Q: What did Voat say to the bad goat? A: Wanna see my hammer? No? Too bad. Here it is. (Voat)

submitted ago by PuttItOut

Today we banned vote manipulators and reset their votes. As cache expires, the accounts targeted will have their point totals adjusted appropriately.

You will likely recognize many of the names now on the ban list. Some I have mixed feelings about as I considered them fun to have around or an asset to Voat as a whole, but objectively, there was no question as to their abuse and manipulation, and for this reason we had no choice but to respond to all abuse with the ban hammer.

@Cynabuns and I have finalized a new system for more efficient processing of vote manipulation bans and going forward we will be reviewing manipulation more regularly. We don't plan on allowing the hammer to gather dust any longer.

We did not send warnings today like we usually do for those in the gray area. If we come across your name again, you will be banned. Fair warning. It's not worth it.

If you feel you have been targeted by vote manipulation please PM me so I can research as we are dealing with a mountain of data when reviewing bans.

To those banned:

I personally don't judge your actions, but you know as well as I do what you were doing. Vote manipulation can not continue going unchecked and for the sake of integrity you got the hammer. If you want to create a new account and forgo the manipulation, you are welcome back. If not, I'll ban you again (and again and again). The thing you don't realize is when I ban you, I am resetting your votes against your target(s), so there is no point in continuing with these ways.

P.S. Now vote manipulators get a shiny new badge so everyone knows that they've been bad little goats. :)

P.P.S. The ban reasons in the ban log are wonky because if a user had multiple infractions, we only used the first description. In addition, the target in the description may be the banned user (which doesn't make sense) as many of these bans resulted in both users (vote farmers) being banned and the code simply reused the same description for each ban.

Banned user log:

https://voat.co/log/banned/user

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Dismember ago

Well looking at the accounts on the ban list, SBBH has a bloody nose as well. Look at this for example: https://voat.co/v/AskVoat/2926813/15735062

Let's see if Voat is serious about it or being selective.

MadWorld ago

Dump from that submission: https://voat.co/v/AskVoat/2926813/15735062/

Upvote farm done to an old/aged submission. There should be something set in place to detect old submissions been commented and upvoted. @PuttItOut, please check these accounts.

Dismember ago

https://voat.co/v/Voat/3065088/17060636 <----check the reply to me here. Not sure how to tell if they were deleted after someone read my comment or a while ago. I found that thread by checking the ___shitposter accounts and who they were upvoting.

MadWorld ago

You should have used a slash at the end, such as https://voat.co/v/Voat/3065088/17060636/. Otherwise it will generate a crosspost comment, which will notify the user. It was probably why some comments may have been deleted. The list given above was dumped from your link. It mostly shows numeric names that were created around the same time, and used to make dumb comments for vote farming.

Edit: great catch btw!!!

Dismember ago

I didn't know about the bot but I linked only to that user who was already on the banlist, so they likely can't login anyway. That method of vote farming was used by Techius back in the day. @kevdude and @Cynabuns will remember that one.

I have other examples of this type of thing if I dig back through my archive snaps but I'm hoping the users will read this and delete their alt accounts.

MadWorld ago

I didn't know about the bot but I linked only to that user who was already on the banlist, so they likely can't login anyway.

Either way the user who was behind the farming would have known that he was exposed.

That method of vote farming was used by Techius back in the day.

I remember that he once tried to sell his accounts, not sure whatever happened after that.

I have other examples of this type of thing if I dig back through my archive snaps but I'm hoping the users will read this and delete their alt accounts.

If you have the list, we could try to see if there is any voting regularity in their comment histories. If the consistency is strong enough, then we could ask Putt or Cyna to look deeper into the situation.

Dismember ago

I remember that he once tried to sell his accounts, not sure whatever happened after that.

He actually posted the password to a lot of the accounts so his fellow SDBH posters could help him troll PV. I happened to be reading a different thread on that sub and refreshed and saw it and got a lot of them before he deleted that thread. I ended up deleting them all bar one. They were mostly Techius4, Techius5 and so on.

If you have the list, we could try to see if there is any voting regularity in their comment histories.

Oh, I know they have alts and used them in a few of the raids on subs here. I know for sure they are still using some of those accounts today and still post comments on threads their main and others alts post to create a consensus. Usually this is harmless dick-waving but it was used at least twice here to try to get rid of people they didn't like. I'm sure the admins here already know and are hoping the same as I am.

MadWorld ago

List of the obvious troll accounts:

Techius2: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius3: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius4: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius5: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius6: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius8: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius9: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius10: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius11: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius12: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius14: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius15: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius16: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius17: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius18: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius19: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius20: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius21: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius22: Member for 3.1 years.
Techius30: Member for 2.7 years.
Techius31: Member for 2.7 years.

Dismember ago

I personally deleted about 10 numbered @techius accounts. The rest I'm not sure who got or if he kept some. Most of them couldn't downvote at all and the whole upvote farm v/techiusalts was made to troll PV. Looking at his account there it hasn't moved from when he got found out and downvoted to oblivion so I don't think he's a threat anymore, at least on that main.

MadWorld ago

:-) I hope you continue to keep an eye on those accounts and see if they start manipulating votes again... Thanks!!