They literally downvoated @Coors_Nationalist to the point where he can't vote, post, or comment. Who is the real censor? The guy who has a sub for a specific Minecraft server and doesn't want his sub filled with off topic garbage? Or the people who take away his ability to use the website? @PuttItOut, this is a problem I've touched on over the years. If someone isn't a spammer but just isn't liked or has "the wrong opinions" they are prevented from using the site.
Possible solution: an appeal process where someone downvoated to oblivion can have their site privileges returned to them.
This is an issue, it is an exploit in our system. I've never once denied this.
Sub owners should run their subs how they want. But then Voat users should vote how they want. See the problem? Which group are you going to target?
How I see it: 90%+ of these cases involve someone conducting themselves in a fashion incompatible with Voat's principles, or they are hostile and prideful in their conduct/communication. Both scenarios indicate an unwise person.
It would be ideal if Voat lived and let live, but that will never happen because Voat is filled with people that test and abuse in order to claim a trespass. Voat is right in the end though... Those with incompatible principles never assimilate. In this way I'm proud, but I do wish Voat was more measured in their response rather than going nuclear immediately. This drastic attack based response is a sign of immaturity on the part of Voat and actually works against Voat in the end. I wish Voat was wise enough to see this perspective.
Pretty sure @stonetoss took off because of a similar situation.
Thanks for the quick response. I understand both sides and see your dilemma. @stonetoss is a good guy. Chasing people like him away is not good for voat. I understand people attacking a powermod of a sub that is used for a more general purpose, but when someone has a personal subverse like this, the freedom to moderate how they see fit should be more important. I know you probably won't have any solution anytime soon, but thanks for acknowledging the issue. I don't think voat will be able to ever grow much without this being addressed.
This is exactly why Voat hasn't grown. Voat is its own worst enemy, we just don't acknowledge it.
There is no solution from where I stand as any solution will remove freedoms from one party.
This is ultimately the issue with all public goods... How can you offer freedom without limiting it?
I obviously do not have a solution, but this scenario is the root of all Voat's problems as a community. We solve this, or grow past it as a whole, we would be unstoppable.
the motivation behind this, (though I won't deny people do this for fun), is basically as follows;
Ugh you showed your true colors there. It isn’t yours and it never will be. You as a creator and moderator should allow your ego to admit that the sub belongs to its members.
it's intended to provoke a reaction. Assumedly the mod will just ignore people making fun of him, the users of the sub will downvoat unrelated or unwanted content and everyone moves on, but what happened was the mod deleted the post and various comments and banned people just for making fun of him. If he'll delete posts and comments just because random people on the internet make fun of him, who's to say he won't censor other content he doesn't like?
If the users of his sub could deal with any issues of such nature themselves there'd be little or at least less motivation for any sort of watchdog-esque group to step in on their behalf or out of their concern. Rather than letting power mods run subs how they want, give users the tools to be sure the mods run the subverse they want to use. Users get the subs they want, and mods get punished if they abuse the moderation tools they're trusted with.
Doing this would negate the necessity of the original motivation that kicked this whole, and similar, fiascos off.
But this is a niche sub. It should be allowed to govern itself in any way it sees fit. And that includes removing content that is purposefully malicious.
Voat's promise is that we won't ban (harm) users from the entire site over speech, but this doesn't work for small niche subs. Standards are good. Shit posts are noise.
Voat's promise is that we won't ban (harm) users from the entire site over speech
Yet, essentially a portion of the Voat user base made the site nearly unusable for this coors kid. So the next step is to let the pitchfork and torch crowd have more power!
This place is strange yet awesome.
...
Maybe some day, Voat will transition to a more republican philosophy.
actually i said it should be based on subverse CPP so the power is in the hands of the actual users of the subverse rather than exclusively in the mods, v/protectvoat is basically users of the site in general trying to rein in the mods of the whole site, if there was a reliable option for users of a specific subverse to deal with potential problems after they occur you wouldn't see people trying to deal with potential problems before they occur
I can solve this issue but it opens the door to other evils
Sounds ominous. You’re better off just letting the rabble continue to rabble. There has to be some slight uptick in growth, no? Or maybe we lost a bunch of Aussies and Kiwis and that is not helping.
