Conspiracy threads

What Do You Feel Should Be Done With Conspiracy Threads?

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I'm just going to say one thing in general about conspiracy theories.

Large, overreaching conspiracies are always false.

Until they are proven to be true.

Two that pop immediately to mind...

The Government's testing of nuclear materials, including plutonium, on unsuspecting citizens in the 1950s.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, where syphilis suffers, most of them poor and black, were denied treatments that could cure them simply because government doctors wanted to watch the disease progress naturally.

We've talked about conspiracy theories here before, and one thing I cautioned then was don't be so quick to label every outlandish sounding conspiracy theory as being total hokum.

Yes, they probably are, especially when they're "backed up" with "proof" like The Towers were brought down in controlled demolition blasts, not by the airplanes, because the air planes would have caused them to tip over like trees, or it's a conspiracy because no structural steel building has ever collapsed because of fire before.

But we know that our government keeps secrets. And it's always good to ask what might those secrets be hiding.
 
Since it was reopened to the unwashed masses, in general, the overall quality content of the Law and Civil Rights forum has declined.

This decline includes the starting of threads that clearly don't fit the guidelines and parameters of the new L&CR forum (conspiracy, blatantly political, etc). However, the quality has also been diminished, by some persons, who feel the need to post even though they clearly lack sufficient knowledge of the subject and/or the writing skills needed for making lucid, meaningful contributions.

So while the moderators have been doing a good job, especially since the addition of Mike Irwin to the staff, my suggestion would be to delete the offending post and to PM the offender with a stern warning and a strong suggestion that they read and understand the rules. I also think the same should be done with off topic posts and ones which contain an embarrassing lack of command of the english language and/or knowledge of the subject at hand.
 
Playboypenguin
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You are making the fatal mistake of assuming "everyone hates us already, so why care how we come across." The vast majority of people have no opinions regarding gun control what-so-ever. Like the people I have introduced to shooting and then tried to introduce to the forums. They come here with a positive opinions of guns but then leave with a negative opinion of gun owners.
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I never once assumed or believed that "everyone" hates us. That in itself would be a conspiracy theory. Only that those, who are already predisposed to want to ban guns, reading, a little conspiracy thread, is not going to sway them one way or the other.

Here I beg to take exception. I do not believe, in the world in which we live today, that a "vast majority" of Americans have "no" opinion concerning gun rights. If that were the case, the NRA and others just as well fold up their tents and go home. The majority of Americans do have an opinion. And thank God it is for the right to own and bear arms. The day that changes your conspiracy theorists may have a point.

How many of your friends have entered this forum with a positive opinion of gun owners and because of a conspiracy thread they left with a negative opinion? Not one friend, that I introduced to this forum, has left this forum because of a conspiracy theory thread. If they don't wish to read it, they don't. And most of the time, like myself, we don't even find the silly thread to begin with. Please provide specifics. If we have lost members due to these threads, then you have grounds to show cause.

The only clown I am aware of that left the forum in a huff was a clown who posted a conspiracy thread and was shot down by the members. The members themselves are the best policing we have. They will do more to show that we are not kooks. And when these clowns leave, we have lost nothing. We granted them their rights and we exercised our rights.

So as you can see. I am for neither option. I could care less if they are deleted. But I really do not wish them to remain on the site "locked" from retorts from the members. If we cannot respond to demonstrate the foolishness of their premise, then there is no benefit with the post even being displayed. The right of the people to condemn ignorance is a right I support.:D:D:D

Here is an example of what I mean.
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=335136
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This thread has been terminated. So leaving it hanging there does no real service. It may give the impression that we have a few loons. But by not allowing a rebuttal, one is left with only one side. We can limit conspiracy theorist and theories to their own forum. And place up a caution sign, "Check aluminum foil hats, common sense, and your intelligence at the door." And then let the members choose to indulge or not. I think for the most part, there will be hurt feelings. But we will weed out the kooks.

