Just wanted to give advanced notice that we will hopefully be pushing one of Voat’s largest updates yet this weekend.
This update will feature a new underlying system for organizing subverses which we are calling Sets (grouping of subverses). If you are an old time whoaverser/OG Voater you will remember that Voat used to have Sets but we had to turn them off for performance reasons.
This update will reintroduce Sets, but as opposed to being an add-on feature as previously implemented, this update involves completely replacing the underlying system of Voat with a Set based infrastructure.
I will provide more information on the specifics of these changes later; how they benefit Voat currently and how they fit into our future plans.
The release of this update depends on the progress of testing but we are really pushing hard for a release this Saturday or Sunday.
Also, I need a few dedicated users who would like to spend some time testing this new code. If you have an interest, please PM me. I will only send out info to a handful of people, so first come first serve.
Thanks Voat!
P.S. I know there are some situations that need admin attention. I will deal with these when this update is released.
Canary
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
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Dildo-Shwaggins ago
Can someone explain why the Canary notice gets updated all the time? Do terrorists have private subs or are those requests only for CP or what?
Donbuster ago
It's required for a canary to work properly. The warrant canary is based off some legal shenanigans resulting from the following concepts.
A court of law can compel you to do several things:
A court can compel you to speak, provided that complying with such an order to speak would not be incriminating to yourself, a spouse, or a violation of attorney client privilege, or a few other exceptions. This is enforced by holding those who do not speak and do not meet one of the exceptions in contempt of court until they comply.
A court can compel you to tell the truth; This is enforced though a court being able to charge those who have lied under oath with the crime of perjury.
Finally, a court can compel you not to speak, through a gag order. This is ALSO enforced through contempt of court, though often other crimes can be applied as well.
The one thing a court cannot compel you to do is lie. Certainly you may lie if you choose to, provided you are not under oath, but you can never be compelled to lie when directly asked about something.
As such, an artifact of the legal system is that, when directly asked about information you are compelled not to reveal via gag order, you have two legal options. You can lie, which, while legal, is not required of you. Or you can remain silent in response to the question, as you would not then be revealing information that is under gag order. If the person making the query interprets your silence as a confirmation, then that's their problem.
We utilize this with a canary. Just saying that "I haven't been issued a gag order" a single time is not all that useful, as, (provided you trust the entity issuing the notice to be honest with you) that only discusses the past, and by the time you read the notice, they could well have been served by such a gag order. If instead they say every 30 days that they have not been served a gag order, and suddenly 31 days pass without a new notice that no order has been issued, you can assume (with no guarantee that this assumption is correct) that, since the last notice was issued, a gag order was placed on the site.
The admins' last edit time on the canary post indicates their most recent reassertion of the notice. Of course, while atko and putt can't be compelled to lie, a court could seize control of the account used to make the post, and update the edit time themselves, which would make the canary still appear valid to the users. Better than nothing, though.