Can someone explain to me why @Rainy-Day-Dream keeps harping about Voat Votes? As if this great idea hasn’t been in development/development hell for something like two years?
While I have you, on a scale of 1-10, how pissed is our anal going to be when I deface their advertisement?
basically how I see it is currently the inmates at large are running the whole asylum, whenever a warden steps out of line at all they riot and immediately try to kill him, even if he's only recently been hired. This has led to an all time low of inmate abuse relative to other asylums the inmates were transferred in from, but the asylum itself isn't functioning very well in a lot of ways.
so what I propose is that each individual ward be run only by the inmates in it, and they be given a legal recourse to deal with mistreatment so they don't immediately try to resort to violence.
cleaning up spam is one thing, but generally deciding what content shows up on the front of the subverse is what the voating system is for not what mod deletions and bans are for. The users of the subverse should have whatever subverse they want, the mods are just there to clean it up for them. The users own the sub and the community, the mod is just their volunteer janitor, who they should be able to dismiss if he does his job improperly to their standards.
non of them imo, i think people would've just downvoated them, then it's outta site outta mind. No need for the mod to get involved, tell me if you honestly feel people should be banned from the subverse just for making fun of the guy in charge of it
is making fun of someone looking for a fight? it'd be hard to get by on the internet without a tolerance for banter. When this subverse got populated if the users poked fun at or disagreed with their mod, would that also be "looking for a fight"? these are the kind concerns that motivate the behavior on v/protectvoat, which would be unnessecary if the users could deal with the mod causing any problems on their own.
I'm not saying v/protectvoat is a good solution to dealing with or in this case preventing power mods, but it's the one we have until you provide us with alternative measures. Remember that people ended up on voat because of the way admins and mods on reddit ran roughshod over them and abused them and they had no recourse to stop them besides leaving. People here are paranoid about the way mods act in their position as mods, but it's not as if they don't have a good reason to worry about it.
the "abuse" was basically someone fishing for censorship though, and the did find it as people were banned outright just for making fun of the mod and commenting on his behavior. I'm defending their intentions more than I am their actions, because if you provide another avenue for users to act of those intentions they won't need to undertake the actions in question which are the abuse you're rightly concerned with.
Treat the disease rather than the symptoms and the disease in this situation and many similar instances is concern about potential power mod behavior and censorship, which is a concern that can be dealt with and acted upon in better ways than it was today if you give people the ability to do so.
right and I'm not asking you to side with either, side instead with the users potential or otherwise of subverses to come so this doesn't happen again. Give them the power to deal with any problems their mods may or do cause and then people won't have to worry about it, taking the wind out of the sails of the occasionally justified paranoia that caused all of this avoiding the conflict all together in the future. Once power mods aren't something to worry about people won't have a motivation to abuse mods to check whether or not they are such anymore, because even if they end up being such the users will be able to handle it with no outside intervention preemptive or otherwise so once this is the case they'll be a lot less likely to bother stirring up trouble like this. I'm not taking so much about which side is right or wrong or more at fault as how we can avoid the problem all together going forward.
Boss what I said wasn’t a shit test or to provoke a reaction. It was the truth. I deleted very little in my time as a moderator and only one person.
Sanegoatiswear which I think you and I can agree on needed it.
The subs are never the creators and always the subscribers which is something atko made clear the day he told us all to make subverses.
My feelings are and have always been that when someone begins to delete comments and ban people it deserves to be called out, and even I was, but I was found right in the discourse of public opinion.
This was a brand new sub, less than a day old. There is no community in which to speak. It's a niche sub for a particularly narrow purpose and target audience. It has every right to remove shit posts imo. Having standards is not censorship, posting off topic content is an abuse of the principals we hold.
You wouldn't stand for this in real life. Build a park for your kids to play. Post a sign letting the community know its for everyone's enjoyment. Now the homeless move in. Tent city. Trash everywhere. Can't remove them or it would violate your values, right? What happens to the park? Who would let their kids play there? How would you solve this? Creating rules? Enforcing rules? Standards are real. They matter.
