I have made a decision to alter and/or remove various restrictions on Voat. I’ve thought a lot about this and it’s something both @Atko and I believe needs to be reevaluated.
Voat has always had a problem with spam. @Amalek would spam posts and hijack the new queue making it unusable. MH101 and then later @SaneGoatiSwear would hijack comment pages making them unusable. The rules Voat uses were put in place in to combat this behavior. They are old rules, mostly remaining unchanged from the initial versions of this site. Most, if not all, of the rules were in direct response to spam attacks. It was never Voat’s intention to limit non-spam accounts, but this is what has happened as an indirect result of these rules.
Voat will not keep in place a system that permanently limits a segment of users from debating and conversing. This isn’t Free Speech as I see it or as I want it.
Voat will shortly be going live with a new code base, and I want to have a new system designed and ready for when this happens, so I am posting this announcement to get feedback from the community.
The main areas of concern:
- Commenting restrictions on negative CCP accounts that aren't spamming their comments
- Limiting any account that spam comments
TL;DR
We need to allow unpopular opinions while preventing comment spam.
How do we do it?
All options are on the table
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
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Rainy-Day-Dream ago
can you give the users more control of the site? like being able to voat out power mods?
Olivered ago
The canary hasn't been updated in 10 months stupid
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
you're mother hasn't been updated in 10 months :^)
ExpertShitposter ago
I want to voat out @system from v/whatever. I need that sub for my CSS experiments.
10246482? ago
Pure democracy is easily subverted by factions. We should trust only the admins with the ability to decide whether or not a mod is acting against the interests of his community.
10247645? ago
This. I support Voat as a site for FREE speech, not hive-minded echo chamber speech from a single specific ideology that currently makes up the majority of the userbase due to Reddit refugees.
teatime ago
This is exactly why I'm against any element of human interaction with this spam blocking. I'd rather deal with a little spam than a whole lot of crazy factions pushing people out.
Tsilent_Tsunami ago
Suppose the positive vote result mandated admin investigation and action on the issue instead of a user generated ban outright.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
then make it a republic and place restrictions on who can vote in the system
10246652? ago
Only land-owners, perhaps? Accounts can be bought or transferred, or, more plausibly, SJWs/ShareBlue/other infiltrators (who certainly exist, look at 4chan and Reddit) could just lay low and then fuck things up.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
it's a good use for SCP finally, and no system is perfect but let putt work on it and see what he comes up with before you concern post so much. Can you say the current system is protected against such subversions? look at what happened to v/niggers and v/chicago when someone infiltrated the top mod spot
HarveyKlinger ago
^^^^^^ THIS GUY ^^^^^^ gets it. So many subs got cucked and there's nothing we can do about it. v/Chicago comes to mind. We already know that transferring subs is almost impossible here so there needs to be a way to un-cuck a sub. Hell, I applied to take over a dead sub months ago. Nothing ever became of it.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
I think as long as we restrict it's use to active participants of the sub in question it'd be a very nice thing to have
HarveyKlinger ago
No good. The faggot that's running v/Chicago banned everybody that was posting there (see https://voat.co/v/Chicago/modlog/banned)) so none of us would have been considered "active participants." That cunt (@Clueless-Joe-Jackson) had multiple accounts so when it was taken away from him, he merely took it over with one of his alt accounts (@noobftw) and even bragged about it. Take a good look at all the mods of that sub. They're all the same faggot (which he again admitted to). In case you're curious, I got banned for posting a Chicago Tribune Article about something that happened that weekend on the south side. There was no commentary.
@puttitout: until v/Chicago gets fixed and a system is put in place so that it can be resolved quickly if it ever happens again, @VOAT will always be slightly cucked by SJW's and trolls.
noobftw ago
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW MY PUSSY HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT TO BE A RACIST PIECE OF SHIT AND PEOPLE WONt LET ME DEFILE EVERYTHING WITH MY DRIVEL.
PuttItOut ago
v/Chicago is my case study. You think we aren't going to solve that?
HarveyKlinger ago
HA! It's been so long since it was cucked I thought you gave up on it. I know most of us certainly did. As long as you know that all of those mods accounts are his alts... When he started posting gay porn on my Chicago v/Cubs sub I banned him. He immediately started posting porn again from each account until I banned each one. Take a look at my ban list. All the same guy.
PuttItOut ago
Soon. (and this time I mean it) Soon soon.
thrus ago
The issue I see with this is how to decide on the vote number? if it is a set number burner accounts become an issue for larger subs, if it is a percentage this could be just as easy to abuse for small subs or nearly worthless to small subs if there is a minimum number of votes required. the big thing I see though is to not allow for voting in of mods only out or there could be some major reasons for people to use burner accounts.
pangaea ago
This sounds like it opens the door to raids. Bad idea.
