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.
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PuttItOut ago
A note about spam reports that is worth stating:
Voat limits a single item from being reported more than once per 12 hours (I think). Also of note is that a single user is also limited to reporting more than a handful (have to look at code) reports in a given period as well.
Both of these measures are to attempt to limit flooding and abuse of this feature.
If this is not working as intended or needs updating we can address that.
Banning a user on a system sub for spam reports, as defined by Voat, should not be done.
As many have already guessed, we want to be involved as little as possible, in the hopes that our community can discuss and resolve such issues on their own without admin hand holding. We are watching this dialogue play out and considering both sides as objectively as possible.
A point worth noting, when we act on a system sub we have a history of purging mods.
PM_ME_YOUR_ARCHES ago
If the mods of default subverses have to stick strictly to a ruleset designed for default subverses, why have mods?
Would it not be easier to make all of them into janitors or css mods? Because if this example is anything to go by, that's all they are.
PuttItOut ago
I have no input on rules of system subs.
My comment was entirely directed at the fact that a user was banned for reporting spam that is (apparently) inline with what Voat considers spam.
This specific situation (banning a user for spam reports) should not happen on a system sub. It's petty.
I have no comment on what a sub considers spam, that is for the community to decide and I didn't comment on this subject.
PM_ME_YOUR_ARCHES ago
The user in question posted examples of what he was reporting as spam, and some of them were actually not spam at all. Example.
Perhaps there should be a way to stop or temporarily stop users from reporting spam if the reporting system is being abused. I myself have done this to annoy other mods on subs I have modded.