Tell me where I'm wrong.
Better yet, go create a sub with good intentions. I'll destroy whatever chances you have to create something of value and claim it's Free Speech. I can do it to you too while hiding behind the protections of Free Speech.
You have a point in concerns to established subs and new mods, but this is quite different considering, don't you think?
I don't love your example of the park, because there are many existing laws that wouldn't allow the exact use you are describing. If the park is truly for anyone's use, with no other governing rules, then you'd be a foolish idealist to think children could play there. Free speech is kind of the same thing. It's going to attract the best and the worst, but certainly not the casuals.
This guy specifically went wrong when he started being ban happy on comments moreso than any posts (in my own opinion). Voat seems to be of the opinion that comments should be left alone in non-private subs, and the community should up/down vote them for ranking. I personally like this philosophy, though it isn't an official rule.
I offered this gentleman my own opinion, that he should leave comments alone or he would get destroyed by the response. He deleted that comment.
I guess we have fundamentally different viewpoints, since I don't feel like we have to grow, and you'd likely prefer that we did (which is perfectly reasonably).
I'll give you that the park example isn't a direct match, but it does have similarities.
I don't feel like we have to grow
And here is the issue. I feel that Voat doesn't want to expand and acts accordingly. My view is that truth must have as many eyes on it as possible. I got involved with Voat to make the world a better place by promising not to censor the inconvenient aspects of humanity and evil. We can't change the world if we run everyone off. We expect people to be wise and mature as soon as they arrive, this is an unrealistic expectation.
I also lack knowledge of the comment deletions. All I can say is when Voat targets you, most people react by going nuclear. Doesn't make it right, but humans react this way by default.
As much as I respect you, I don't often envy you. A bit of the old "heavy lies the crown" comes to mind.
I think at some point YOU have to draw a clear line about whether a niche sub has to be private if the mods want to be heavy-handed. And honestly, as you already said, the community doesn't have to respect that, unless you start removing more voting freedoms as well. That will obviously set off a cascading effect of censorship and bans until we might as well be Reddit.
It also begs the question, is Voat (a place seemingly dedicated to freedom of expression) an appropriate place for niche and hobby subs? And who has to compromise if it is?
I was a huge fan of /u/LockeProposal and /v/HistoryAnecdotes which was well established and frequented when it was run off using similar tactics. This question is not a new one. I originally lamented losing that sub, but I've actually come around to the idea that free expression is supposed to be the defining feature.
Maybe the recent banning of that pedophile we were all happy to see leave has hardened your resolve to tackle some of these sticky issues. That was also a very difficult and grey area. I'm happy in this case, but we all now see the potential for anyone to be banned.
Sorry for rambling a little. I think your non-interventionist approach has been great so far, but you may need to make a clear rule on this issue at some point. Can public subs have extremely heavy handed mods who ban you for personal reasons? SBBH and its offshoots all do this (mostly as a joke, but they still do it) all the time.
Well I unbanned that user and they immediately went back to their unwanted behavior. No one wants their content and they do it on purpose. How would you handle this?
If you have no standards, you get abuse. The problem with Voat is the exact opposite of Reddit, just an extreme in the opposite direction.
There is an unfortunate side effect to standing up for principles. You will always end up defending the fringe people who you don't actually like or agree with.
I think I would maybe just blanket ban pictures or drawings of children. I'm sure this would spark a shitposting war over what actually qualified as a drawing of a child, and destroy and fracture the place. I really wish I could offer a simple solution.
Aside from that specific user, I still think you should narrowly define the difference between a system sub, a public sub, and a private sub. Public/private do not necessarily need to be completely standard-free, but we need a clear ruling. The feeling right now is that all public subs are basically system subs, and mods should only delete malicious content/spam.
I feel that Voat doesn't want to expand and acts accordingly.
