After the first Open Thread last week, we would like to keep experimenting with this weekly discussion format, so here you go.
The purpose of this thread is simple: to let you discuss anything and everything that, as per the rules of this subverse, wouldn't be allowed in submission form. This is an experiment with giving the community back some of its freedoms inherently lost in the approach of maintaining a strictly investigative environment, all the while maintaining that environment outside of the Open Thread.
Seize this opportunity to ask the community your most pressing questions, discuss meta strategies, or absolutely anything that the community is interested in.
Comments will be moderated according to the very liberal rule (3) of the Moderator Rules. Beyond that, this thread should be self-moderated by the community using votes.
One relevant issue that was recently brought to our attention and we would like to address is that the Submission Removal Log only goes back about eight days, depending on how heavy the traffic is. People have been concerned that some removed submissions that would otherwise provide good content for another subverse such as /v/pizzagatewhatever are never resubmitted by their original authors and, as a result, lost forever. Fortunately, this is not the case. While the log itself doesn't go back beyond 20 pages, submissions deleted earlier than the last log entry are not wiped from Voat's database, they can still be accessed if one has the link to them. Therefore, the best way to find your way back to a submission like this is by bookmarking it while it's still accessible. There is also nothing stopping you from submitting the link to one of these deleted posts on another subverse, archiving their content, or a combination of both.
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VieBleu ago
I am glad there is a place I can put this
I just want to say that just recently, like only the last few days, this subverse at Voat seems to be working well finally. The stories on the front page are just tearing it up, one after another great posts. The moderation seems to be settled in to something that works and I just am not seeing the crazy shill army attacks, bots, discrediting attacks and massive misinfo stuff just now. Usually it is a calm between storms but it is so good to be able to use the forum when it is working like this. There is still some shillery and misinfo of course, but more of a normal amount. And the really unsavory mods don't seem to be around trolling us anymore
So whatever happened, whether it was the new CEO and his house cleaning, or just the plain endurance a lot of the good commentors here have shown, just wearing the shills down and upping our game week by week, or a combo and more, - hooray.
wecanhelp ago
Thank you, it is especially good to hear this from someone like you who's been often in conflict with the mods.
For what it's worth, two of our moderators (Phobos_Mothership and gopluckyourself) are gone, and two very promising new moderators (abortionburger and sensitive) have come on board. I think this is at least partially responsible for what you're experiencing, but if you have some further input on what you believe works differently and better now than before, I'd be interested to hear.
I'm sure this is, as you've said, a calm between storms in many aspects, but a storm usually means we've hit a sensitive spot, so those shouldn't be feared too much either.
VieBleu ago
ha thanks for asking.
For the record, I am not "often in conflict with the mods", I have never had a problem with a submission deletion or the usual moderation issues BUT I take a hard line on lax mods that tolerate and even facilitate public doxxing with calls for harrassment, vigilante justice and violence and obvious shilling posts against minority groups to discredit the work here. Then yes, I am not afraid to tango because what is going on here is too important. The two mods I especially appreciate being missing in action are the only two I ever went to the mat with and they were KevDude and Crensch - if you enjoy racebaiting and hate, you'll especially be missing that one. KevDude btw took the teeth out of our sidebar no doxing rule when he rewrote the rules and prevaricated that it only applied to forum members, and the public was fair game. I went as far as I could with that one to VictorSteinerDavison and we never fought at all, but we did discuss. After a period of time our sidebar was reposted with doxing against the rules, presumably all doxing. So VSD if you prevailed with your own stated prefernces there that I supported, I thank you for that too. I have no problem with total free speech forums, I just don't think that format serves the interest specifically of the specific pizzagate subverse as I have said many times.
Long story short, I wear the comment Crensch made about me to "warn" mods about me like a shiny badge of honor on my bio here.
lol makes me laugh every time. The only issues that mod keeps hitting are very much his own.
