I feel now would be a good time to go over our preferred method conflict resolution. We feel civil discussion is a *necessary* ability in order to get community consensus.
[Our preferred appeal methods.](https://voat.co/v/videosModTalk/1405328)
If we put up a sticky every time one user was upset, there would always be a sticky, and nobody would read it or care.
@Violentlight said [it more eloquently](https://voat.co/v/videosModTalk/1393397/6776933) than I can.
Also, some have asked about the history of rules here, so I have begun making [a collection of old mod related posts](https://voat.co/v/videosModTalk/1404441). It is still missing some, as they can be hard to find, but much of it is there.
Now, to the point. This sticky is to determine whether spamming smail is considered spamming.
For the past year+ we have never differentiated spam by type. Posts, comments, spam reports, were all treated the same. If it is a user they get warnings followed by temp ban, followed by perma-ban. Bots/adspam gets instant perma-ban.
Smail may be new, but spam reports are not. Nothing about this is new. We have warned many users over it. Many delicate types like to hit the report button when their feeling get hurt. We ask them to stop, then threaten them with a temp-ban. It almost always stops with the warning.
We've never received a complaint over this practice, until yesterday. The banned user is not appealing the ban. He doesn't care.
The community has been misled at times, and issues are conflated, for now we just want to answer the question of whether we continue with the ruleset as it has been, or if we need to change the ban policy.
A couple things to consider:
-No user ever gets caught with a surprise ban. They are always warned, and made to understand before it gets to that point.
-We have banned 'real' users before. I even made a [PV post where I asked them for help](https://voat.co/v/ProtectVoat/1070322)
-Reasons and conversation that leads to a ban can always be found or watched at /v/videosModTalk. Transparency for everything.
-Agenda driven trolls (eg. Spamalak), are persistent and malicious. If we allow them, things will decline. Sure, we can probably ignore one guy. But then we have to allow the hurt feelings, and the next trolls that show up. This removes one of our tools and will affect everyones experience.
A follow-up question, does the length of the temp-bans need to change?
**NOTE: Due to potential abuse, voats do not count for anything. Make a comment to share your opinion. Even if someone else has already said the same thing.**
We will read every comment.
view the rest of the comments →
Cuckbot ago
InnocentBystander ago
We are not ignoring that post. We read every comment in it. It is all being taken into consideration.
We don't rush though.
We are getting additional feedback. Not everyone has had a say, or even seen that anything is going on.
Give it some time. We never let you down in the past did we?
Cuckbot ago
I'm not getting pings again. As long as you take those posts into consideration then. Maybe put that into this post so everyone knows they dont have to repeat themselves because honestly at the minute this reads like its trying to divert from the fact he is banned and a lot of people had a big problem with that.
Violentlight ago
This post decides whether a ban is appropriate or not. We don't make the decisions of this sub. We leave it up to the community. We had been functioning like this for over a year without issue. Since it is an issue now, we bring it to the community. The same thing we asked AOU to do. Simply bring his concerns to the community. Thats what this whole post is. Find out what the community wants done. So we are not trying to divert away from anything. We are trying to put a giant light on it. Giant sign. Asking people to please, please, please, come weigh in. So we know how to move forward with this.
Cuckbot ago
All I can read in the thread is that the user doesn't care about the ban. Its not really clear. @THC said there would be two clear questions presented and that sounded really good. I dunno I have to go but maybe have a talk between yourselves if the questions shouldn't be put at the top and made really clear what you are asking. Please consider asking for more mods as a first step this is Voat and we don't have anywhere else where they don't ban people over things that can be sorted out in other ways. Everyone has dug in here and taken a side but just stop a minute and think that there are other options first.
Violentlight ago
It might seem confusing, because AOU is constantly talking about our definition of spam. But, we tried to make it pretty clear what we wanted to discuss. Don't have a lot of control over the direction some of these discussions go though.
InnocentBystander ago
We want people to repeat themselves.
There has been time for discussion, and for people to look into things. Opinions change.
We also want to have a thread where they know that voats are meaningless. In the last post they may said nothing, because it had been said, so voated instead. But we need to hear from individual users to know what they really think. Voats are easily manipulated.
We're doing our best.
Cuckbot ago
At least a link back to that thread so that people can be informed as much as possible and a note that it will be taken into consideration.
InnocentBystander ago
I'll add a link now.
Cuckbot ago
Thanks even if it doesn't matter now.