Yesterday, after this debacle, I added a rule about Comment Abuse for the sake of clarity.
The Voat User Agreement requires us all to Respect Other Users, both their privacy and their freedom of speech. People who work hard on their research submissions shouldn't have their work overshadowed, their free speech suppressed, and the discussion of their submission derailed by off-topic rants, flame wars or copypasta spam in the Comment section. It's not right.
This has actually been in place for several months under Voat's Sitewide Rules. If you check the banlog, you will see that Putt added the Voat User Agreement to the rule violations list moderators can cite some time ago, and Donkey and his many alts were banned for comment abuse under that -- at the request of multiple users -- after he impersonated another user to discredit her research. TrustTheTruth was also banned for comment abuse under the Voat UA spam clause because he spammed the same longwinded, evidence-free rants over and over again, regardless of the submission topic.
It's now spelled out in our sidebar. Thoughts?
Edit: Link to banlog fixed.
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shewhomustbeobeyed ago
This is silly. All this over a mistake. Are you going to drop this rule?
Do you remember when I shitted up that post that neonrevolting tried to hijack? That was resubmitted without the drama. Neon stayed away, and I stayed away.
There are already ways submitters can censor the comments in their own posts without mods censoring users free speech.
Vindicator ago
Sure. If the majority of regular contributors don't want it. I disagree that it's silly or that it's "all over a mistake". This has been an issue for a very, very long time, one that the physical platform previously offered no mechanism to address. With the addition of the User Agreement to the ban and removal interfaces, it now becomes possible and should be discussed.
I do indeed. @Darkknight111's work was completely trashed, his meme campaign momentum was lost, and several of us had to deal with an inbox blizzard. He was ultimately forced to delete his post and resubmit it -- losing any relevant comments and all the original momentum. This would prevent exactly that kind of shitstorm from overtaking people's hard work in the future.
Also, Neon did not "stay away". He was downvoted into the negatives by an organized vote brigade, which permanently disabled his account when DK self-deleted.
This is an interesting observation. Unfortunately, the only way a submitter can censor comments is to self delete the entire submission (a huge, demoralizing act of self-censorship of real, evidence based content), and even that doesn't work if they have been marked for targeting, as @argosciv was by ES and his sock puppet brigade.
Perhaps, as someone who does not contribute content and only participates by commenting in other people's submissions, this seems like a fair sacrifice to you. Try looking at it from the OP's point of view.
Why can't users who want free speech just make their own submission?
YogSoggoth ago
You want me to be submissive? I don't think you realize what you are asking for Vinny.
Vindicator ago
I don't think there is a single user in v/pg I would say is "submissive", LOL.
YogSoggoth ago
There is your answer Vin. You seen this? https://www.bitchute.com/video/drx40SFDuWtq/
Vindicator ago
Good Lord. What opera is that? That's insane.
Greta's mom is the proverbial kikeshill, eh? Why am I not surprised.
I also noticed yesterday when I saw part of her "speech" that Greta has a pretty accomplished resting bitch face, too. Very sad.
YogSoggoth ago
There might be more to that, but it is only a suspicion on my part.
Vindicator ago
Did you notice I got two downvotes for replying to you? Yeah...that's totally organic. Uh huh.
argosciv ago
They're coming in within minutes, disproportionate to the number of people pinged/replied to lol.
Apparently this submission is still undulating with life and prying eyes.