In 4chan-ish speak (or whatever)
Be me
Working. Look at clock, damn gotta run
Get up, about to leave, forgot I have to run vote manipulation bans
It's fine, they are ready to run, won't take long
Get first batch setup, double check it, looks good, execute the code
Get second batch setup, double check it, wait, a parameter is off
Think to myself, hmmmm, what was that parameter set to in the first batch?
Go look at the first batch again, parameter is wrong, interesting.
I wonder what that did.
Go look, yeah, banned a bunch of people I shouldn't have.
I'm going to be so late now.
No code to unban people, have to write it real quick.
15 minutes later, ready to go, execute code, great, everyone was unbanned. Feel like superman.
Finish rest of bans
Leave 45 minutes after I should have
Sometime later, check Voat on phone, make sure it's not down (you know, we have a thing with that).
Have 20 triilion unread messages. Oh no. What now.
Voat is going full rage goat about bans.
Try to answer as many messages as possible. It's a warzone. Usually is after every round though, so expected
Check Voat again later, saw ping in a random submission
It said a long time goat was banned. That's weird.
Started thinking how did that goat get banned?
Why would they be farming? They can't be downvoting can they?
Recall that Dan guy got banned on Reddit for up farming. Definitely possible.
Maybe power users are into that kind of thing?
Think to myself, Voat is weird.
Sometime later, still curious, log on computer, bring up ban data
Wait a second, that goat was in batch 1
I'll fix that. Fixed.
Look over it once again, find two more
Fix them.
Check a few users who've messaged. They still got served the ban hammer. Lol a little
Think we are good now.
Still thinking about what the goats said in the warzone thread
One user said we should have an appeal process
Process we use now is old as hell
Coded to kill farms with no mercy
Written for survival during the sanegoat days
That was years ago. Reminisce what is was like for a minute. Damn I'm getting old.
Yeah, maybe we should update this
So, that was how the bans went down from my side. Thought it was entertaining enough to break the ice for what follows:
I can't allow manipulation, in any way. If the votes aren't true, I can't put my name on it. Manipulation of votes was why I left Reddit in the first place. I take it seriously. I also need to define what we look for without giving away our playbook (I have to think about this a bit).
I'll double check vote manipulation bans, that is totally reasonable. I hate banning people for manipulation, so if a ban wasn't right, I'll fix it.
Conclusion:
We are going to have to add an appeal process for vote manipulation.
You guys have better ideas anyways, so how should we do this? What should the process be?
Let's just design it from scratch. And while we are at it… should subverse bans be appealable? Do we need to write new code for this?
Suppose we can just use PMs though.
Let's make it better.
Someone told me Voat loves stickies.
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MrPim ago
And personally my problem is that I was accused of vote manipulation when in my opinion that just is not true. I do not use alts, I do not engage in organized brigades, I do not Voat from a users comment page. My voating is done as a single user in the forums and I don't use alt accts to increase my numbers. If I have a hard on for a particular user and I DV the shit out of them that isn't vote manipulation. If I DV every single thing Aged posts that isn't manipulation, I just hate pedos. I also UV almost everything from @Empress and a lot from TWs, am I manipulating that? If so, what are the thresholds for this activity?
The accusation of Voat manipulation is taken seriously here and people automatically jump to AltFarmer and I am not that. My activity logs are welcome to be published.
Dortex ago
I'd definitely call that something bad. But "Manipulation" implies this is some effort to fix his internet points.
MrPim ago
Why is it bad? I do not want his content here. I am powerless to remove it completely. So I push it incrementally down the page. Why is it ok for me to UV Empress but not ok to DV Aged? Does one give you a warm and fuzzy feeling of inclusion and diversity?
virge ago
The difference is nuanced, but it's an easy line to understand:
Seems pretty simple to me.
Apexbreed ago
My concern here, is that there is no system which can determine if one comes accross a user's posts organically (that I know of or have been told about) so whatever a brigading accusation is based off of is probably based on a count. Now why not institute a DV limit instead of a threshold that get one banned or warned?
MrPim ago
Which is something I do not do. So, again. I was given a warning w no details and almost banned for following the rules as they have been set for a very long time.
virge ago
Ok. I get it. But technology has to be fine-tuned, and Voat is a pretty Beta-ish thing where new features have to be tested in the wild sometimes.
I personally think the approach could have been reviewed better before being executed, but I also recognize that's an opportunity for improvement with involvement from the community feedback and see it as a learning experience - not some big malicious attempt by the admin to harshly cull the ranks for nefarious purposes. Do you still disagree?
shawnfromnh69 ago
It's not as simple as putting a check in a box. It's a programming nuance where the programmer is creating a new code and the code is likely gonna need to be changed and fine tuned a bit. Anyone that used windows back in the 90's knows how bad coding can be and even published. It's not just cut and dried or better cut and pasted it's created and massaged into something like art but just doing it is not a real thing. I cannot code and I realize I don't have that talent, it's tough and complicated and has to work with the other code and function as intended and all without making a hole in site security.
virge ago
Of course not, I was illustrating the end of the work is a mere execution.
MrPim ago
Do I disagree w what exactly?
I did not say nor think the bans were nefarious. I do think I see something taking shape which I won't call nefarious but a well intentioned mistake. A larger agenda that I am going to disagree w. I'm going to remain vague because I don't want to start rumors, but several threads and events here this week have a very specific alarm bell ringing. Maybe I'm wrong...
virge ago
Maybe you should just speak your mind and not spin theories. Otherwise, we were just wasting time talking in the first place if we hit some vague brick wall where you're uncertain or unwilling to continue to explain your reasons.