A

SJW, USA

0 for 2.

Hopefully mods can be given the ability to edit titles soon to avoid situations like this.

Simply put: Any little bit of unmoderated power that a person is granted eventually allows them to become an unreasonable, illogical, power tripping ass hole.

by giving power to those who we can be sure won't abuse it.

I don't want the power, I want to ensure that those who would abuse it DO NOT have the power.

So mod logs.

A good start, but not nearly enough. See my other post I just replied to you with for measures I'd institute.

I don't think there is a group trying to take over the internet.

I don't think they're out to take over the entire internet, but I do think they're out to stamp out Voat. And would move on to whatever replaced voat, and whatever replaced that and so on and so on.

I don't see how "SJWs...taking over the site" can't be fixed but FSWs taking it over can.

Because the two groups are not analogous, no matter how you might think that they are. The "FSW" goal isn't stopping people from saying and thinking what they want, it's stopping people from getting into positions where they can and will stop people from speaking. No one is calling for all SJWs to be purged from voat. But many of us ARE concerned when they make a grab for power.

DDOSing and non particapatory sabotage isn't really relevant to a discussion about moderation.

It's relevant because it is evidence that there are those who want to dismantle the site and force us to move over and over again until we give up.

Downvotes are not going to keep someone from taking over the main mod position of a subverse. People's disagreement won't do anything to stop them from infiltrating and ruining subverses with moderator power..

You said:

There isn't some group of "SJWs" out there with a map of the internet, discussing what is their territory and what they're going to take over next

and then backpedaled when I pointed out the coordinated efforts that SRS is undertaking, the sabotage that has already been attempted against Voat. So long as that is the demographic that is trying to destroy this site, that is going to be my primary concern. If the site ends up becoming an echo chamber, that can be fixed. SJWs destroying the site, or taking it over like reddit cannot be fixed.

How do you know? Until minutes ago you denied up and down that they were doing anything at all.

I'll grant you that it's not a very smart way to approach it, but they could be so accustomed to not having to be stealthy about it that this never occurred to them.

SRS has been trying to tear this site down since the fattening exodus. They have chased us from host to host, they have planted child porn to incriminate the site, they are very likely behind the DDOS, leaks have revealed that they are targeting subreddit after subreddit in coordinated fashion, which may not be evidence they are targeting voat, but it IS evidence they are operating in a coordinated purposeful fashion. I have no doubt that we remain in their sights.

It just makes me sad that some parts of Voat can't see to see hypocrisy when it crawls in their lap and sings happy birthday to them.

And it makes ME sad that there are people like you who can't think of any better solution than to dismiss any possibility at all that there is a coordinated effort to undermine sites like this. At best you're being hopelessly naive.

Our positions and outlooks on the situation voat is in are so radically different, that I despair of any chance that you and I will reach common ground. Shall we just walk away from this, me with my pitchfork and torch in hand, you with your fingers in your ears? Or do you have any ideas how we can actually prevent outsiders from taking over subverses without having to raise a ruckus?

What about having a community veto power? If a mod makes some change, the community can nominate it for reversion, and based on up/down votes it happens. In addition, a community could nominate a moderator for removal if they consistently were acting like this. To prevent or minimize brigading, tie it into the subverse contribution points. I.e, you had to have been a relatively active member of that community in order to participate in a community veto.

1. Would that be feasible?
2. Would that be effective?

I already switched to /v/askgoat, no regrets

Just testing something. @BloodPool

I wouldn't classify myself and either an SJW or a FSW, though I both support social justice and, like you, staunchly oppose authoritarianism

Then why call it "Social" justice? Why not just support Justice? What good do you do by cozying up to a loaded term? It's like people who support equality for all, but stay attached to the term "feminsim" rather than adopting the more sensible egalitarianism. I just don't get it.

You can't take a passive defense against authoritarianism. And you yourself seem to admit the generous overlap between the "SJW" community and authoritarianism of a stripe. So why do you advocate for letting our guard down? All that will do is make it easier for them.

I'm not saying that I ought to be trusted with moderator power in a popular subverse anymore than an ardent SJW should. In a popular default, the goal ought to be neutral, impartial mods. Not pretending it's okay for EITHER a FSW or SJW to steer the ship. or any other stringent ideology. And if someone of such a stripe DOES get into a position like that, the burden is on THEM to demonstrate impartiality. To recuse themselves and leave issues that might be seen as conflicts of interest to another mod. To avoid being petty and robotic in their moderation actions. I want ANYONE whose impartiality is in question to be rigorously scrutinized.

I realize that but I'd prioritize the API over making some bot functionality. Let the community do those things.

"calm their tits" ... Ahhhhhhhh I'm triggered. And it feelz good

Where are the public moderation logs? How do you view them?

Good man. I'm glad to see this kind of thing happen here.

But I believe this problem can, and will, be solved.

The way things are going it's going to be made worse.

While I fully agree, why are any subs defaults? Surely they should rise to the top or fall to the bottom by their own virtue rather than because of admin support, or lack thereof.

No, I'm "admitting" nothing. I am however proud to stand my ground against authoritarians, and protect free speech.

They're free to say and think anything they like. At no point have I called for any of them to be gagged and prevented from voicing their opinions. At no point have I said anyone is not entitled to their ideology. HOWEVER, if their ideology is one that's going to fight to restrict others, one that's working to take over and destroy everything that they disagree with, then I am going to ardently oppose their takeover of whatever spaces I utilize.

You can believe it's equivalent all you like. But you're doing a shitty job of convincing me it's the same. They want to cut my tongue out, I just don't want them in mod positions.

I like it. Sign me up. Call me that all you like.

And thus /v/AskGoats was born!

https://www.voat.co/v/AskVoat/comments/392764/1671046

"Is owner the right word?

This reminds me of the fights between groups of beachgoers. Everybody fighting over who makes the rules at an ocean that nobody owns.

Except two guys built this ocean.

I'm not trying to be a dick. They need volunteers to grow and exist. But they built it."

I get butterflies when strangers are dope.

and my post gets removed because I broke a rule by forgetting to include a question mark in my submission title... well, I would be pissed.

If you didn't have the courtesy to at the very least read the sidebar before posting then you got what you deserved. (That particular rules was listed on the sidebar.)

