This is just a random idea that I wanted to get feedback on.
With Voat, one of the things we struggle with (on the backend) is the mutability of user votes (allowing a user to change previous votes on comments/submissions). When a user can change their vote (up to down or removing a previous vote) we can’t effectively deal with this data until it reaches the “archiving” phase, which is currently three months or 90 days.
If we can effectively “archive” user votes before this time we can do much more within the code base.
The idea is this:
User votes can not be changed after a 24-hour window (time period is variable, but shorter the better). This would mean that once a user has voted on a comment/submission, they are only free to change it within this window. After the 24 hours, it sticks and would be permanent.
What are the cons? How often would this be an issue? How often do you change a previous vote after 24 hours? Etc.
Let me know your thoughts on this.
This sticky will self-unsticky in a few hours.
view the rest of the comments →
DayOfThePillow ago
So long as people can't edit their comments after the same amount of time it makes sense, otherwise you could change a massively upvoated post to something else to give the false impression that was the popular opinion.
andrew_jackson ago
No, this is stupid. If I drunkenly post a story, and then want to redact it later, then I want to redact it later. The goal of voat shouldn't become developing a system of record. This is a chat board.
DayOfThePillow ago
You should still be able to delete it, not saying anything against that.