Not at Voat apparently.
The theories are all over the place, like a blind man throwing darts, and upon some reflection I can see why. I have not been very visible lately and Voat has had some down time recently that raised the Voat Uncertainty Index (VUI) past 52 week highs. With the recent Facebook F8 conference and their announced plans to fully control and rate publishers while limiting content visibility in the name of making news more “trustworthy” (via AI based technology), places like Voat are increasingly more sought after. I often forget how much Voat means to you all and how much trust you've put into @Atko and I over the years.
About the recent downtime
I finally have a few minutes to explain what happened. This will not be an exciting tale but here is how this all went down. Since the port we’ve lost a few management tools that have monitored Voat and notified us if it was being bad, so take this into consideration.
Every AM and PM I check the site manually, I’ve done this every day for nearly 4 years (where is my cookie?), but I didn’t do this for an entire week (perhaps a week and a half). I went completely dark, turned off all notifications on my phone and didn’t even touch a computer and it was everything that I thought it could be. I did this because my mother was in town and I haven’t spent much time with her over the last few years. I decided to 100% disconnect from the virtual world in order that I could be fully present with her. She is an incredible person and life is short.
But then… like a perfect storm, the voat webserver ran out of disk space on the primary drive. This is what caused the downtime. It’s almost laughable (because it’s not the first time something this junior (can I say noob) has happened here at the High-Tech Capital of Free Speech).
Thank God superman @Atko was in between fixing catastrophic world events to fly over and fix Voat. He used his x-ray vision and nerves of steel to lift away the huge weight of unneeded log files in order to allow the webserver to breathe again (I'll never be a writer). I’m so glad Europe has a superman too.
TL;DR: Problem happened and @Atko fixed it. Send him praise.
While the decision to go dark was a huge plus for my family life, it was a choice that has caused a lot of distrust, uncertainty, and concern within the Voat community.
About me
I have been fairly burnt out lately (code related) and a bit down about Voat in general (I will perhaps write a post about this later), which is why I am not very visible lately. I've recently started pursuing further education and have dedicated myself to reading more.
I have been lurking though (and watching everyone like Big Brother /s).
I’m sorry about how things appeared, about not communicating earlier, and about the concern it caused. I'll also apologize for being short with a few people that were good to Voat over the years - that isn't the kind of person I want to be.
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
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YouveSeenTheButcher ago
There is an inherent drive in humans to rebel against authority and you are the ultimate authority here on Voat.
Some people have had bad experiences with authortative figures in their lives and the moment their perception of how an authority should act, be, and what an authority should do, get's challenged by reality, all the feelings of betrayl from past experiences bubble up and burst.
It's a great site and I am grateful for what you've created here and what you've done.
I respect the fact that you're not (nor willing to) sacrficing your life and relastionships for Voat. That's not fair to your family and friends nor to yourself.
I'm also grateful and respect that you've honored your mother and her time.
Now would be a great time for those who were short with Putt to apologize to him.
Ask yourself if you're brave enough to reciprocate the humility extended to you.