If you, or anyone, doesn't like the way a sub is being moderated you could start a discussion with the mods and users, but instead you use the same sort of tyrannical actions that the reddit admins - and the moderators you're complaining about - use.

(Go ahead and downvoat this, I typed it knowing many of you probably will.)

Fantastic, now if we could have Victoria start up the AMA option, wow!!!

Thanks Atko, you're cool.

@atko I have to disagree with your decision. I think you just lowered the quality of posts in a subvers. You pretty much told all mods "let shit happen and remove spam and illegal content" and didn't really consider the quality of the posts that should enter into a site.

Is voat going to go down the road of 4chan?

@atko have my babies

@atko, can you make /v/calmyourtits a default thread in memory of everything. A subverse to defrost in: aka the unwind subverse. It would be similar to askvoat, self, and showerthoughts, but a great place for posts like these and other similar discussions.

AH - the "good" type of censorship.

The only suppression of dissenting views was that of the Voat community attacking @she

Sophistry is pretending that "the slippery slope is just a fallacy, gaiz" does anything but deny the reality of gradualism. You may be right about this poster, but you're wrong in general.

Ahh. I see. It's got a point...

I can't stand by and watch stuff like this happen around here.

That linked to the /r/technology drama on reddit. Regardless of people's opinions on the question-mark rule, that is a very very different scenario. The question mark rule was clearly stated in the sidebar and was being applied fairly and evenly. If we don't want moderators to have minor technical rules that's one thing, but I think we need to be clear that that's all that happened. That's a huge difference from moderators having secret unpublished rules censoring specific content as was the case on /r/technology. In addition, I got the feeling that most of the response from the community had more to do with the mod's political views than with their moderation. Again, if we don't want those kinds of rules that's fine, but the community should focus on that not the fact that they don't agree with the mod's opinion on certain unrelated issues. Voat is supposed to be a free community so people shouldn't be going on these types of witch-hunts with anybody who dares to have a different opinion from themselves. Too many people on Voat seem determined to turn this site into a circlejerk where only approved opinions are allowed

They are screaming for you and @she to no longer moderate such a large forum, because the community has no confidence in your ability to do so. You forget that it was mods like you - good intentions, but poor execution, worse judgment, and SJW leanings - that brought reddit down. The community is reacting to protect itself from such events happening again. If the community is what either you or she care about, then you will step down immediately and let the community take its desired course with the sub. However both of you seem intent on keeping your positions of power, playing the "victims" and hoping this whole thing blows over. It won't You can cling to power in your sub, or you can let it go and allow someone else to take it places that you no longer can. You can't because the community has no faith in either of you, and if you wish to stay a part of the community it looks like you'll have to accept that or be ostracized.

you da man, atko

i love you @Atko

Thank you. Nothing I hated more on Reddit than having/seeing posts removed because they didn't follow some trivial rule.

after reading your post history seems like people kept telling you but you just kept saying "i don't understand so no" so I guess unless a fellow mod tells you something what the community tells you, you'll just ignore.

Thank you, Atko! I'm glad you took action here. :)

You didn't listen to people who calmly and succinctly told you what you did wrong, and you kept supporting the behaviour which was deemed inappropriate by the community. Don't cry abuse when you threw the first stone; true a lot took it far too far ( their reactions are arguably understandable). But you threw the first stone and failed to realize it, then you doubled down and threw another stone, and another, and you let the person throwing acid put it into a fucking hose and spray it everywhere.

You have no place being a moderator of a community if you cannot handle it in a manner which doesn't add fuel to the fucking fire. Its simple PR.

If a community vastly disapproves on the way a rule is being enforced, you must not keep enforcing it in the same way. You panicked, and it is good that you admitted it; but being a mod in a forum as large as that one on a site as small and young as Voat, means you have to pay attention to the tides of opinion, and you cannot panic in a manner which locks you into a course of action. You cannot ignore it and double down on your mistakes. Its like lighting a fire, then because a bee caught on fire, you decided to add gasoline to the hive and set it alight as well; in the interests of seeming impartial.

You got locked into a course which was wrong, admit it to the community and ask them for help and you'll probably find a lot of these issues will be resolved quickly and without much more drama. While this is happening you need to catalog (fairly) a record of this incident and make it publicly available for scrutiny.

Mistakes were made, don't repeat them.

Ive never seen a mod that was competent and not a shit head

This is delightful.

I don't really think the answer here is heavy-handed admins instead of heavy-handed mods. If a sub has a rule and a post breaks that rule, it should be removed. If every sub allowed everything except illegal content eventually every sub would turn into mindless drivel like /r/me_irl or /r/funny. It is rules and strong enforcement of these rules that makes great subs. Just look at /r/asoiaf: back when the sub had strict rules about content being restricted to analysis posts and book-related content it thrived. Content was interesting and there was a lot of in-depth discussion. Now that the moderators have become lax on enforcing the rules, new, low-effort content has wormed its way into the sub and taken over the first three pages. While there are still very interesting analyses and discussions in /r/asoif, it's just not what it once was. At the end of the day, it's easier for the user to upvote content with a low entrance-barrier than it is to upvote a 4 page long treatise on the Dornish plot even if the treatise is more interesting.

I think the anger directed at @She was entirely undeserved. @She did the job of a moderator, removing posts that break the rules. I have yet to see any evidence that @She removed posts that did not break any of /v/askVoat's rules.

I would like to remind everyone that it was not heavy-handed moderators that led to of reddit, it was heavy-handed admins.

What's FSW?

Hotline + Usenet or bust!

Thanks ATKO! Now, if we could just get a hide button to hide posts we already seen or visited... (whistles)

Atko for President

Slippery slope is the name of an informal logical fallacy that's actually just a misuse of an argument about gradualism. "If we allow gays to marry, tomorrow people will marry their dogs, and the entire fabric of society will break down" is a fallacious argument because it's missing steps. "Censoring speech today makes it easier to censor speech in the future" is not.

Hey, I'm not that old and I still love and use IRC too!

"Expect us"? Go back to reddit, neckbeard.

"Moderators need to calm their tits" - This is the most awesome line I've ever seen. Thank you Voat, my decision to come here has been justified and I know I've made the right decision. Keep up the great work !

