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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Justsomebullshitname ago
4 betrays a lack of understanding of the real value of anonymity. While one can be silenced for wrong think in public on Voat, they can speak without fear of reprisal or concern for intimidation in anon boards.
Within my first hour of posting outside of QRV with my account I had a mod telling me they were going to downvote me for being a shill as my strong opinions offended them. Within another hour my account was below minimum CCP to post and shortly dropped into the negative.
Voat uses votes to silence dissent from admissible popular speak.
Think of it in economic terms. Some users have amassed great wealth in points due to prolonged use. Any new user therefore is a subject of those with point currency to spend on either promotion or demotion of what they say. The net result is that only speech which is aligned with the wealthy holders is permissible. Voat has created the tyranny of the mob.
In the end I don’t believe the mechanisms of this site serve the stated objective of this site.
virge ago
If tasked with this problem, how would you break it down to remediate?
Justsomebullshitname ago
Ultimately what exists now is territorial enclaves with economic statuses. Communities that band together around ideation.
You have to eliminate the economic factor or institute fiat mechanisms of devaluation. CCP is like gold in the way a fed dollar is not. Meaning CCP is a fixed value with respect to its self over time. The value of positioning content, silencing or promoting, this adjusts with time with respect to the total CCP amassed. So the economic value of one vote goes down as the user count and post count goes up. This means any one late to the game is impoverished until having gained enough CCP by the graves of the wealthy to empower them to become a middle classed citizen of Voat.
So you can erode the value of CCP with time. You can decrement it with time, or any other mechanism that equalizes the economic power of a new user and an existing user.
The argument for the immune system of Voat I don’t think detracts from value erosion as a solution since the collective behavior of Voat can still be employed, it just takes a larger consensus when there isn’t the ability of small groupings to economically over power other groupings.
heygeorge ago
This has been bandied about before, and is not a bad idea at all, but it would have to be carefully crafted.
virge ago
This guy has an agenda. I screenshot his posts, and they were actually very concise and good advice. The kind of advice you'd expect from someone institutional. Then he not only deletes them but purges them from SearchVoat.co, showing he knows what he's doing.
The real questions are, who was he before he was banned, and what is his agenda in doing this behavior?
@kevdude
Justsomebullshitname ago
https://voat.co/v/Voat/3246701/18879494?context=10
You are a low class disrespectful pile of shit. Use me then chase my comments around calling me a liar when you got called out for pulling a fast one on me.
virge ago
You're being obtuse. I deleted those posts because I typo'd the shit out of them. you can still see them on SearchVoat.co yourself if you want to validate, I intended to copy and paste the link and somehow copy and pasted the thread into the middle of the thread.. it was terrible.
Once I saw you engaging here I deleted the old thread to avoid confusion. How could that possibly offend you in any way, and more importantly how can that possibly lead you to deleting this conversation when I strongly feel you contributed to the conversation and I appreciated it?
I'm legitimately mind-boggled right now. Humans are so amusing. You react to the oddest of things and infer them in the most peculiar ways.
Justsomebullshitname ago
I thought I lied about that deleted in invite... Which is it, did I lie because of an agenda or did you lie and flip your shit when you got called out for using me?
Go fuck your self.
virge ago
No. I was wrong there. I legitimately had no idea what you were talking about, because when you deleted the messages from our conversation, you accused me of deleting mine and all I could see was this thread where. Look up, dude. You didn't link the thread that actually offended you and I didn't remember it offhand so to me it looked like you were accusing me of deleting the topics in this thread, not in the other one.
Now, put yourself in my shoes for a minute and appreciate that literally for the past 4 days I've had a subversive group of assholes following me around, pinging me in over 100 threads a day, making topics about me just to try and annoy me by lying about me, and following me around mass downvoting me - mostly because I got some attention from being in a PuttItOut thread and with any popularity on Voat comes the parasites that destroy. I legitimately didn't remember our initial conversation beause I come back from a fucking coffee break with 25+ messages in my inbox these days, and you didn't leave any context at all for me to go off other than accusing me of something I didn't think I had done.
I def over-reacted, I'm willing to update that post now. In fact, I'll copy and paste this into it and you can view it here, instead of replying to this: https://voat.co/v/ideasforvoat/3243355/18888769
Justsomebullshitname ago
TLDR; I didn’t read your sob story. I glanced across it and it was all how you’re a victim of something. I really don’t give a shit about your problems. You used me then made false accusations against me. You are a shitty useless person and I’m done participating with you and your content.
virge ago
Oh. You're Zylkon. That makes sense then. Fuck you faggot I proved what you did wrong, good try.