Damn Voat, it's not easy being a Goat herder.
After reading and reflecting on the feedback everyone provided concerning the bans (and it was a lot of information to process), I realize I've acted against Voat's principals. Voat is the last Wild Wild West website online. It always has been. If it wasn't for Free Speech and you guys telling me I'm a faggot, I wouldn't have seen this. This is the power of Free Speech in that only with it, can difficult problems be fixed.
Concerning Vote Manipulation Bans:
I'm reversing all recent vote manipulation bans. Voat has changed and thus our process needs changed. I will not be processing further vote manipulation bans until we talk about the process as a community.
Concerning The Downvote Disclosure:
I'm a piece of shit for doing this. I should have never even looked at the votes on that post, but my curiosity got the best of me. Posting about it was equally shitty. I can not provide any justification for my actions other than to admit they were wrong and amateurish and to promise if they ever happen again, I'll permaban myself as punishment. And OP will deliver.
Concerning Builders:
Many think that my endorsement of very specific acts, imply a full endorsement of the user as a whole. This isn't true. My intent was to highlight specific acts that stood out as courageous or constructive, not the user themselves. It didn't help that all three of these users are controversial in their own ways.
On Poetry:
I'll probably still continue posting poetry on Voat. The shit posts are just too funny.
As I look at this mess I've created, I realize that I should just stick to writing software and leave what is working alone. Sometimes lessons in life have to be learned a few times before they sink in and I believe this is one of them.
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Cooking_with_Alf ago
Why is it we even have a score system? It's just something to be gamed or exploited and ultimately ends in censorship.
virge ago
The scoring serves two reasonable functions:
Unfortunately, it also allows users to abuse others in various ways, and for various reasons. There are some good solutions recommended involving transparency in voting, which still solves #1 and #2 above, but also allows the community to "self-police" the subversive material.
Your feedback on this analysis and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
SenseiDesu ago
It's still not a perfect system when people with downvoting power stalks a user's comment history and proceeds to downvote enmasse to prevent them from have any say or power and even try to drive them away. Which is what happened to me... It's funny how hard it is to earn votes, but it's very easy to trigger someone into downvoting you to oblivion just because they been here longer or they whored out much faster for CCP and they don't like where you been going/saying... At the very least, Reddit has an autoblock on downvoting spams/bots. This place really doesn't have any. So unless you are willing to conform to the general narrative of this whole site or certain threads you are trying to get points from, you're not gonna have much freedom to do anything at all.
virge ago
What about voting transparency? It's self correcting because the bad actors can be more readily identified, and serves no practical purpose past 100CCP beyond it's basic anti-spam and post order prioritization mechanics.
SenseiDesu ago
I'm afraid no. I know what you are thinking. But that kind of transparencies are only good in places like Youtube or voting comment systems like Disqus or whatever, where a comment and vote are just that. A comment and a vote. (In fact, there are still a few comment systems out there that shows exactly who voted/downvoted)
But not here. Not in a place that kind of mimics Reddit's Karma system. Because that would just show people who to counter target and go after, claiming they are "shillers". When in all honesty, they are most likely out just for petty revenge. Why else do you think was even Reddit's own system automatically setted to non-transparent? Because that takes away your anonymity, which is honestly "true" freedom on the internet: to remain anonymous.
Strictly speaking and honestly, I can sort of understand the whole philosophy behind that 100 ccp. Even if it is not very "freedom friendly" for newcomers like me. Because after all, freedom isn't free, right?
But the way he (Puttitout) set it up was pretty wrong. In how that once you get 100 ccp, you have GLOBAL influencing power (minus the subs that don't have CCP influence and have to hide away). Honestly, he should've just made it where you get 100 ccp in that certain sub, then you have the power and privileges to downvote/create posts IN THAT SPECIFIC SUB. Not other subs where the narratives, attitudes and mentalities are unique or different.
If he changed that, honestly not much would change in how things goes. Because you would still have to whore yourself out and conform to that certain sub's narratives to curry their favor and earn CCP either way. But again, if your narrative doesn't match a sub's, then you shouldn't be influencing their posts/comments' vote counts and whatnot.
And I'm sure you would argue "you could just make the sub private". But that would just force you to go out to other subs that are public for those CCPs to pretty much do anything to get started, and thus forces you to be at their mercy.
And then I'm sure you're gonna also argue "just make your own sub". But it's not easy to do when again you have to be at the mercy of public subs to get those points. And also not very easy when you are hunted down just because you already a netizen of a sub that is on some voaters' watchlist or wanted: dead or alive list. After all, one does need CCP to even downvote pretty much anywhere, create posts, or create their own subs.
Again, why do we need to go out to various subs that are public, that most likely have "protetctvoat" moral police patroling about, and snivel for some CCP and hope we don't get stopped and patted down? I thought we were supposed to be an open community that just tolerates each other's existence, not some hive mind that forces people to conform to a collectivism mentality.
sakuramboo ago
This would go perfectly with my idea of removing default subverses. To instead, have the front page a list of the most subscribed subverses, but in order to use Voat, you need to subscribe to the subverses you want. It's a behavior more like the chan's where you need to go to the board you want to see, not to have a large group of boards that you need to sift through to find the stuff you want to see.
To find more subverses, each creator would supply some keywords to make searching for what you want easier.
SenseiDesu ago
Honestly, at this point, any of those ideas are good ideas, since at the current state, this site is pretty terrible for newcomers. And honestly that default subverses makes sense, since even the most niche subs end up on the front page, which is what some downvoters claimed that caught their attention and start raiding the sub in the first place.
Honestly, I just hope there will be change in the future for newcomers. Regardless of what some of the ... not-so-pleasant voaters have done to me, I still hope for the best for this site since I did originally found my way and path to better stuff through here and a few of the netizens I met in my favored subs. I just hope Puttitout actually does something rather than thinking things are fine as is.....
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virge ago
I think sub-specific CCP is a great idea.
SenseiDesu ago
That's great. I just hope Puttitout would agree too. Because I really had a shitty time for the few months since I joined here. All because I had to go out and get some comments, get enough to introduce myself and whatnot, only to get shat on because of my already comment history. And then being active on a thread that is on some moralistically power-hungry voater's shit list. And I had the "oh so welcoming" pleasure of watching my fucking CCP go from a 20 to a -1, then to 30 and 60, then back down to 10-20, then up to 120 then back down to 60, then back up to 220, then down to 130 then back up to 260. All in the span of 1 - 2 fucking weeks... All because of some anti-downvoting brigades decide to hit me hard in every comments. Even comments where it was in other subs that kept it clean and on topic to their specific thread and subs, and not bringing my tastes into there... It's been such a craptastic ride that I can't even recommend anybody to this place. I originally planned to move my own subs from reddit to here once they go full blown site wide SJWs retardation. But with this very beginner-unfriendly system, I wouldn't want to put my own subbers through this hell. And after that, as well as this recent event of being banned, despite it was only to counter those downvote brigaders, and also yet those same downvote brigades not getting banned themselves, I was already well on my way out. I was staying behind a bit to wrap things up until this sticky and unbanning happened.... So after I speak with you, I'm already pretty much long gone. This place pretty much burnt me out. I hope with my exodus, this site really improves. At least, improvement so that real legit beginners that can have a fighting chance rather than being auto-clumped into the shillers' concentration group.... After all, we all came here for different reasons. I came for a very specific one, and yet I had to go out and go involve myself in things I don't really believe in. Even though I tried to pick and choose ones that I can try to relate to. Just so I can enjoy the things that I did come for.... Makes me feel like I went to college all over again just for a useless degree that won't necessarily be applied to anything...