Mate, I was one of the guys spelling all this out in plain and diplomatic English, it seemed like you just blanked me, and I wasn't the only one by a long shot, well before @Stoic had to point it out to you. And I realise things have gotten heated, in some cases downright derogatory and out of hand, but from what I've seen, a few morons aside, the majority have expressed their concerns and frustrations in a fairly adult manner.

And now they are all screaming for me to leave.

I don't think many people are interested in seeing you leave, I certainly wouldn't want either you or @she to feel like you have to leave completely, but I do think you are both well out of your depth in terms of moderating a top-flight sub such as /v/AskVoat.

Also appreciate you being as candid as you have been with this post, I do sympathise, I do appreciate the effort you have put in, and I'm not oblivious to the pressure you have been under, and know that although I'm just one guy in a crowd, I personally didn't want to inflict any bad feeling whatsoever on either you or @she, but I did see a situation which, on your watch, had become completely out of hand, and that's why I continue to advocate the removal of both of your moderator stripes.

How about you resign from being a moderator and go back to "having your say"? It seems like that's a better choice than the alternative: crying about the fact that you're a huge faggot and no one wants faggots like you running this website. You fucking knew what kind of problems the community here has with reddit's moderation and you took it upon yourself to moderate in that style anyway.

So you can go ahead and cry about the downvoats, you can say voat is ruined, you can say you're scared (if it's scary, go back to Le safe space you pussy) but the bottom line is that you and @she are huge faggots and we don't want faggots like you trying to ruin this website the way you ruined reddit. If you can't handle that, cry more and gtfo you little bitch

Autism caught your tongue?

We need to establish a principle here on voat, in extension of our free speech stance. We must not refrain from silencing those who wish to silence the rest of us. Censorship is evil, and we must pull it out by the root. @she should be demodded. I understand that this suggestion may seem hypocritical at a glance, but it isn't. If somebody is trying to kill you, you only have two options: kill or be killed. Society accepts that to kill in self defense is justified. I think the same principle applies to censorship. You can say and do whatever you want, unless you start trying to inhibit other peoples' voices and abilities. It's simple. Don't censor anything except advocacy for censorship. We have to establish anti-censorship as a CORE VALUE among the community. Free speech isn't enough, in and of itself. It should be, but deluded SJWs don't see it that way. We should not allow their voice here. Just cause you aren't a murderer, does that mean you would let a murderer plunge a dagger into the hearts of your wife, children, and eventually yourself, when you are perfectly capable of killing him first? We don't censor here. But I'd be damned if I had the ability to oust a SJW shittwat but instead decided to let her continue on in the name of free speech. That's the same as letting a murderer continue mudering in the name of preserving life. It's not a huge mental leap, guys. It makes sense. Let's stand our ground and cut all this pussydicking around.

Voat is not reddit?

Voat is not reddit!

It has nothing to do with respect. @She was just weaponizing rules to silence speech she didn't like.

@She should be demodded and preferably banned.

We don't need cancer on the site.

I will not support subverses (by featuring them or making them defaults) with moderators who impose questionable rules such as "your post has to end with a questionmark".

Holy shit, sir.

Where are you located? I need to suck your dick real quick.

Someone else suggested v/AskGoat as an alternative.

I'm so proud of this place right now.

An artistic rendering of recent events on Voat.

Excellent work, admins. Aaron Swartz would be proud.

Perfect solution.

You did nothing to interfere with their subvoat. Just removed it from being a default sub because their actions don't coincide with what you believe (I do as well) to be fair and equitable moderation.

Well done :)

Fully support your decision here /u/Atko, but what comes next? Voat needs a general purpose Q&A sub as default.
IMHO /v/ELI5 is the next suitable candidate (certainly not the only one). I'd maintain a small list of Alts to AskVoat in /v/Alt.

Wow, thank you so much Atko!

WooHooo.

Voat Admins already coming in and imposing their beliefs on the community!

Thank you. It was getting pretty stupid how many genuine posts were getting removed for stupid reasons. Personally, I think only obvious spam should be regularly removed and everything else could have a 'message from mod' attached to the post suggesting a rule the post didn't follow, like 'please remember to add question mark in your title next time' or whatever rules they want the community to steer towards. Better than deleting it outright so no one knows why.

"your post has to end with a questionmark" Then how will we know if its a question if there is no questionmark!!!

Yes. That's because of Amalek. I downvote him whenever I see him, since his submission and comments are always off-topic or personal attacks. He started as CommonSenseWarrior several months ago, before the throttling was introduced, and he has a small army of alts, so it really messed up my balance. What is your point?

Voat is the fucking best!

PRAISE OUR LORD AND SAVIOR ATKO! HIS/HER GOATILINESS HATH DELIVERED US FROM THE BOWELS OF EVIL!

In all seriousness, I am so happy and proud of this community. We've shown that when confronted with adversity, we can stand up together and resolve our issues. I'm sure we will face further tests, but I'm confident we can overcome anything thrown our way.

The community could always... make another sub.

I don't know why people are so opposed to a simple solution that serves both sides of an issue and is already implemented. No, that would be too simple, let's complicate shit by demanding the devs spend time creating an inherently broken mechanic that's easy as shit to exploit and shits all over one of the parties involved!

You're just as bad as the SJW faggots on reddit, just on the other unworkable extreme. You're pathetic

I am stunpressed.

1329 likes, 7 dislikes (99.48% like it)

I believe this is what happens when the community approves of something. Keep up the good work Atko!

Thank you so much for this!! Hopefully the automoderator will make the division between proper moderating and autocratic moderating more clear cut.

I've been facing a similar issue with /v/relationships. I'd love for all titles to contain [genderAGE], or a discussion tag, or whatever, but given the limited amount of time moderators are on, it's just not enforceable right now without coming across as a colossal asshole 12 hours later. The automod would solve this and other issues so nicely. So thank you. <3

Well this just sold me on liking Voat. Great work Atko!

This is an excellent response, thank you. As someone who never got too into reddit, I was a little annoyed that everyone was taking it for granted that AskVoat was fundamental to Voat's growth and development. Why, because AskReddit is important?

I like this approach because something else will rise up to fill the niche or if it doesn't we can adapt as a community. Thank you.

@atko wow, you jackass. The question mark post was intentionally made to be deleted and stir up controversy (it said "here's your question-mark in the post). That's nothing like banning discussion of Tesla. The same exact post was allowed with a question mark.