I'm more concerned with the kind of people on the site, rather than how many of them there are. That's why more tools for users to oust undesirables and control their own community would act as a filter to select for quality
We expect people to be wise and mature as soon as they arrive
most people end up here because the admins on reddit deleted the things they post and banned them, all were asking for is that when people come here they don't treat those here like the admins of reddit treated them
I don't have a lot of faith in assimilation personally, but teaching also takes those willing to listen and if this minecraft guy had his listening ears on he might've stopped making bad moves and provoking more bad reactions at an earlier point. Understanding takes trust, and trust requires insurance in case the trust is betrayed.
true, but decisions you make under that kind of duress are made in the moment and are very primal, and the way one acts when they don't spend much time thinking through or planning their actions ahead of time in many ways can be said to be closer than our inherent nature as a person. It can't always be said that the way we present ourselves is who we truly are, but the way we are when caught unpresentable can often be very honest.
I mill lowers out on the regular. Same with glock gen 3s on the 80% kits.
If you are within USA I suggest CBC industries and Sanders Armory.
When I get enough cash I will mill one of my AR10 lowers and make me a serious reach out and touchem gun. We will have constitutional carry here in Oklahoma Nov 1st, and this white one will be my carry gun.
I have found that an AR15 that is not black or FDE isn’t seen as frightening to people.
This is the wives and people are actually very receptive to it and don’t see it as scary as mine.
it was a brand new sub now, but it wouldn't always remain that way and it it grew into a problem later it would've been harder to deal with. The site is full of conspiracy theorists are you honestly expecting people not to be paranoid and not to jump at shadows that spark their paranoia?
right, but the mod should govern with the consent of the users. The mods shouldn't be the ones who decide the "way it sees fit" for the whole community, at least not without the input and oversight of their userbase
That's a brand new sub that someone decided to 'test' right away, and the mod saw his excitement shit on and deleted it. Who wouldn't feel this way?
I see your point concerning large subs but isn't this different? Who is the community in this scenario? And isn't this the opposite of a power mod... Isn't this a mod that is undersiege by the community?
And forgive me if I'm getting the details wrong. Correct me if I'm mistaken.
right, but the impetus to do so is concern that the mod will go on to act like a power mod. If the users of the sub could depose him themselves this would be a needless concern. Give the users of the sub more power and power modding will be beneath concern and thus easier to ignore. I'm not saying what happens on v/protectvoat or the results of such is right, I'm talking specifically about the main or at least the most justifiable motivations behind it.
People don't want power mods abusing the mod tools here.
What I'm asking for would address the underlying concern, thus removing the cause itself so we won't need to worry anymore about the effect in this cause effect scenario. users of v/protectvoat act the way they do to prevent power mods, if the users had power over their mods then power mods will be dealt with internally by the subverse, thus no one will need to be as concerned by mod behavior, thus actions predicated on this concern and the problems those actions cause will be overwhelmingly less likely
This particular situation reminds me of a child who puts their finger in someone face and repeats "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you." then gets punched. Who caused it?
We can all be better. Even me. That's how life works.
Voat changed me greatly, but it took a while for me to learn my faults. So it is with each of us.
I wonder what would have happened if I was run off when I first came to Voat as a user? There wouldn't be a Voat today. This is perhaps why we should be a little more understanding.
it would be easier to be understanding if there was less risk in doing so, we gave mods on reddit the benefit of the doubt and when that turned out poorly. If you want us to trust people in similar positions now give the people here a way to deal with them if "being understanding" doesn't work out again
as long as the other kid can punch back they'll sort it out themselves, and that's basically what happened here the annoying kid punched a lot harder though. I'm asking for you to give them a better way to solve their disputes so they'll stop hurting each other.
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dtaraasdfasdf ago
why dont you just wait until the pv goon squad doesnt like what they do, then lie about them, then downvoat brigade them to nothing?
That the protectvoat way @puttitout
oiseaulibre ago
They literally downvoated @Coors_Nationalist to the point where he can't vote, post, or comment. Who is the real censor? The guy who has a sub for a specific Minecraft server and doesn't want his sub filled with off topic garbage? Or the people who take away his ability to use the website? @PuttItOut, this is a problem I've touched on over the years. If someone isn't a spammer but just isn't liked or has "the wrong opinions" they are prevented from using the site.
Possible solution: an appeal process where someone downvoated to oblivion can have their site privileges returned to them.
PuttItOut ago
This is an issue, it is an exploit in our system. I've never once denied this.