I am beginning to change my mind to deleting them all together as I am beginning to see no real solution.


We can agree to disagree concerning these points. That is what I love about this site and this country.:D
 
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I say leave them for everybody to read. When folks on this forum debunk said discussions, it speaks volumes, letting any lurkers know that we pro gunners do not think in that manner. It will serve to bring attention that we will not tolerate tin foil hat material. Let's show them who we are by policing ourselves.
 
kirpi97 said:
This thread has been terminated. So leaving it hanging there does no real service.
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Actually, most closed threads do serve a purpose. It lets the general membership know what is acceptable and what is not.

Many people don't need to be told. Some need an example ... or two. Some few others simply won't get it and end up being shown the door.

Then there's always the nube. They blast onto the scene with their hyper important news, only to be shot down, because they haven't bothered to look at the thread titles on the first index page, let alone do a search.

Then there are the type of folk who absolutely have to argue about what someone else said, when the topic of the thread is what do you, the general members of TFL, want us mods of L&CR to do with conspiracy threads.

You kirpi97, don't agree with PBP. So? That's off topic, and you've done your best to drag the thread with you.

Ordinarily, I would just delete your post and send you a warning. But since this entire thread is off topic (and an experiment, to boot), I'll just leave it as is. Any questions or responses, should be sent via PM, not this thread.
 
Oy, try to be haimish and the schleppers come out of the woodwork!
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Actually Al the correct term would be kibbitzer instead of shlepper. To shlep is to move slowly :)

You are a heymish mensch though :)

WildtheresidentschtarkerAlaska TM

Sorry to argue with you, but wouldnt want Chuckie Schumer to think we are not only conspiracy loons, but poor yiddish speakers too ;)
 
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Hang 'em high and let 'em swing!

I voted to leave them twisting in the wind. We will always have the ham-handed types that, as Al said, can't wait to get the latest news onto the forum and don't bother to do a search first. Let them learn by having the thread locked, pronto, so their public embarrassment is there for all to see.
Yes, we will have those who don't care and they'll be shown the door, hopefully to never darken it again. I receive gobs of emails concerning the latest "outrage" and have used TFL to debunk some because of the number of people who read and contribute here. The locked threads help me with that chore and if they're cast into the ether, I won't necessarily know what the status is of that particular "outrage."
Leave 'em hanging at the castle gate and run the OP through with a sharp PM from the mods. :eek:
 
Instead of just locking these threads, and leaving them as land mines throughout the section, why not just delete them? They really do detract from the mission of this board to promote healthy and safe firearms ownership and to portray gun owners in a positive light.
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Our members are intelligent enough to realize what constitutes a "conspiracy thread", and to make up their own minds about how seriously to take every thread. They do not require additional deletion, content review, or any additional post-locking limitation on the expression of ideas, as unpopular as they may be. We are free men who can make up our own minds without the purported aid of a deletion-babysitter.

I'm not trying to insult anyone, especially the mods or the owner of this Forum. But I would respectfully assert that we've got plenty of thread-locking already, and additional action is neither necessary nor beneficial.

By the way, the mainstream media and/or those who hate guns are not going to be swayed by the the content of this Forum, rational, irrational, cospiratorial, or otherwise. And many Americans are simply ambivalent about the Second Amendment/guns/hunting/etc. But we should not censor the content of our ideas in a vain effort to satisfy people who really are not worried about what we say here in the first place. And the others are going to want "sensible" and "common-sense" gun control, no matter what we say.

Locking a conspiracy thread (especially with a mod comment about the prohibition against conspiracy threads) is the perfect remedy, and additional censorship in the form of deletion is both unwarranted and harmful to the free exchange of ideas in a dedicated firearms community.

JMHO. And thanks for letting me freely express my opinion on this matter.
 
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I voted in favor of deleting the posts for reasons someone else put quite eloquently:


I really do not wish them to remain on the site "locked" from retorts from the members. If we cannot respond to demonstrate the foolishness of their premise, then there is no benefit
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I voted for deletion. They don't really add any real knowledge that people can use, just alot of finger-pointing and "what ifs."