God damn you are so awesome you do exactly what the community wants and not to appease them you actually agree with them! "moderators need to calm their tits" <--- and this, you're never afraid to speak your mind. I love it, absolutely LOVE IT. This is why I moved to Voat :)

Holy Hell.

This is why I effin' LOVE Voat.

I know, but the actions aren't noted. If I remove a post, a user looking at the log can't tell why I deleted it. Just that it happened.

You are so awesome.

Thank you. This is much appreciated.

As the moderator of /v/halflife, I agree, the moderator serves the community.

However, I don't know that allowing some sort of voting system would be the right way to do it. (This is the way I have seen sugguested)

I try not to remove any post unless it breaks the rules. I have removed one post for being spammy and breaking the rules.

I have put a lot of effort into designing /v/halflife, doing the CSS for /v/halflife, images for /v/halflife, etc. If someone disagreed with one of my opinions [unrelated to moderating], got their friends to be active in the subreddit so that they can sway the voat, then voat themselves in, I would be really pissed. I had done nothing wrong, but the other person got in simply because they have several friends.

With the voat moderators in/out setup, it would be very easy for SRS/SJW people to come in, take over a bunch of subreddits, shut them down, and effectively kill Voat.

"your post has to end with a questionmark".

Totally called it. That's a rule only a petty tyrant or a bureaucrat would want. @she is clearly the former. Typical SJW.

thank you - thank you - thank you

Voat has this amazing innovation called AAGSD, for Admins Actually Get Shit Done. Cool, right?

Alright then. Thanks for the encouragement.

I've been trying to do that for 5 months. It's not working. No matter what I say, all they have to do in this place is say "SpaceRosa is an SJW" and everyone takes that as if it actually means something, as if that wins the argument. It doesn't work.

I appreciate it, not because I care about internet points, but because being bumped to the bottom of multiple threads for something I said in a different one is kinda shitty.

Yes, they do have their own quirks. But the overall one is distinctly anti-SJW. Most of what She was crucified for had nothing to do with the stupid question mark. It was because she "too SJW, too SRS" and they wanted her out. That's what's going to happen. If you're "too SJW" you won't get anywhere. It will be fall in line, or give up and go home.

That's not logical at all! You're just choosing to ignore the favourable reality to believe in some SJW conspiracy! Why?

And thank God it's not.

This is amazing. After years of Reddit I honestly expected it to be ignored, or at least take a while to be responded to.. But this is downright amazing. You have earned a loyal browser voat.

Yes, basically. The big outrage was, of course "SHE'S AN SJW!!!!". No legitimate concerns about her modding ability or practice that I saw, and it was the same yesterday. The "evidence" was posts they took great care in cherry picking, and pointing how similar to SRS they were. Even though none of them were evidence of her abusing her mod ability. At best, from what I saw, there were many posts that she had deleted for not having the bloody question mark in it that people didn't agree with, but whether they like it or not, that was a rule and she's a mod, so she'd have to enforce it. There are only 2 active mods, Her and Shiny I believe, and last time I checked they make rule changes fairly democratically. Without the others, I don't think they could've changed it much.

Ok, upvoat from me, cause @Atko is the MAN and I now know exactly why I spend my time here and not over there. Thanks for having me!

There are certain things most people agree makes someone a good or bad moderator. To be a good one, you have to be reasonably intelligent. You have to be able to consider the needs of the subverse as they change, and come up with appropriate responses when necessary. You need to have patience, and know the right words to use. Strictly speaking, two different sentences can mean exactly the same thing, but if you use the wrong words people will misinterpret what you say, and that's no good.

I don't thin you, or the people sharing your argument, actually have a very high opinion of moderators. I think you're wrong to. It's not as simple as just being a mod and clicking some boxes when someone breaks the rules. If it were, then what was all that crap with She about? That's all she did, stick to the rules to the letter. If that's all it takes, is that not good moderation?

10/10 I love it.

Well done /u/Atko !

Oh, I'm sorry, did you not appreciate being told how Subverserequest works? If a subverse meets the criteria for inactivity, and a user is the first to request it, they get. That is how it works. Normally. An exception has been made for /v/AskVoat because of the amount of concern people have, or more accurately because of the anti-SJW witchhunt.

No matter what you say, I don't think any of those users are sockpuppets, and certainly not myself. Or am I out of the loop and it's actually common practice to make sockpuppets 5 months before you use them and be an active user with it? How about you try being an adult and consider the possibility that people can have similar opinions without colluding? By your reasoning, half the people in that chain you linked must be colluding.

That would depend on the disagreement, wouldn't it? Some things are just the differences we all have from one another. Others, like your example, are definitely more severe.

I don't know where you got oppression from, though. Is this more bullshit someone is writing about me? I haven't said anything is oppression. I'm ust saying that I believe it will strongly reinforce echo chambers, because people will tend to vote in a person who agrees with them more than someone who doesn't, but has the correct attitudes towards moderation for the subverse they want to mod.

It'll become political. People will say what the subverse wants to hear to get in. They'll have to mind what they say anywhere, because when it gets heated, people will do as they have done and dig up anything they can twist against them to make them sound guilty of being an SJW or a power hungry user or whatever they're accusing them of, whether it's true or not.

It's safe to say Voat, I'm here to stay. This is the change we need.

Häh?

Is there an alternative sub that we can use instead?

As of posting this, 1096 upvoats, 6 downvoats.

Thank you for listening to your community Atko.

If we wanted another reddit, we would go to reddit.

Based Atko!

I got an idea, make me moderator, I basically don't care what's posted so long as something is

Thank You @Atko

I ran out of upvoats to give!

Do you guys need mods for stuff or just volunteers in general? I have tons of spare time and I would love to help.

Great decision, @Atko. Keep up the great work!

No, I'm being chain-downvoated because someone disagrees with me. All of my comments are being hit with downvoats now.

This is amazing and THANK YOU. voat is absolutely getting a donation from me now.

It might not be much but I really appreciate what you are doing.

Based Atko!

So that unpopular opinion subs can no longer exist?

Thank you, great response. This transition to here from the other place has been much easier than I thought because of awesome management.

If anyone cries censorship after this great intervention by Atko, I would consider that trolling. Voat is going places and I'm happy to be on board.

