Every alternative forum can become disinforming and how to counter it

[syrwong]

It occurred to me that every alternative forum can be targeted by TPTB and become a disinformation forum. A quality one generally is started by a well awakened founder and a few good helpers. This attracts quality people to join in and maybe some whistle blowers. It then becomes popular and upsets the controllers who soon want to curb it. The best way is not to assassinate the founder. Rather converting it to a disinformation website is much preferable. That will utilize its popularity against the alternative community to confound and mislead them. I suppose this is relatively easy and routine for the controllers. They could, for example, just send in a bunch of shills who support one another with outrageous lies.

How to counteract this seemingly inevitable transformation? I would invite members to propose a solution. I have the following suggestion.
Imitate the downloader websites like download.com. When I want to find a good software, the two ratings, users’ rating and editors’ rating are very helpful. The threads can be rated in a similar manner. There can be two ratings, members’ rating and moderators’ rating implemented.
It should be noted that the number of replies is not an indication of the worthiness of the thread because controversial threads usually have a large number of replies.
The members’ rating is actually implicit in the number of thanks for the thread. This can be improved a lot if the rating is shown in the thread list. Indeed, if both ratings are shown outwardly.
The moderator's rating should be carefully designed to reflect the collective opinion of the moderators. Of course it can be left blank for unimportant topics.
Such ratings on the threads have many desirable features. Threads moderators consider disruptive or disinformative may receive low ratings. This saves the time for the readers and preserves the integrity of the forum because even a large number of bad threads have little influence. People can also sort the threads by their ratings too.
Moderators’ rating is a very important guide to readers as a good forum like this one has good moderators and threads are rated accurately.
The suggestion is to say that the moderators should assume a more active role in controlling the information. Good websites like Global Research are less disrupted by controllers because the editors choose the articles to publish. The more relaxed principle of moderator rating can be applied to forums.

[Michelle Marie]

Good subject. Nice to bring up topics with viable solutions.

Shills or not, I don't know. However, I've seen posts who try to manipulate other's opinions or perceptions on this forum.

I would not pay much attention to the moderators rating because I like to feel out the information myself. I never paid attention to movie ratings, either. Sovereign evaluations are necessary.

Regarding the shills...Best not to engage. I ignore them pretty much. Attention grabbers are just sometimes energy vampires, or just not yet fully conscious. My hope is that their motive would shift and the unconditional love would sway their actions to be more pure; more aligned with absolute truth. We will all benefit the more that are on board with the truth.

My theme Intention for this year is that minions will become masters. Motives can't be hidden anymore, so they give themselves away anyway. Might as well join the Love Train! :Angel:

Choo! Choo!
Michelle Marie

[Spiral]

Moderators’ rating is a very important guide to readers as a good forum like this one has good moderators and threads are rated accurately.
The suggestion is to say that the moderators should assume a more active role in controlling the information. Good websites like Global Research are less disrupted by controllers because the editors choose the articles to publish. The more relaxed principle of moderator rating can be applied to forums.

This sort of thing is a double edged sword & in no way gets around manipulation, if it's a site like this people will accuse the staff of pursing an agenda, and if it's a commercial site then the complaints will be that click bait nonsense is being pushed ...

It's about as democratic as it gets here, most of us that have been around for a while have seen all the attempts at "democracy", the agora anyone :facepalm:

[Nasu]

Good subject. Nice to bring up topics with viable solutions.

My theme Intention for this year is that minions will become masters. Motives can't be hidden anymore, so they give themselves away anyway. Might as well join the Love Train! :Angel:

Choo! Choo!
Michelle Marie

Thanks for posting, it's an interesting thought. Any system of oversight involving humans can be subverted and thus manipulated if so desired. Any system of stars or ratings would only ever include the stars from those who like to post stars, for those who do not like to get involved even by way of a click of the mouse, their say or thoughts would go unheard. So ergo the stars would reflect the views of the most active posters. I would hazard a broad sweeping guess that the most active users in any online group are either jobless or it is their job to be there. Broad sweeping statement I know, but my point is that the stars could be easily used against us.

Ignore anything shill-like, don't engage, don't give them any power is my recommend. When we get annoyed at a post or something we can become temporary shills ourselves. I've done it myself on numerous occasions. We only see it after we calm down and don't see red or care anymore. Shills abound, real and fake, like me by the happen-chance of emotions. We could develop some scary all knowing Ai perhaps to rate things for us?? Didn't we have that in religion?? The only true way of learning is to go through things ourselves and learn by self direction, a rating system could easily distract from true learning. Good judgement comes only from experience, experience only comes from bad judgement.

No rating system can resolve the human factor which can be corrupted and manipulated, so long as there are secrets to deflect from or to protect IMHO...x... I'm off on the love train myself, sounds like much more fun.... All aboard!!... N

[Ernie Nemeth]

Umm, there are far better ways to be rid of unsavory characters. Some have been employed here. My favorite was the Charles fiasco. Strange, because in the interview with Bill, right from the beginning, he stated he could rid any forum of any unwanted participants. And that is exactly what happened. Whether those that left were unwanted or not is debateable but the method was effective nonetheless.

That is what I always secretly considered the tactic to be from the start, since the man's claim to be in contact with 10,00 year old beings seemed a bit of a stretch.

Stringent rating systems are detrimental to this class of participants and would affect the desired mix of interests, knowledge, and opinions.

Rating the mods is an internal function and handled well by the team. Unless blatant infringements are observed, there is no need to involve the group. I trust the team and Bill to continue their high level of service they have to date offered.

[AutumnW]

The best way to rile things up and undermine the efforts of the forum owner, administrators, is to censor too heavily after a campaign where members are encouraged to 'flush out the shills, trolls.' A Stalinist atmosphere is created and the forum becomes an abusive space whose safe guards become straight jackets.

It is very important to thoroughly vet those who claim to be whistleblowers, though. That's fair. Aside from that though, the esoteric, fringe community, is operating outside of the realm where the quality of information can be checked. It's all pretty fuzzy. So, important to be patient with those who are clearly deluded, rather than agenda driven trolls.

[Justplain]

I like the way Bill inserts his opinion on threads or posts that appear schillish. Without his monitoring there would be a lot, lot more crap in PA. Thank God for this.

[syrwong]

I like the way Bill inserts his opinion on threads or posts that appear schillish. Without his monitoring there would be a lot, lot more crap in PA. Thank God for this.

There are many objections to a rating system in a forum. In reality a thread is rated in many different ways. A group of shills can act in concert to promote an article by bumping and agreeing with each other, or demote it by attacking the article together with the poster.

We all like to see Bill’s favorite/unfavorable comments for a thread. They have a strong influence on our initial perception of the thread. A [possibly hoax] appended to the title is very helpful in saving us from being fooled. These are forms of rating. A rating is just a comment without elaboration, with only a yes or no.

I personally find rating helpful in selecting good things quickly. I can easily find good software programs by sorting with editors’ rating in cnet.com. I almost always avoid seeing a video on Youtube with only half thumb ups. Group opinion is very helpful if you know that it is just majority opinion. Threads of low rating are not deleted or the OP persecuted, it is not a big brother system. I think it is useful if only for efficiency.

[Justplain]

PA already has a rating system, sort of, by the 'thanking' at the bottom of each post. I think this is helpful. An additional rating system might be ok. But what is most useful is if the OP has a clear and concise summary of the topic under discussion. If the mods enforced this requirement, which i think in general they are, this is very helpful too. If this is done, i can live with the way it is.