Sub owners should run their subs how they want. But then Voat users should vote how they want. See the problem? Which group are you going to target?
How I see it: 90%+ of these cases involve someone conducting themselves in a fashion incompatible with Voat's principles, or they are hostile and prideful in their conduct/communication. Both scenarios indicate an unwise person.
It would be ideal if Voat lived and let live, but that will never happen because Voat is filled with people that test and abuse in order to claim a trespass. Voat is right in the end though... Those with incompatible principles never assimilate. In this way I'm proud, but I do wish Voat was more measured in their response rather than going nuclear immediately. This drastic attack based response is a sign of immaturity on the part of Voat and actually works against Voat in the end. I wish Voat was wise enough to see this perspective.
Pretty sure @stonetoss took off because of a similar situation.
oiseaulibre ago
Thanks for the quick response. I understand both sides and see your dilemma. @stonetoss is a good guy. Chasing people like him away is not good for voat. I understand people attacking a powermod of a sub that is used for a more general purpose, but when someone has a personal subverse like this, the freedom to moderate how they see fit should be more important. I know you probably won't have any solution anytime soon, but thanks for acknowledging the issue. I don't think voat will be able to ever grow much without this being addressed.
PuttItOut ago
This is exactly why Voat hasn't grown. Voat is its own worst enemy, we just don't acknowledge it.
There is no solution from where I stand as any solution will remove freedoms from one party.
This is ultimately the issue with all public goods... How can you offer freedom without limiting it?
I obviously do not have a solution, but this scenario is the root of all Voat's problems as a community. We solve this, or grow past it as a whole, we would be unstoppable.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
the solution is giving users a means to oppose power mods themselves thus making them the constituents of their favorite subverses
PuttItOut ago
We will have this shortly, but how would have this feature solve this current issue?
Isn't this about a private subverse who's mod deleted something designed to be deleted by the author for the purpose of creating this exact situation?
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
basically what happened here at least as I understand this, is a user posted what could be described as a shit test.
https://voat.co/v/MillionDollarCraft/3126979
the motivation behind this, (though I won't deny people do this for fun), is basically as follows;
it's intended to provoke a reaction. Assumedly the mod will just ignore people making fun of him, the users of the sub will downvoat unrelated or unwanted content and everyone moves on, but what happened was the mod deleted the post and various comments and banned people just for making fun of him. If he'll delete posts and comments just because random people on the internet make fun of him, who's to say he won't censor other content he doesn't like?
If the users of his sub could deal with any issues of such nature themselves there'd be little or at least less motivation for any sort of watchdog-esque group to step in on their behalf or out of their concern. Rather than letting power mods run subs how they want, give users the tools to be sure the mods run the subverse they want to use. Users get the subs they want, and mods get punished if they abuse the moderation tools they're trusted with.
Doing this would negate the necessity of the original motivation that kicked this whole, and similar, fiascos off.
PuttItOut ago
But this is a niche sub. It should be allowed to govern itself in any way it sees fit. And that includes removing content that is purposefully malicious.
Voat's promise is that we won't ban (harm) users from the entire site over speech, but this doesn't work for small niche subs. Standards are good. Shit posts are noise.
I made my v/BestSubInHistoryEver authorized only for this very reason.
heygeorge ago
Yet, essentially a portion of the Voat user base made the site nearly unusable for this coors kid. So the next step is to let the pitchfork and torch crowd have more power!
This place is strange yet awesome.
...
Maybe some day, Voat will transition to a more republican philosophy.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
actually i said it should be based on subverse CPP so the power is in the hands of the actual users of the subverse rather than exclusively in the mods, v/protectvoat is basically users of the site in general trying to rein in the mods of the whole site, if there was a reliable option for users of a specific subverse to deal with potential problems after they occur you wouldn't see people trying to deal with potential problems before they occur
PuttItOut ago
Voat has long been a science experiment to me.
I can solve this issue but it opens the door to other evils of which I don't know which is worse.
heygeorge ago
Sounds ominous. You’re better off just letting the rabble continue to rabble. There has to be some slight uptick in growth, no? Or maybe we lost a bunch of Aussies and Kiwis and that is not helping.