Ok, so what happened?

The community is what Voat is. The subverses are places where the community can share content and have discussions. If the community doesn't like a sub, they'll go to a different one. Pretty simple concept.

Voat will be receiving a small donation once I can learn how to get bitcoin wallets working :)

It's great that Atko can be trusted when it comes to making sure this site doesn't devolve to Reddit 2.0. We came to this site to get away from censorship and any subreddit run by /u/she absolutely shouldn't be a default.

I definitely hope that's the outcome, but the fact that the suggestion was met with "we'll discuss it" instead of being dismissed immediately concerns me greatly.

This is a great move. Thank you for addressing this.

Much respect for your decision. Thank you!!

If you guys want to fix the front page of the subverse in question, please submit content to it. Currently it seems that it's only this stuff on the front and I know a few of you are seeing it as getting old, fast. We are the only ones who can fix it.

/v/Skyforge has 24 subscribers, sorry if I offend you, but nobody cares how you run it.

That was my point, so no offense taken. It's a slippery slope, you start with (former) default subs and a couple years later you're shadowbanning folks and deleting subs you personally disagree with. Or did we forget why Voat suddenly ended up with a shitload of extra users?

Also, Atko is not doing any hostile takeover, he just delisted the sub and gave some guidelines to all the mods.

Right. Delisting it is a great option, absolutely nothing wrong with curating the default subs. An admin takeover is what's being discussed in this specific comment chain, though, and since @Atko is doing to "discuss it" I think it's safe to assume that the idea is being considered.

If you manage to get your sub delisted from the defaults, you are doing something wrong

Keyphrase being "your sub". As long as you're not doing anything illegal, you should be free to do whatever the hell you want with it without having to worry about your sub being taken from you.

But hey, we don't like the person involved, so let's throw our principles out the window to be petty and vindictive! That'll sure show that bitch, LOL

I support this decision

BASED ATKO

I. LOVE. YOU. ATKO. Seriously man your the best admin in the world.

Seems like Akto is going to participate in next election. Jokes apart. Fast action of admin is lovely! :)

Atko laying down the law!

And this is why I'm here.

You guys give a shit. I was afraid that Voat would become a place where shit mods from That Old Place would come and be dicks here.

You're fighting that, and as long as you do, I'll keep coming back.

I like you hotmusician, you see things as they are around here, that's rare.

Thank you Atko. You proved, to anyone that doubted it, that we're not in Reddit.

Keep trying bud, LMAO

Last night I was just saying voat is good but it's got a few kinks to work out. This was one of them. I'm 100% confident that all the kinks will in time get worked out, so even if the front page is drama sometimes it will pass and I'll be around to see it happen.

Moderators need to calm their tits

Based @Atko. Hella based.

Why not like.... Scrape those guys off? Or is that just too against voat's policy?

I'll do it, I'll run AskVoat, :l

From that link:

For better or worse, all subreddits, even the main subreddits visible to everyone by default, are the private playgrounds of whoever started them first.

Maybe this needs to change.

(▰˘◡˘▰) Senpai noticed us!

Maybe put /v/discussion in?

@Atko is the Trump to spez's Bernie! Hell yeah! I am glad I moved here and never looked back!! Atko is truly the hero we need! (+1 for calm your tits)

This is great @atko. If I could make a suggestion, could you maybe add a feature that allows moderators to add a note when they delete a post or ban a user? I want there to be a reason listed in the logs to avoid any confusion among the users.

I think I just fell in love...

Thanks Atko. I really appreciate the effort. (As I'm sure the community does as well)

There was alot of crap being pushed to the front page on Askvoat. I didn't care for any of it, a lot of whining, but this post gives me confidence that shit is getting handled.

Who runs the meta sections though? I guess it could be the mods, but maybe they aren't allowed to enforce rules, only delete spam. Anything else will result in removal of their mod or something.

For those that were disappointed by v/askvoat's questionable choices then feel free to check out v/askgoat to see if it can fit your fancy. We currently have an open discussion adding a "Report a Moderator" function to voat for when sub moderators start causing possible problems.

Brilliant! Thank you!

Spectacular. Thank you admin. An unfortunate truth is that most moderators are hyper involved in voat, to the extent that unintentional power tripping resulting from their passion is almost guaranteed.

..slow clap..

@atko, in the long run wouldn't it make more sense to remove mods who abuse their powers?

wut

Hey /u/atko , can we bend the rules a little on requesting a subverse? v/canadaguns and v/chelseafc are two i feel like i can really help grow and thrive , and because i don't have enough comment points i was turned down. I've done some work on v/bostonceltics to try and grow that, and have try to promote Voat as much as possible. One of my biggest regrets was not joining the partner program when i could have.

• i also noticed i have two many subs, i am trying to give the ones away i am nowhere near as passionate about to get below the threshold

Well said, I think you guys are doing a wonderful job. Keep up the good work!

So if I could ask Voat one question it would be: Voat, why are you so awesome? :)

My God is this really happening, thank God for based Admins!!!

best news I heard all day.

I was worried about voats direction after that whole fiasco, now I am not

Thanks for the nomination but I would have to decline and would prefer the askvoat community or a trusted mod would make a selection, I just don't think I have the proper amount of time or experience to manage such a large sub that needs attention. Once again thank you for suggesting me.

Moderators need to calm their tits

Thanks for the pre-coffee deep belly laugh.

I'm removing your post bc my tits are really pumped up right now!!

You should implement something that allows us to report a mod team or an individual moderator.

Thank you Atko, all of us here really appreciate the work you are doing to make voat great!

The sub was shit anyway. Just unsubscribed myself.

New rule. Fred can't post comments that I deem as not a comment.

That's a stupendously terrible example- Why wouldn't I just be banned instead?

She made up arbitrary rules so that she could justify removing threads that conflict with her personal agenda using vague connections to her arbitrary rules.

Having a rule that posts to a sub about asking questions should be questions is a personal agenda now? You're gonna have to try harder than that. EDIT: Especially since the current front page of /v/askvoat is literally covered in shitposting about her, all in the requested format, and is not removed.

This is textbook SJW powermodding.

It looks more like textbook normal modding to me.

EDIT: Downvotes with no responses. I thought voat was better than reddit.