Of course, the Mayan calendar ends on 2012, and some asteroid is going to hit the earth. If you're not already in league with the Secret Alien Cabal That Runs Everything, you're out of luck, anyhow, so it's all moot. :)
 
I originally was for locking but seeing how the Revolution thread went down the drain - I'm switching to deleting. They just bring out the worst.
 
I'd like to see the endless and duplicative "ALERT-HR (insert number here) to Confiscate all Guns Introduced in House" threads deleted too

One is OK, 15 trillion are boring

WildboringAlaska ™
 
I enjoy reding them, if they are well written

which most aren't. I will admit a small degree of frustration not being able to reply to a closed thread, especially when I have a killer answer that is sure to make all of them see the light. Oh well.

Leave them or delete them, I care not, there are equally valid arguments both ways.

I would like to point out that conspiracies have, and do exist. That cannot, and should not be denied. Where the trouble comes in is those theories which have the "root cause" as something beyond what we consider reasonable or rational. Those are the ones called kooks. And most are. BUT...

As pointed out already, some of the things that have been done, and are being done are conspiracies, even if they are not being done by giant space ants.
 
I abstained from voting, because as was pointed out, it's ambiguous what a "conspiracy thread" is. WA put it well in that worrying that someone's watching is paranoid in and of itself. Mike Irwin goes to the other side but makes an equally strong point - just because it's far-featched doesn't mean it's not true. If you'd have told me two years ago that we'd be throwing around a trillion dollars, fast-tracked to try to hide that 3/4 is baloney, I'd have probably looked at you a little funny. Ultimately, reasonable people will differ (same ol', I know :p). I would certainly like to see the more detrimental (for lack of a better word) threads - revolution, 9/11 "truth", alien coverup and anything suggestive of an honest politician in Chicago - deleted outright. But then again, I may be an inadequate judge of what is detrimental.

So I'm no help. But if we're doing something with them, I guess I would favor deletion over locking, because a prompt locking does not allow the board members - who I would aggregate as reasonable - to "wash" the thread and inject some well-thought counterpoints into it for the record. While merely locking it makes the point that it's not tolerated, it still leaves an otherwise undisputed negative artifact in the archives indefinitely. I didn't vote it though because I'm not convinced that it's necessary to do something unless they otherwise violate the board rules, which they tend to do anyway.
 
I voted to lock but keep them. It might have a few benefits...

  1. These posts help define limits and may allow us to measure our ranking in the world of sanity.
  2. When others who visit TFL see that the mods don't allow posts from left field, they understand that the drive of the forum and the majority of the members are not that radical.
I'm not too passionate about the subject either way because I've already mastered the mind control techniques necessary to thwart the government experiments which employ aliens to read my thoughts. :rolleyes:

Fly
 
Assuming this sub-forum is indexed by google (and I assume that, like the rest of the forums, it is) I'd say we should be mindful about how much junk we let our crazy uncles leave in our front yard.

I'd say the optimal solution would be to leave them until they drop off the front page, both so we can all share a good double-u-tee-eff and to serve as an example to any new members who might need an example of what not to do.

No need to leave them longer, because if said newb isn't going to read the rules sticky he's not going to go much past the front page looking for cautionary notes (and wouldn't get it even if he did). Leaving them longer just raises the odds that TFL will come higher up when somebody punches "black helicopter" into google.

However, that's probably more a pain in the butt than it's worth (keeping track of them, that is) for the mod staff, so I say we just nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
 
I'd say the optimal solution would be to leave them until they drop off the front page, both so we can all share a good double-u-tee-eff and to serve as an example to any new members who might need an example of what not to do.
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I agree with this sentiment and the solution.
 
Put them in their own spot, and if anyone wants to view that type of thing; they can get all they want there. Let's not mix them into laws and rights. They are opinions ...
 
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