Can someone explain to me why @Rainy-Day-Dream keeps harping about Voat Votes? As if this great idea hasn’t been in development/development hell for something like two years?
While I have you, on a scale of 1-10, how pissed is our anal going to be when I deface their advertisement?
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
basically how I see it is currently the inmates at large are running the whole asylum, whenever a warden steps out of line at all they riot and immediately try to kill him, even if he's only recently been hired. This has led to an all time low of inmate abuse relative to other asylums the inmates were transferred in from, but the asylum itself isn't functioning very well in a lot of ways.
so what I propose is that each individual ward be run only by the inmates in it, and they be given a legal recourse to deal with mistreatment so they don't immediately try to resort to violence.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
cleaning up spam is one thing, but generally deciding what content shows up on the front of the subverse is what the voating system is for not what mod deletions and bans are for. The users of the subverse should have whatever subverse they want, the mods are just there to clean it up for them. The users own the sub and the community, the mod is just their volunteer janitor, who they should be able to dismiss if he does his job improperly to their standards.
PuttItOut ago
https://voat.co/v/MillionDollarCraft/modlog/submission
Tell me honestly if you feel any of those submissions deserve not to be deleted.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
non of them imo, i think people would've just downvoated them, then it's outta site outta mind. No need for the mod to get involved, tell me if you honestly feel people should be banned from the subverse just for making fun of the guy in charge of it
PuttItOut ago
Abuse is abuse. I have zero sympathy for a guy looking for a fight being knocked out.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
is making fun of someone looking for a fight? it'd be hard to get by on the internet without a tolerance for banter. When this subverse got populated if the users poked fun at or disagreed with their mod, would that also be "looking for a fight"? these are the kind concerns that motivate the behavior on v/protectvoat, which would be unnessecary if the users could deal with the mod causing any problems on their own.
I'm not saying v/protectvoat is a good solution to dealing with or in this case preventing power mods, but it's the one we have until you provide us with alternative measures. Remember that people ended up on voat because of the way admins and mods on reddit ran roughshod over them and abused them and they had no recourse to stop them besides leaving. People here are paranoid about the way mods act in their position as mods, but it's not as if they don't have a good reason to worry about it.
PuttItOut ago
I understand your point.
This situation is a bit different though. As I see it, this is about abuse, not censorship. A distinction has to be drawn somewhere.
It is truly 'noid' behavior.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
the "abuse" was basically someone fishing for censorship though, and the did find it as people were banned outright just for making fun of the mod and commenting on his behavior. I'm defending their intentions more than I am their actions, because if you provide another avenue for users to act of those intentions they won't need to undertake the actions in question which are the abuse you're rightly concerned with.
Treat the disease rather than the symptoms and the disease in this situation and many similar instances is concern about potential power mod behavior and censorship, which is a concern that can be dealt with and acted upon in better ways than it was today if you give people the ability to do so.
PuttItOut ago
Exactly… someone looking for a fight. Seek and you shall find.
And it was a minecraft subverse. Come on, let's get real here. Mine. Craft.
It doesn't make one party right and the other wrong, it makes both parties at fault.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
right and I'm not asking you to side with either, side instead with the users potential or otherwise of subverses to come so this doesn't happen again. Give them the power to deal with any problems their mods may or do cause and then people won't have to worry about it, taking the wind out of the sails of the occasionally justified paranoia that caused all of this avoiding the conflict all together in the future. Once power mods aren't something to worry about people won't have a motivation to abuse mods to check whether or not they are such anymore, because even if they end up being such the users will be able to handle it with no outside intervention preemptive or otherwise so once this is the case they'll be a lot less likely to bother stirring up trouble like this. I'm not taking so much about which side is right or wrong or more at fault as how we can avoid the problem all together going forward.
AR47 ago
Boss what I said wasn’t a shit test or to provoke a reaction. It was the truth. I deleted very little in my time as a moderator and only one person.
Sanegoatiswear which I think you and I can agree on needed it.
The subs are never the creators and always the subscribers which is something atko made clear the day he told us all to make subverses.
