Observational thesis:
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There is alarmed response from many users as to the number of false positives in this round of abuse banning. Questions include the communication of the event, to the inability for banned users to appeal because they were unable to PM and new account creation had been disabled.
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The voting system, which is currently relied on for various sub-purposes (spam control, content prioritization) is also being weaponized in various ways that are destructive to the community, which directly threatens Voat’s intended purpose of Free Speech by “running people out of town”. From new accounts being -CCP into 24-hour lock-outs to organized groups promoting or silencing content and users for their own ends.
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It’s demonstrable through a full two days of conversations that everyone has a different opinion of what Voat stands for. If I understand @PuttItOut, and he’s going to need to correct me if this isn’t right, then Voat stands for Free Speech, within the limits of U.S. law seeing as how Voat is a U.S. based Company and must abide by U.S. Law. Fundamentally this suggests Voat stands for something which is the opposite of the other tech companies that have opted to instead censor based on Global laws. I strongly feel this often goes underappreciated from the community.
So what can be done?
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The reality is that unfettered abuse of the voting system today is destructive to the community and is a problem that needs to be addressed. There have been many discussions today on this subject alone in the sticky’s and other threads. This overall idea now rolls into #2 below..
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The voting system can be improved. There have been so many suggestions today, but one I didn’t hear suggested seems so simple as a way to both address the overall concern from as many angles as possible as well as to maintain the functionality of spam prevention and content prioritization in a natural way - just make the voting completely transparent; it serves multiple good purposes but because it’s private there will always be disagreements on it. Select X date in the future and re-design the voting so that you can see everyone else’s votes from then on. With transparency we can have open community discussions on what voting habits we can observe and what constructive improvements can be had to further grow the community based on what everyone can see with their own eyes. At the very least, this puts everyone from all sides of the arguments on the same level playing field to find effective compromise.
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Putt’s house, Putt’s rules. Putt can address how to make what is and is not a bannable offense more defined – and you have the decision to make on if you agree with him or not. This is no more complicated than going to Putt’s house and pissing all over his toilet seat and then having to make the decision on if you respect a man’s house and clean that shit up or if you don’t give a fuck for whatever reason and leave it a mess. That man gets to decide if you ever get invited back to his house when he cleans up your piss, or if he gives you a warning to stop it. Let’s work with Putt to come to a consensus.
Everyone has the responsibility to wisely pick who you associate with – and I’m going to stay where I know I can say what I want and not be removed for doing it. Free Speech matters to me, and everywhere else is willing to sell out – and that includes selling you out. As long as Voat demonstrates to me that it has values (Free Speech within U.S. Law) that I can abide by, then I don't want to see those values go away and I want this community to grow. If you don't want this community to grow, I cannot see how we can be allies.
P.S. My #4 would have been the complete and total elimination of anonymous posting. It serves no positive purpose in any sense other than as a method for a group to communicate while feeling more secured about their usernames, as Putt has explained that even he can't "un-mask" the anon posting.
In my opinion you could just remove traditional anon posting and replace it with "private" subs where people can be selectively invited and only these subs are allowed to use anon function - now you've solved most of the skin-deep anon problems, while at the same time anon remains for the only purpose I can possibly imagine it serves everyone without complaint - higher security "group specific" posting that even Voat cannot be forced to give to an entity that may demand data from Voat, simply because it's technically impossible for them to do so because of how the masking is designed.. hint hint.
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WhiteRonin ago
I’m gonna post what my original idea was.
Screw votes. Completely!
Yeah, I know it’s a spam deflector but it cause lore problems than it solves. People bitch about all the time and vote brigades help noobs out. No win situation.
Your solution doesn’t solve alts either. Why do alts exist? Sometimes just to burn a user that you posted too much shit too. So create a new one. Many times it’s to combat down vote brigades.
Look, your transparency only deals with possible problems that were created by having votes to begin with. I want full retroactive transparency to burn all the fuckers who were on vote brigades. Trust me, the good guys started a lot of the shit and shit posters reacted. Simple.
Retroactive transparency would fuck up voat big time. Putt knows this. Many good reputations would get burned in hell. Loss of users. Loss of revenue, voat would need to rebuild and the angels wouldn’t like this. See!?! If you figured this out earlier, I would have made fun of you.
Now how to solve this
Nobody wanted to hear about it because god Putt solider want to bless the idea. It’s really simple.
Convert the report button to a spam one. -10/-20 would make the post/comment invisible and tagged for review. Yeah, that’s the shit part, moderation is needed. FB spends millions on humans to moderate posts and ads because AI doesn’t work well enough. If FB can’t figure out an algorithm, Putt sure as hell will have trouble with his vote manipulation thingy.
But people like imaginary points. Napoleon gave badges to his Marshals. People like this shit. But funny how many coding forums don’t use it. Number of post counts are enough to earn reputation. Some have likes that are transparent. Down likes too that are transparent. But they are at the bottom of a reply and you can see it all. So, I guess a voting system could still work ... but having it on the side like now, it only causes problems.
If you break up anon ... I’m 50-50 on it. Currently, it’s easy to abuse. Pings are the problem and so are people who have a grudge. Why do grudges continue to anon? Because they can. But wouldn’t grudges decline if people didn’t get down brigaded? Hence problems with votes.
The biggest issue with my idea is the human checks and also metrics that put posts to the top page. Early on this was needed. But today, it just distracts from other content. We have enough people here now that we don’t need to see that same article for a whole day on top. Besides, it’s just more imaginary points but faggets love those points.
I am still leaning toward the spam button to clean up posts. And likes for comments at the bottom if with need to keep votes. If they are visible to all it breaks the brigades and gives people credit.
Just my two cents from that asshole!
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