like seeing the BS get stickied sometimes. Makes it easier for it to be shot to pieces before this place gets flooded with 100 toppics all discussing the same thing.
Agree. We can still have fun and keep things moving.
stickies mean that the subject matter is juicy enough that mods feel everyone should give it special attention. should it end up as misinformation, or patently not true, say so in the comments. that's what debate is about. but do not attack the mod for being fooled, they are trying to bring attention to certain subject matter that should be important to us. that said, what are you people doing here? there is more important posts to be reading, and memes to be made.
Not necessarily. For instance, when mods sticky their own posts. Sometimes they lose objectivity when it comes to if a subject is "juicy" or not.
Perhaps mods should not be able to sticky their own posts? Or at least have a max number of their own posts they can sticky each day?
I actively encourage mods to sticky their own posts. The bigger question is, why are so many good posts coming from PATRIOTS.WIN, often hours and hours after being posted? We have too many skaters on this board. Time for some of them to consider other avenues for Q content. Again, you have no posts. What is it you do here?
Max number they can POST each day!!!
It's means dig. If something is garbage, shred it and move on.
Mighty big of you. Kudos
Also an attempt to not have ifty posts on the same topic.... Note: fifty memes on a topic is ok but fifty posts saying essentially the same thing crowds out other important events!!! Please join another thread on the topic otherwis we dont have a discussion we have repetition of a phrase....
Oh God don't check /NEW
I remember, before the onset of the bot wars.....when we would have "please check new before you post" stickies.... but who knew how bad the bot onslughts would be.....thank you for fighting the bots!!!!
IMO anything controversial deserves a sticky.
This community has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity for calling out BS and disinfo. I consider that one of its primary functions.
Dammit, with your post history, frog, we're gonna be in trouble