@Atko for Prez!!! But seriously, you're awesome. Thanks for not letting this place slide into the crap hole other places have become. Your message and policy is there reason I came to Voat and what will keep me here.

Nah, dude went on a tirade. There's all sorts of posts antagonizing her. He's the exact opposite....which is still not what you want as a moderator. Borderline obsessed with one user. His passion for hunting down censorship is admirable for a site that doesn't censor. But these are not moderator qualities.

You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.

I love this, good job admins

(polite applause from the assembled crowd)

Thank you :)

thanks. I also made a post to askvoat that was removed for this reason. It was not spam. I felt disheartened and was deterred from posting further.

What do you think about a system where users can report inappropriate moderation actions and admins such as yourself can step in and intervene and/or remove his/her moderator duties? It would likely only be used on the largest subs and would likely fix problems such as the overreaching moderation in /v/AskVoat very quickly.

Thanks for giving a shit, /u/Atko. This is why I am fully happy here at Voat and will continue to support this website.

So glad to see this taken care of with such authority and quickness. Anyone who is a moderator should be able to set aside their personal feelings towards whatever content they are moderating and make an informed decision about it. We have rules on each subverse for a reason and they should be followed by the user and the moderator. I hope that we get someone who really wants to make v/AskVoat a better place as the top moderator. I have only been here a month or so but I have some across some very cool people and I don't care for all of this garbage that has been happening in the last few days. Thanks @Atko and company for what you are doing. Keep up the good work.

Fuckin' based. Atko for president

Based on what I just read, voat is going places... Well said!

@Atko the way you handled this worries me. You're completely ignoring that there was a giant witch hunt for @she driven by lies and misinformation. You aren't addressing some serious issues with the community here. The issue should have always been with the rule instead users banded together and decided to blame someone whose political views they didn't agree with. The community caused this problem plain and simple.

If you want control of a subverse and you want defaults(I think defaults are a cancer)make all defaults controlled by @system there is no excuse for you not having done so before this. You don't even need a sub to be abandoned. If you didn't want to do a hostile take over you could have simply messaged any of the mods saying remove rule 1 and explain why then make a public post explaining you've had them change the rules. I feel like what you've done here is bend to mob mentality and swooped in to be the hero rather than address the community issues in a better more relaxed way.

I of course appreciate the fact that you're willing to involve yourself to ensure Voat stays Voat I just wish you'd address the mob mentality issue and not fall to being a part of it. You do a good job with Voat and I felt you deserved some honest feed back from someone who isn't going to immediately start sucking your dick, I'd at least like diner first.

Thanks for that, @Atko!

Exactly. Rules are good for keeping quality, but mods should know to act wisely.

You know I could have seen the argument going either way, although most of the voat community myself included will always err on the side of free speech. It seems to me that the biggest thing to provoke @Atko into making this decision was when it blew up the /v/askvoat's mod team turned into an us vs them instead of working to ease the tension in the community.

https://veuwer.com/i/3138.jpg

PS, @atko is the hero the internet deserves.

Just created the subverse /v/askingvoat so it's easier than have numbers that look like someone didn't have a username that worked so they added a number to it.

Good call. Well done.

@Atko fuckin' taking care of shit already! Best admins!

If the majority of a sub thinks a post is fine

How do you decide if a majority of a sub thinks a post is fine? Askvoat has 47.000 subscribers, but upvotes and comments rarely go above a few hundred.

If you leave up a post with 500 upvotes and 200 comments people will question why you deleted that post with 300 upvotes and 100 comments. If you leave up that post with 300 upvotes and 100 comments people will question why you deleted that post with 100 upvotes and 50 comments, etc.

change the rules to fit the direction the users want to take the sub.

I don't think this is a good idea. Some community input is fine, but letting users define the general direction of rules will really drop the level of quality, especially in larger subs.

This was a small victory brothers, but hold strong. If I had to guess, this is @she right now.

We just started to boycott the SJW's brand here and they aren't going to like it. I foresee a bloody battle in the near future.

No, you don't. You're just making irrational assumptions because apparently you can't comprehend a world where someone sticks up for someone else because it's their own opinion.

You had me at "moderators need to calm their tits..." That was a breath of fresh air. Finally, a really quick response with a reasonable solution. Voat continues to be the oasis in the oppressive desert of social media platforms.

I've had so many comments removed from Reddit for not having a '?' thanks for agreeing with me.

Magnificent.

Well done @Atko, thats what being a community leader is all about.

Nice. Nice calm tits and all. Nice.

Who even has time to enforce these stupid rules anyway?

Also, instead of Automod can we please just have the API so we can make our own bots?

You literally just restored my faith in Voat! Thank you @atko! After yesterday I really thought we were heading in the exact same direction as reddit. I hope everyone continues to realize the we don't need human moderators when we have a proper upvote/downvote system.

Personally, I believe the only way way Voat can continue to move in the right direction is if we get rid of human moderators all together. We should just use very light computer automoderators, and rely completely on the upvote/downvote system. It has been shown time and time again that a human moderator cannot mod without bias. Also, they just let the power get to their head like they're actually needed. I consider them a pest and feel the only people that do want them to stay are somehow involved in moderation themselves.

Before, forums needed mods because anything that was posted would show and the users would have no method to deal with it. With the upvote/downvote system, we can do it ourselves. When people say that, the response is always, "But you need moderators! The subs will become the Wild Wild West! Just anarchy and spam everywhere!" Well guess what, that's just not true and you only have that opinion because your ego-boosting imaginary job is being threatened.

I care about this community and will do my part to keep it safe from SJW's moderators, whoever is censoring our users in any way. Fuck them.

Thanks again @atko!

Thank you so much, Atko!

/NO sarcasm

Take notes, Spez.

I'm surprised and happy to see that even though your probably insanely busy doing millions of things you stopped, posted your thoughts and your plans along with some great advice. I hope you both always do this if a huge problem arises.

And this is why we love Voat.

'Automod' sounds interesting, good work for taking some action. Perhaps make the 'whats been deleted' more visible?

TIL if you block all the default subs you read, your v/all feed is more interesting. And you'll help Voat by spreading your attention across a wider array of quality crowd-selected content.

Hakuna.

No.

Default? When I joined this site the best thing about it was that there were no defaults at all, it was all up to the user to choose. What the hell?