Now that's the history and hopefully it will be put to bed once and for all, as things are looking up here. Good idea for the open thread overall, also helps things work better. VB💎
wecanhelp ago
Thanks for the input. For what it's worth, Crensch is not gone, and the philosophy that he and kevdude stand for are largely represented in the current mod team as well. You're saying:
But we shouldn't forget that the Pizzagate research community is a guest of the larger Voat community, and not the other way around. Voat has been good to us, unlike Reddit, and we should respect its philosophy in return that puts free speech above everything else, as long as that doesn't mean illegal activity. As far as doxxing goes, Voat users are anonymous by default, and sharing information about them, even publicly available, should always considered doxxing. Now when it comes to entities with their identities unhidden, publicly available information about those entities will not be considered doxxing, since it's out in the open, and it's a simple matter of connecting two freely available dots. When sharing information and practicing free speech turns into a criminal act, we delete and ban for that, and we always will. It is just that, as long as no illegal activity has been implied, we stay out of it, and encourage the community itself to self-moderate. As a user, I will downvote vigilante justice and violence in the comments, trusting that if enough people do, it becomes a non-issue. But as a mod, I will not touch it. Hope that makes sense. We're not aiming to re-discuss this or change this practice, I just tried to explain and hopefully reassure you that supporting free speech shouldn't be interpreted as everything goes.
VieBleu ago
thanks for your response. I didn't think Crensch was gone, I said he was missing in action here - that's good enough for me lol.
I have been on highly controversial topic forums in the past, and learned, when you want to win over public opinion, it is better to moderate heavily in terms of racism, hate speech whatever. If you don't those minority posts get used as representative of the whole effort by bad actors. It does not endanger the entirety of free speech to have specialized forums once in awhile that for common sense reasons have a stricter policy as a shield against bad public relations. I don't expect you to agree at all, just trying to make myself clear. It is working here pretty well the way you guys are doing it, so hopefully that will just continue on. : )
The specific doxing I had an issue with was a person in real estate, not necessarily a "public person" but the office number of course was online as well as personal cell phone. The real problem was that the dox post specifically called for voaters to harrass the woman and "ruin their life a little". I don't think that doxxing and harrassment together in one comment should stand. But it did. So what I was doing as you state in your answer above is "self-moderating" as part of the community, but I got roundly abused for it by the two mentioned. They'd prefer to rain down abuse than actually discuss. So that's that I hope. If I talk about this those two find me and start abusing or insulting me in comments later on. We'll see if that happens again. It's as though on this great free speech forum, I am not supposed to talk about the specifics of how these things went down. we'll see. I'd prefer to look forward but if it is going to be brought up, I'm going to make sure my side is represented.
wecanhelp ago
I remember that one, and it was a tough call, I'm not sure I agree with how that was handled personally, but as long as we're on Voat, I will try and err on the side of free speech, too, and I'm not saying I (or any other mod, for that matter) will never make a bad call by doing that. On another platform, I would probably agree with you, and moderate more aggressively just to stay safe. Here, even what we do now is seen as too aggressive, and we try to respect that, while juggling a lot of interests. Anyway, glad we at least talked about this.
VieBleu ago
yeah, thanks! a reasonable talk about this is a big step forward. So I'd like to ask that you reconsider defining me both in writing and in your head as someone who has conflicts with mods often. That is not accurate at all. C and KD only and then they put that misinformation out re me. But watch out! even sounding reasonable I MAY be seducing you into "issues"
see what I mean? too funny.
wecanhelp ago
I've based that remark on my own observations of your behavior, I've seen you act frustratedly and provocatively more often than not lately. With that said, this dialog will certainly warrant an update of that mental model in my head. Hope to keep this attitude up.
VieBleu ago
omg well if you have time you should give me an example, because I have had no conversations with mods at all that come to mind in the recent past - maybe you are talking about being provocative with percieved shills? Yes I am a fighter on that front.
I think you are being nice, but I have to say, my attitude isn't different. At all. So there is a disconnect somewhere. Feel free to expound if you feel like it, even later. This stuff can get tedious I know. I just am surprised as I never complain about posts being removed even of others, or most decision of the mods really - only the instances I cited. If I am wrong, happy to hear about it.
"I've seen you act frustratedly" - I've just been posting and commenting. really don't understand this.
wecanhelp ago
I apologize if my memory is not serving me perfectly. I know I saw you acting provocatively, but I'm not gonna say it was always towards mods. I know you've had some beef with mods, though, that will probably be what you've mentioned yourself, and I probably have a mixture of these two impressions of you in my head. Hope that makes sense.
VieBleu ago
must be, cause I haven't had anything provocative go on at all since I took the doxxing/harrassment stuff straight to the top with VictorSD. I have a good reputation with sincere denizens here for good reasons. thanks for your reply and here's to good vibes.