First off, I need to say that I know I’ve let a lot of you down (if not all). I know I’ve not met your expectations of an admin or a leader. I have no excuses as even I feel this way about myself. I won’t make attempts for empathy, I will only acknowledge the truth, and it is such.
Life is full of surprises. You can be rich one minute and living out of your car the next. You can be healthy one year and a regular in the doctor’s office the following. You can have life figured out only to discover you know nothing in the end. The only constant in life is change.
My life is not the same it was when I first met @Atko and started working on Voat. I have much less time, I have a bit less fight in me (getting old does this), I have a bit more struggle in life. These life changes have forced me to put Voat on the back burner (which hurts me).
Let’s get real
When it comes to “Free Speech” sites, I once believed that people cared enough about the value of free speech to make “clone” sites like Voat (or gab) successful. I’ve come to realize, and have said before, that this single factor isn’t enough. People simply do not value this right enough to make a “clone” successful.
You can see this with Voat. A majority of Voat users still use Reddit. People use Reddit for posting and interacting when it comes to PC topics (4 wheel drive subs, movie subs, book subs, etc.). They use Voat to post the things they can’t post on Reddit. This creates an imbalance where Voat becomes increasingly un-PC, while Reddit gets the neutral content (I know even the most hardened ideologue has a level of civility). The end result is this imbalance drives people away as people wear out when confronted by content like this over the long run.
I don’t know the solution to this, and I am not attempting to pass blame, I am simply stating a truth that has to considered.
What makes a clone not a clone?
Why I mention this in the first place is that I know a “clone” site will not become sustainable based on Freedom of Speech so I’ve tried to revolutionize the “community” aspect of Voat by providing a way the community itself can “vote” on policy (rules, mods, anything actually). It's the future capability of this feature-set that is appealing. A community can become self-sustaining and self-manageable through this new technology. After all, the draw of sites like Voat or Reddit is that it is community-oriented vs. self-oriented.
And I’m going to finish it. I’m going to finish it for me. I’m going to finish it for you. I’m going to finish it for Voat. I’m going to finish it for Freedom of Speech (because I still believe in this ideal).
I’m going to finish it because a “clone” site with no differentiation but policy will never succeed.
So Voat, please forgive me for my shortcomings if you can, and expect my work to continue on making Voat a truly unique website.
Soon.
P.S. Downtime today was because of a full disk (Thanks @derram for letting me know). We had an issue from about a year ago that inflated some files to crazy sizes and I took the time today to deal with this. So the next downtime should be something completely different! Yay!
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
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Imightnotbetrolling ago
I like voat, but it's never going to grow when anyone who strays an inch from the accepted dialogue on the site is called a nigger faggot shill. This isn't a clone website to reddit, it's an alt-right forum.
coolmoe ago
That is the price of freedom my fellow human being. This place requires one to have a thick skin and I realize that's not for everybody. I had the same experience a few times here but I didnt run away and get all butthurt over it. Actually it was quite the opposite that was the moment I realized this place actually was what it was claiming it to be. Because nowhere else could you throw the kinda shit fuckers here throw around and not get banned or censored for doing so. Also I deleted my reddit account the first day I discovered this place (back when kung pow cunt was running reddit).
Imightnotbetrolling ago
I'm not disagreeing with you, I like it here. It's just an objective fact that the culture here is a huge turn off for a large portion of people.
coolmoe ago
Yeah most people and not to rip off Jack Nicholson but they really "can't handle the truth".
This place was made for those that can and hence why it will never be mainstream.
Imightnotbetrolling ago
The thing is, you can tell the truth in a civil and level-headed manner. That's mostly what I've had multiple reddit accounts banned from multiple subs for. People forget that every comment they make here is going to be read and used as evidence against us by our enemies. I'm not trying to concern troll here, but even as someone with the views I have a lot of the stuff in the comments here is really over the top. I've called multiple people shills here who were asking for outright genocide.