There there (^.^)>><<(^.^)

Great move Atko and thank you :)

I feel like Steve Balmer at a Windows keynote!! "I. LOVE. THIS. COMPANYEAH!!!!!"

I'll make the unpopular counterpoint. Though I get the drama over the past has been quite prevalent, did the mods at least get some kind of warning that there was concern about the "must have a ?" rule?

Moderators need to calm their tits and focus on nurturing and growing their communities.

I love this. Keep the peace vs. enforce the rules. This is the difference between a good cop and a bad one. I am impressed that this was said. I am impressed that the fucking admin actually came to a realistic and smart decision! You just don't see this! Wow! It's like a goddamn adult, a goddamn human being with sensibility and feelings runs the site!

No more hall monitor bullshit! Wooooo!

Atko: +1 coolness

Moderators need to calm their tits and focus on nurturing and growing their communities.

Isn't part of nurturing and growing your community to put standards of behavior into place so the users can know what's expected of them? Pretend @she didn't remove that one post: Isn't the obvious response of anyone who has their post removed for the question mark rule after that going to be "Why didn't you remove that post"? How could that question be answered without sounding partial?

Don't get me wrong, I think the rule itself is silly, but I can understand why its in place. I think the enforcement of the rule was incredibly belated, but in the absence of a automated solution, I can empathize with moderators having lives outside of voat and not being able to hover over the new posts in a sub and jam on f5 to ensure no posts that violate the rules of a booth get by.

Yea!!! Common sense wins! I LOVE THIS PLACE!

That do nothing bitch just got schooled.

@Atko is God among goats.

Thank you Sir and well done!

Those SJWs are so mad right now. Atko is not a cuck like spez.

Really, what I mean is in this context. If she had family, then she no longer has it, because it's already in the past! If she has, then it still going on to present date.

I dub thee, "Atko the Just".

Champion of the sane.

Bane of the corrupt.

Arise, so we can hug the shit out of you.

Hi /u/Atko just wondering what it takes to become a default sub?

Yeah I think it's important at this point for the mods to keep communicating with the users to work things out.

The whole "free speech, anything goes" attitude is a fine ideal but that's only assuming that others are willing to play fair. You two guys made this place and I support your right to mold it to your vision and not have it poisoned by using your own rules against you. A cow grows fat under the owners eye. One day the farm will be too big to watch every cow so make time for it now while it grows, I say.

TL;DR VERSION: Well done.

I love you Atko.

I fucking love you.

Atko, i love you, be father of my children!

Tho, i'm guy so it might be hard...

Let's adopt and raise goat together!

Thanks @Atko. I appreciate you.

The flooding of v/all with all the back and forth just makes me go back into sit and watch mode. I ignore what I don't want to see or don't care about and I view what I'm interested in. Participation falls off though...

Everything has been said

You are fucking awesome and I really do appreciate what you're doing/trying to do here. Thank you for your time.

/u/leixiaotie is right. Jim Ross says has, not had.

Very glad to see that this action has been taken. Thank you Atko for not supporting and promoting this kind of behaviour here on voat.

And rekt.

Very well played Atko. Like a boss.

For ease of access to the deleted submissions and to provide an overview, I have created v/DeletedAskVoat.

I'm collecting there the links to the questionable deletions and if they seem funny, also the justified ones like (30 (U)pvoats and 57 (C)omments):

I'm drunk as fuck. AMA (you have a limited amount of time before I pass out). I am being assisted greatly by autocorrect. | 30 U / 57 C | Removed by she at: 08.08.2015 08:45:57

So far the count is 1 to 10 (besides the obvious spam).

Today I'm going back in time with my additions, but I certainly hope that I won't have to add any newer ones than yesterday. I would be happy goat indeed if v/DeletedAskVoat could be a one off project!

But most of the removed conversations are actually interesting to read and if you come across the Original Poster (OP), show him or her some appreciation by pinging them (like so @Atko) or replying to a comment of theirs.

As Atko said:

If I submit a new post and it gains some traction (hundreds of comments, views and upvoats), and my post gets removed because I broke a rule by forgetting to include a question mark in my submission title... well, I would be pissed.

Repair some of the damage caused by the mods of v/AskVoat.

I agree but there's a fine line between being flexible and turning users off and causing drama because they feel rules aren't being enforced equally.

tl;dr @Atko to moderators like @she:

http://i.imgur.com/948T7Ay.png

I'm glad there is a definite push here to punish those that censor other users. I also think there has to be something done with downvoats since people are starting to use those again as disagreement buttons. That's what led to Reddits demise and what's going to kill this place if we don't watch out for it. I'll be the first one to admit that it's hard to get over that Reddit knee-jerk reaction to downvote content you don't agree with, but I think that if we all make a conscious effort, we can improve the signal to noise ratio on this site.

Remember, downvoating is a soft censorship tool, try and use it to improve the discussion, not to make the thread an echo chamber.

Hands down, best post I've read all morning. Thank you for caring about the community at large!

I love Voat for doing this. I stay out of the bigger and more general subreddits for this exact reason. Too much drama not directly related to the subreddit content. I am glad you guys are doing your best to avoid such issues :) I like my subverses so far <3

This would be a good time for mods here to take a long look at your rule lists. Keep only what you really need to make a better sub. Get rid of anything unnecessary or open to abuse.

Well, thank you very much, Atko.

Excellent news. Thanks so much!

Atko, so hot right now.

Thank you.

The problem comes later when the userbase is a lot bigger. The big userbase will be separated into virtual factions. Some will be happy with the post while the other won't and asking to remove. In that case, the rule will wins. You won't be happy if judge ignoring the law and punish you anyway right?

But in this current state of voat, it's good enough.

Atko please ensure any automoderator system you introduce is fully transparent and is accompanied by a viewable public page such as https://voat.co/v/SUBVERSE/modlog/automodsettings

This way everyone can see what automoderator will be up to/which content it will be removing.

Oh man, I must be dreaming. I fucking love voat!!!

I don't think the question mark thing should be a problem, but whatever floats your Voat, I guess.

It's a clear rule, and they have 2 mods who have to decide what is or isnt a question, so they made a simple rule for that, that even a bot could enforce.

MODERATORS NEED TO CALM THEIR TITS! FUCK YEAH!

Atko <3 this is why I love voat

Bravo.