Citizen ago
I've thought about this a great deal. In my opinion, the best solution would be a declaration that a subverse belongs to its users and not to its mods. On That Other Site, subs belong to the mods to do with as they please. By stating that subs belong to the users, abuse of mod powers becomes a thing that you can explain.
With that said, I'm not sure how to handle a sudden influx of users who have the intent of disrupting a community. For example, let's say /v/powerboats has an active community that loves all things nautical, including sailboats, and not just powerboats. Let's say /v/motorboats mass subscribes to /v/powerboats and tries to oust the existing community. I'd say the community that previously existed should have priority, even if the new community has numerical superiority.
Although I would imagine this would be a lot less of a problem than a single rogue mod saying, "I own you."
captainstrange ago
Let the person who created the subverse decide. Like a big experiment. That way the users on here can adapt to any attempts to rule-lawyer.
10249397? ago
that would not work for /v/feminism, as the original creator of the sub was a squatter and would delete anything posted in the sub before mod logs were implemented, then passed through 4 or 5 hands before it died and i gained control. the latest ~150 subscribers are there from the troll nature the sub now has, with maybe 1 or 2 of the original ~580 subscribers still being active on other parts of the site.
That 1 person still posts like the place has not changed, but the new crowd is decently active. the pro feminism content is either down voted, or ignored in single digits, while the troll content gets 50+ up votes on a regular basis. it is rather amusing to watch the silent community judge content on its merits instead of "rallying around the vagina's".
PuttItOut ago
We have thought a lot about this particular situation. We plan on flipping the world on it's head soon. Stay tuned.
Tor1 ago
Subverses could be controlled automatically by CCP.
A subverse creator gets 100 CCP for creating a new sub. But from then on its fair game. Whoever has the highest CCP in a sub has standing to give themself owner powers.
Those in the top 10 in CCP would have the ability to make themselves moderators. Above a certain threshold you can appoint yourself a janitor.
Certainly there would be potential for abuse. But a completely automated system would at least be objectively fair, and admins wouldn't have to get involved in subverses any more.
The race for highest CCP would also encourage a lot more quality comments and timely support of new threads in popular subverses.
Jixijenga ago
That is an awful idea. My private sub could easily be nuked by a mild brigading, I never intended it to be under anyone's control but myself.
Tor1 ago
This is in the response to the calls for more user control of Voat.
I don't see any reason to change any coding myself.
But this would force subverse owners to participate in their subs.
I don't think Voat needs a special safe space for those who curate content.
Who cares what your intentions are? You earn ownership it isn't granted in perpetuity under this new system.
Not sure what you're worried about. You're the only poster in your sub and must have an impregnable amount of CCP there.
Jixijenga ago
I post here because I don't want to be censored.
You're proposing a method of censorship, I might have well stayed on reddit.
Tor1 ago
I'm adding input to a process that is already in movement.
Personally, I think Voat is fine the way it is.
I've been on Preview Voat and Linux Voat and both of them are already different than current Voat.
Everything you don't like and that is a change isn't necessarily censorship.
The site has been outstanding so far.
Why are you so afraid it's suddenly going to change because a few users are providing feedback for the new and improved lower cost version of the site that's soon to be rolled out.
Jixijenga ago
Why am I concerned? That's precisely what happened with reddit, it was so impossible to see back then but now I am hyper-aware of it. I know I don't fit in over there like I did years and years ago, I nuked my account and went here because the process that began with "oh we just need a way to protect our users from X" turned into a system of suppression and thought control.
Your suggestion would result in the same thing that happened over there, I offended SRS and they managed to silence me. Why wouldn't I be opposed to that happening again?
Tor1 ago
This is your chance to speak up.
Go through the comments in this thread and voice your concerns.
Nothing comes from complacency.
Jixijenga ago
I have been, seems I've upset Crensch.
Tor1 ago
Maybe that's a good thing from your perspective.
Jixijenga ago
I don't really care, I've been sticking to my own little corner for the most part.
Tor1 ago
You called him a right wing nut job.
What does that even mean in a Voat context.
Do you have any suggestions for ways to improve Voat?
Are there any things currently being discussed in this thread that are of grave concern to you?
I wouldn't worry about my ideas that have no or maybe one upvoat. They're not under discussion.
Big things like getting rid of downvoats. Removing all restrictions on users with negative CCP are on the table.
What do you propose that would make Voat even more better than Reddit than it already is?
Jixijenga ago
I did in a roundabout way, I'll stand by my words though.
As for suggestions... Well, a bigger account creation process would help. We're only better than reddit because the staff is so sparse and it's basically the wild west here, beyond that the site is primed for a repeat of history the moment Putt stops caring.
All my other ideas were suggested already by other people.
BezM8_5o ago
This is an excellent thing!
Slayfire122 ago
Soon soon tm
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
thanks I think it's an important thing, a lot of mods have run wild and you usually fix it for us which is great but the userbase should have more independent agency over how the site is run
Dibgick ago
This is as bad an idea as giving control of enterprises to employee unions. Never works.