I came across this submission posted by my great pal Theo (actually I wouldn't trust him around sharp objects, but that's just me) and it was such a clickbate title! I was expecting him roast me for posting poetry to Voat.
I was ready to laugh.
I didn't laugh. It wasn't funny, it was concern fagging about my credibility, mental state, and casting doubt about Voat and who we partnered with. I hate clickbate.
If you filter down the list of demands you get to the important stuff. This is some of it. I've said this before, and will one last time.
Why would anyone invest in Voat?
- They believe Free Speech is important
- They see a lot of potential in Voat
They aren't selling ads, so obviously they are selling us out.
- Voat data has never been shared with anyone, and will remain this way.
How is Voat ever going to make money?
We realized years ago that advertising was a dead end. At best it would possibly cover hosting costs. It is sad in a way, because we could get some advertising, but we can't expect Voat to change. If I said "Hey guys, we can get some advertisement money if we clean up the defaults a bit," how would that end? Basically we can't advertise here because of the content. It's that bad.
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We have a new feature set coming out soon that will allow Voat to generate revenue in fun and different ways. We are going to move in this direction and build out revenue capability on top of it.
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Additionally, while developing some prototype features, we realized that we could use the software for a different purpose, potentially opening up an entirely new market separate from Voat (no Voat wouldn't change). So we are working to this end too.
Who is The Angel?
I'm not saying, because it's unimportant. I have controlling interest in Voat. The Angel is a silent partner and does not get involved with the running of Voat. Maybe they should because it takes a ton of time and they might be better than me. ;)
Short of it is:
If you don't trust me you should leave Voat, it's what I did with Reddit. That's honestly my best advice.
What I didn't do when I left Reddit was make a bunch of destructive posts about how much I didn't trust them. You know, to go along with that builder/destroyer theme we have going.
Another sticky? Who is this power mod!?
view the rest of the comments →
virge ago
User X either abused a new user or targetted someone because they said something you disagreed with one time and then immediately went to their profile page and went to every other topic unrelated to the conversation they disagreed with and downvoated those, too - with complete disregard to the concent. The user was then banned.
User X is not trying to be constructive and agree to the rules that make up your access to participate. Probably means you don't belong here if you're unwilling to follow very simple and basic no-nonsense rules for brigading that are destructive to the community.
P.S User X may have an diagnosed mental disorder if they believe this type of behavior is acceptible.
Hand_of_Node ago
Are you saying there's a rule against going from a user page to a comment, then voting on it?
Thereunto ago
I wonder if a simpler solution is just to remove the ability to vote from a user's comment history.
virge ago
I don't think you can. You probably have to open each one up in a new tab. Even that isn't a lot of effort.
I think there is a better resolution to the voting issues. Still developing it.
Sburban_Shitposter ago
who cares about internet points. Go through my history, fuck up my karma, who cares. I don’t want anyone getting banned for anything other than illegal content.
virge ago
So there are people who abuse the voting system. Let me borrow from another thread: https://voat.co/v/Voat/3242551/18835950/10#18835950
This is a thing. There are people that do this. The immediate response to your absolute line in the sand of "ban for illegal or no ban" is, so what would YOU do about these people - if they are shrinking the community by running off new users or making it so comments in areas where they normally wouldn't be downvoated into oblivion for any post just because they're being sniped by someone with a vendetta and free time on their hands? Lets find some common ground to this problem.
Sburban_Shitposter ago
if somebody is constantly clicking on the same profile and downvoting one person continuously, then just give the person a cooldown on voting for a while and then repeat it but longer if they keep abusing it. I don’t want anybody banned off of voat for just clicking arrows in an incorrect way.
virge ago
Ok. Great. I agree. I think there should be zero automated bans - I think a warning, then if no appeal to the warning for investigation the second time a list that is manually reviewed so anything that stands out as "beyond baud" can be investigated before pushing the button. For all I know, and if I were to guess, this or similar may already be in practice.
With that said, I strongly advocate for some changes. One of those changes would be that this ban has an appeal process - it could be something as simple as you being able to reply to the ban message to begin an appeal. This would further increase accuracy, but would need to be balanced with communication and transparency.
Transparency seems to be one of the operative issues here, from both sides. I have some ideas about that.
Thisismyvoatusername ago
Regarding your post script, I don't think a mental disorder would necessarily need to be diagnosed for purposes of the if/then. Probably you just meant diagnosable (which could be as yet undiagnosed by a mental health professional)?
virge ago
Hilariously way to point out I typo'd "undiagnosed".
Thisismyvoatusername ago
I knew it, but then my own mind started to come up with goofy theories that a diagnosis may actually cause an illness. Sort of like the theories in physics that an observer may change an outcome merely be obssrving a phenomenon.
Thereunto ago
That's a philosophy thing.
Thisismyvoatusername ago
No. It is a quantum mechanics thing. Look up the double slit experiment.
Thereunto ago
Rereading what you wrote, I think I might have mistook what you meant by "observing." The effect of a system changing due to the act of taking a measurement is science, but a system change due to the presence of absence of consciousness required to make the observation is philosophy (e.g. "tree falls in the woods..." or What-the-bleep).
Definitely - Resonance with an identity archetype (e.g. hypochondriac, placebo effect).
Gorillion ago
This could be it's own thread. Like, I don't believe that every "autist" is actually autistic (it's really just replacement slur for Nerd or Geek now that those labels have been appropriated by sniveling hipster try-hards who can't generate their own cultural material) but it acts as a kind of weirdly positive community-building kernel of identity.
Other times it just creates a Social Gravy Train. Same way normies, minorities and girls are trying to muscle in on the "Austism" thing now that it's become a point of cultural fascination (due to nerds and geeks adopting it as a source of pride and humorously threading it through nerd/geek controlled internet culture), with every second TV show now seemingly having a "magical autist" character in the mix who is either a quota hire or some compliant white nerd who's only there to support the quota hire hero. Or the PTSD thing where words are a level of psyche-cracking violence equal to WW1 shellshock. Where their actual hysterical personality disorder starts manifesting faux-PTSD symptoms anyway or their Borderline Personality Disorder goes into hysteria mode because nobody wants to play along with their newest poor-victim-me larp.