I think we should move to something broad like /v/Questions or something of that sort.

So why is @she still being allowed to mod /v/AskVoat or any sub for that matter? People like her taking over are the reason we all left reddit in the first place. Surely @Atko and @PutItOut have the power to strip her of mod privileges.

@Atko - I have made it a point to never ever bug you in the past. I just want to give a hearty, "Fuck yeah!" There are times when shit has to be done - this was one of those times. Now if we can quell the drama then it would be good. I read Voat for a long time and figured I'd finally join to stop my nick from being used by an inbound Redditor. I dare say it was a fine choice and I thank you for your contributions to the 'net. Anyhow, I shall stop ass kissing now and go quietly to my corner. Though I do say that I am probably obligated to suggest, "Tits or GTFO!" (No need to respond, you are a busy man.)

I saw this post and decided to finally create a voat account just to say I'm amazed by how much Atko cares. I hope this website sees many more users in the future.

Best post ever man, 'grats.

Calm your tits. The rally cry of the new era.

This didn't fix anything... If anything it made things worse.

What you've done here is set a precedent: Enforcing rules is bad moderator behavior.

Sorry but this is just ridiculous.

Most users don't really give a shit. There's a reason Wikipedia doesn't integrate the Talk page debates into the main article. Users will abandon subs if they're forced to see a shitload of drama over technical stuff or the same debates rehashed constantly or personal feuds taking over subs. You know there will be a small group of users that can't let stupid personal shit go.

This kind of shit makes me happy to be here, well done Atko.

Wow, call me a pessimist, but I didn't think anything would actually be done about that stupid question mark rule.

And atko steps in and lets this community know, that it can't be corrupted. That ownership has us, the users of voat, best interests at the very core. This is not a place for lawyers and hard rules. We will not lose this community to unfair play and underhanded tactics. The people spoke, loudly and were heard.

Atko, you and this place have earned a lot of respect from me today. Keep doing what you do. I am privileged ;) to be part of this wonderful community.

If I submit a new post and it gains some traction (hundreds of comments, views and upvoats), and my post gets removed because I broke a rule by forgetting to include a question mark in my submission title... well, I would be pissed.

This. 100x this. Voat is a democracy. The posts worthy of discussion will be upvoated, and it is especially asinine for mods to remove such posts when it has hundreds of upvoats. It is especially suspicious when the said post with hundreds of upvoats being deleted was questioning the practices of the mods. That itself is the biggest red flag. Thank you @Atko for doing the right thing.

Voat rhymes with Boat.

And this is why we love you @Atko. Long live voat!

Now I need to make changes to /v/voatlaw but I dont even know what to put. Are there different rules for default verses or just different rules for large vs small verses?

If any thing was proven today, by the wild burst in popular debate, the lack of a question mark is far more capable of generating intrigue, traffic, and dialogue!

You wouldn't mind if I go ahead and steal this brilliant showerthought of yours now, would you?

Unless it becomes common knowledge that it exists

could make it easy to look for. Perhaps make a default /m/subverse as a metaverse, and put a link in the actual subverse.

Absolute legend.

Cool, now I won't have to go out of my way to block that trash. It's too bad I used to love reading posts from that subverse.

Atko, You da real MVP!

But haven't you heard?

Questions "?" will generate more intrigue, more traffic, more dialogue then statements without a "?"

atko and putttout are the best.

Gandalf me right now: "There are default subs?"

Holy crap this post gave me an erection.

I think [META] prefix on the post's title is enough. How much meta question in a day anyway?

I messaged she with the suggestion to reword the rule so that titles must clearly be questions. I believe this would solve the issues that have flooded this site in the form of memes and threads for the last day.

I know, but that's not my point. I'm not talking about that rule, I'm talking about the potential for easy abuse, just by claiming it's in the community's best interests. That's not referring to AskVoat here and now.

And this is why I'm glad I'm here. @Atko, you are on your way to great achievements. Keep up the good work my friend.

Atko, you're giving Nicolas Cage a run for his money.

GODDAMMIT......wait a second...., never mind.

Could just be like the "Talk" page on Wikipedia.

incepsub ! a sub in a sub in a su.... Sorry, couldn't stop myself :-/

Moderators need to calm their tits and focus on nurturing and growing their communities.

I love this guy.

Voat also has automatic public moderation logs and everything you remove will still be visible in these modlogs and your actions may be questioned by the community, just like what happened yesterday.

This. Things like this right here give me so much hope for the longevity of this site. Thank you @Atko.

I fucking love this website.

Not sure I agree with that. "It's in the community's best interests" could be manipulated a lot. It's not a proportional example, but I know several regimes like to say they do the terrible things they do in the people's best interests. To put it to an appropriate scale, I think using that excuse could enable moderators to bend the rules the way they want; I think it would easily allow them to get political about it. Leave rule breaking posts up to save face, for example. I prefer moderation with minimal discretion. The less grey area you have, the easier it is to nail a mod who really is corrupt.

Fucking Thanks for that, Atko. I m happy that you support users over moderators, who are supposed to help the first.

That's why I'm happy to be here and not on the other place.

You've just demonstrated exactly why Voat is where I want to be.

That was impressive, decisive and effective. But you also showed restraint.

I'd buy you a beer right now if I could.

Thank you @Atko for keeping this place sane.

Good answer to a shitty situation !

We need to institute a system where the subscribers can elect/kick out mods through voting. Subs turn to shit when mods are allowed to go unchecked for their actions. Thank you Atko for showing us that you don't take kindly to mod abuse.

oh snap. next pay check voat gets a donation from me

I will not support subverses (by featuring them or making them defaults) with moderators who impose questionable rules such as "your post has to end with a questionmark".

Like a fucking boss!

Are there any plans to replace /v/askvoat with something else? I have an idea or two on what subverse should replace it. I'm sure you'll want to know what my ideas are.

So you support moderators who bend the rules when it suits them?

Granted, it was a stupid rule, but could the two active moderators change it without consulting the majority who weren't? I was under the impression moderators were supposed to enforce rules as long as they remain, not just whenever they feel like it.

Moderators need to calm their tits

I fucking love @Atko

@atko seriously thank you . This right here is why I'm here and not other places. You care more for mods to focus on growing their communities ,not dictate them . you have faith in the community and you hear our voices and act . for that alone thank you.