Hey everyone!
I'm so excited to be the new top mod of this community. I've been a part of this community since the beginning, and I've seen how much it's grown and evolved. I'm grateful to the previous top mod for creating this space, and I'm honored to be taking over.
On Twitter, I'm @CantStopPoppin, and on Reddit, I'm u/CantStopPoppin. I've been active on both platforms for over 5 years, and I've always been a strong advocate for diversity, inclusion, and quality content.
I'm planning to make a few slight changes to the community, but I want to get your input first. I want this to be a place where everyone feels welcome, regardless of their background or beliefs. That means that hate speech, racism, anti-LGBTQ+, and trolling will not be tolerated.
I believe that our differences make us stronger together. We can learn from each other and create something truly special. I'm committed to listening to the community and working together to make this happen.
I'll be leaving this post unlocked for 72 hours so that you can share your thoughts and suggestions. I'll also be going through the comments to answer any questions you may have.
Here are a few specific things I'm thinking about changing:
- I'd like to make the community more welcoming to people from all walks of life. This means being more inclusive of people from different cultures, religions, and LGBTQ communities.
- I'd like to make the community more focused on quality content. This means promoting posts that are well-written, informative, and thought-provoking.
- I'd like to make the community more active. This means encouraging people to participate in discussions and share their thoughts and ideas.
I'm open to other suggestions, so please let me know what you think. I'm excited to work with you to make this community even better!
A few things to note:
- YouTube and Twitter will not be allowed in the community. Only legitimate news sources will be accepted.
- There may be a "Pundit Tuesday" in the future, but not at this time.
- Fox News local stations will be allowed, but their syndicated stations and talking heads will not be accepted due to their many dishonest reports and lawsuits.
I'm excited to hear your thoughts!
Thank you again for helping to create, nurture, and seed this community. I'm looking forward to working with you to make it even better!
This post will stay unlocked for 72 hours for an AMA. I will try to answer as many questions as I can, but it may take some time.
I hope to see you all in the comments!
This is a difficult question. I try to focus on the article itself rather than the news site.
The first thing I look for is if they're rambling. That's probably not the best criterion but it's so obvious. If an article doesn't get to the point in the first few sentences it probably doesn't have a point.
The second thing I look for is verification. I already know some stuff about the world. If know the article made some mistakes I'll assume they're making other mistakes. If they are correct about less well known facts I mentally bump up their reliability a bit.
If they make a statement about a fact I expect them to source it. If their source is some equivalent of "trust me bro" I'm getting out my salt shovel.
Beyond that I'll look at the track record of the author and the publication. Do they consistently pass or fall short of the reliable news threshold? If so, I adjust my expectations.
The individual articles or statements come first though. I may have very little confidence in Fox and Friends or in Donald Trump but if they get on TV and make independently verifiable statements that check out then it's true.
In terms of a simple rule that could be practically implemented. Maybe something like, the article must have independently verifiable sources for its claims. One corollary would be, if article A cites article B as a source, don't post A, just post B directly.
No question is difficult I am willing to listen this is everyone's community I am just steering the ship so to speak and I need everyone here to help me steer it away from any waterfalls!
Social media sites (Facebook, blogs, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc.)
Websites and blogs with news that is based on opinion (Medium, Natural News) Disinformation news outlets with no links to other sources (Empire News)
Sites designed to look like reputable sources (CNSNews.com)
News Punch, godlikeproductions, Infowars and fringe conspiracy theory websites
Clickbait sources that are often found on the edges of websites with compelling headlines and titles to provoke someone to click
I am sure there are more but also know this it will a case-by-case basis and the posts will be reviewed to ensure that they adhere to the guidelines of credibility.
I hope this helps
If I'm being honest with myself I do steer towards and away from certain news outlets based on my perception of their overall trustworthiness. In my ideal world I'd judge articles on their individual merits.
For example. When I was a kid, the Wall Street Journal was top tier in reliability. Nothing changed immediately after Rupert Murdoch bought them but over time I noticed some changes. In particular I started seeing editorials less clearly marked as such and mixed in with regular articles. That struck me as shady editorial decisions. I've read enough shoddy WSJ articles since then that I don't really trust them anymore. That said, they still put out individual articles that are accurate and well sourced.
For practical administration reasons I suspect you'll have to take the broad approach of just banning some sources that are egregious repeat offenders. Ideally I'd like to see a set of criteria that define what gets sources on that ban list and what can get them removed. If we can identify reliable fact checking organizations perhaps we could use them as a metric (ie any publication that has more than X fact corrections in an N month period is auto-banned).
I hate clickbait but I don't know how to define it. How do we differentiate them from well written, attention grabbing headlines?
I'd love to see more attention paid to self policing. Eg Ira Glass did the most epic retraction I've ever seen. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/460/retraction When they figured out that their story was wrong they didn't just say, "Oops sorry." They invited the source back on, and spent a whole hour analyzing where they went wrong. My respect for NPR shot way up that day. It would be great to see a score of how good media outlets are at admitting their mistakes. That would greatly increase my trust in them.
edit: typo