You never open spam. Please explain how you achieve that with 100% reliability, when spammers have been known to simply copy post titles from legit posts and host their landing pages on look-alike websites.

Do you really scrutinise every URL for I's swapped with 1's or unicode etc before opening, or are you as likely as any other human to be tricked when a fake user swaps an O for a 0 to mimic someone you regularly read, then steals a post title off the person they're mimicking, and finally does the same O's and 0's trick to make a fake site with a url that looks like the real one? Please note that's not a fantasy situation, there is at least one spam for hire outfit (Cali, New Mexico, and London UK based) which does all that and has been using that as a modus operandi for best part of a decade to my knowledge.

I find your claim hard to believe. I've spent 20+ years working alongside some of the most meticulous and diligent anti spam activists in the world, people who defined the anti-spam movement and literally (as in the opposite to figuratively) wrote books on the subject, and I'm pretty sure they would not make such a bombastic and absurd claim of 100% efficiency in pre-click spam identification.

The wonderful thing about downvotes is that it's a way of saying "this is irrelevant". Without them, we can only reply to the post itself, which increases the comment count and makes the post appear more active, and potentially more relevant.

Listing the downvoters is a great idea when you don't think about it too deeply. I'd have no problem with my name alongside my downvote for spammers, I'm quite happy to battle with spammers all day long and I can often persuade my boss to pay me for doing so even though the spammers are nowhere near my employer's infrastructure. Other people are averse to conflict, don't want revenge downvotes and would be deterred for that reason alone. Anything which deters valuable participation is to be avoided.

Finally, bear in mind that whoever is doing admin type role for this site can see who is downvoting, they have the info you would like to see published AND the power to do something about any abusive behaviour on site. The only thing you have the power to do when faced with a brigade is to break the same rules and brigade right on back, potentially causing a race to the bottom.

you're working very hard to deliberately miss the point, arguing like a kike.

Just because you check every one does NOT mean you will never be tricked into opening a spam. Nobody has that level of spam detection, not even those of us who have been spam wrangling for a living since the 1990s. Your proposal is to prevent people from marking thye spam posts as irrelevant, you're trying to suppress legitimate criticism. we've come across that sort of behaviour already.

It’s also a part of Voat culture to downvote someone remotely whining about downvotes.

You’d be surprised who reads these threads, sometimes. I’ve seen admin reference some low-view inanity.

Just as the downvote button is not best used as a ‘disagree’ button, the upvote button is not best used as an ‘agree’ button. I’m continually amazed at how frequently users bitch about downvotes yet completely forget the ones pointing the other way.

Thank you for not downvoting.

Downvoats add nothing to the discussion

I beg to differ. When was the last time you accidentally opened a spam ad? When was the last time you accidentally opened one with a score of -10?

Downvotes are speech, they're a way of saying "I think this is not relevant and should really be pushed to the bottom of the conversation".

Well, one way to counter this is to organize ourselves. Some of us are doing this. I'll make a note to upvote your posts when I see them.

Putt designated a few people as 'builders' of Voat - which was interpreted as giving privileges to certain users to the exclusion of others. In the process he came off as a little overworked and even out there. I think it hurt his feelings. Or one would expect it did.

OP is a faggot.

Down voated.

Putt seemed to stop caring months ago after his vote manipulation and 'builders' fiascos. He just washed his hands and said Voat is the Wild West.

Trouble is, in the Wild West the best organized gang wins. And I have a good number of butthurt kids that follow me around. Or fed posters. Or clowns in it for lulz. Or something else.

Part of the motivation for porn posting is even being pissed off about this situation. I think what I'm doing has socially redeeming value - but in a fundamental sense it is rage porn.

I suspect I have a guy that down votes any of my posts he sees, because even the most benign subject gets down voted.

But, you know what? I don't care.

This was discussed plenty of times before. Some other ideas floated around...

• Voating only after commenting

• Voating only from within a thread (not from the subverse page or front)

• Removal of all voating (base popularity on impressions)

• Make downvoat a hide button instead of point removal

ill start.

i downvoated this stupid post.

Downvoting should simply have been abolished in late 2018 when Putt expressed sympathy to the idea to me and then never followed up.

This voting system sucks ass in general though. Endless discussion revolves around its existence and is a waste of life. A traditional fora setup is vastly superior.