My feelings are and have always been that when someone begins to delete comments and ban people it deserves to be called out, and even I was, but I was found right in the discourse of public opinion.
PuttItOut ago
This was a brand new sub, less than a day old. There is no community in which to speak. It's a niche sub for a particularly narrow purpose and target audience. It has every right to remove shit posts imo. Having standards is not censorship, posting off topic content is an abuse of the principals we hold.
You wouldn't stand for this in real life. Build a park for your kids to play. Post a sign letting the community know its for everyone's enjoyment. Now the homeless move in. Tent city. Trash everywhere. Can't remove them or it would violate your values, right? What happens to the park? Who would let their kids play there? How would you solve this? Creating rules? Enforcing rules? Standards are real. They matter.
Tell me where I'm wrong.
Better yet, go create a sub with good intentions. I'll destroy whatever chances you have to create something of value and claim it's Free Speech. I can do it to you too while hiding behind the protections of Free Speech.
You have a point in concerns to established subs and new mods, but this is quite different considering, don't you think?
AR47 ago
I think that this is your house and you make the rules, and set the standard.
As well as expected behavior.
Good to know.
MinorLeakage ago
I don't love your example of the park, because there are many existing laws that wouldn't allow the exact use you are describing. If the park is truly for anyone's use, with no other governing rules, then you'd be a foolish idealist to think children could play there. Free speech is kind of the same thing. It's going to attract the best and the worst, but certainly not the casuals.
This guy specifically went wrong when he started being ban happy on comments moreso than any posts (in my own opinion). Voat seems to be of the opinion that comments should be left alone in non-private subs, and the community should up/down vote them for ranking. I personally like this philosophy, though it isn't an official rule.
I offered this gentleman my own opinion, that he should leave comments alone or he would get destroyed by the response. He deleted that comment.
I guess we have fundamentally different viewpoints, since I don't feel like we have to grow, and you'd likely prefer that we did (which is perfectly reasonably).
PuttItOut ago
I'll give you that the park example isn't a direct match, but it does have similarities.
And here is the issue. I feel that Voat doesn't want to expand and acts accordingly. My view is that truth must have as many eyes on it as possible. I got involved with Voat to make the world a better place by promising not to censor the inconvenient aspects of humanity and evil. We can't change the world if we run everyone off. We expect people to be wise and mature as soon as they arrive, this is an unrealistic expectation.
I also lack knowledge of the comment deletions. All I can say is when Voat targets you, most people react by going nuclear. Doesn't make it right, but humans react this way by default.
MinorLeakage ago
As much as I respect you, I don't often envy you. A bit of the old "heavy lies the crown" comes to mind.
I think at some point YOU have to draw a clear line about whether a niche sub has to be private if the mods want to be heavy-handed. And honestly, as you already said, the community doesn't have to respect that, unless you start removing more voting freedoms as well. That will obviously set off a cascading effect of censorship and bans until we might as well be Reddit.
It also begs the question, is Voat (a place seemingly dedicated to freedom of expression) an appropriate place for niche and hobby subs? And who has to compromise if it is?
I was a huge fan of /u/LockeProposal and /v/HistoryAnecdotes which was well established and frequented when it was run off using similar tactics. This question is not a new one. I originally lamented losing that sub, but I've actually come around to the idea that free expression is supposed to be the defining feature.
Maybe the recent banning of that pedophile we were all happy to see leave has hardened your resolve to tackle some of these sticky issues. That was also a very difficult and grey area. I'm happy in this case, but we all now see the potential for anyone to be banned.
Sorry for rambling a little. I think your non-interventionist approach has been great so far, but you may need to make a clear rule on this issue at some point. Can public subs have extremely heavy handed mods who ban you for personal reasons? SBBH and its offshoots all do this (mostly as a joke, but they still do it) all the time.
PuttItOut ago
Well I unbanned that user and they immediately went back to their unwanted behavior. No one wants their content and they do it on purpose. How would you handle this?
If you have no standards, you get abuse. The problem with Voat is the exact opposite of Reddit, just an extreme in the opposite direction.
Cuilrunnings ago
I don't understand why the voting system is viewed as insufficient to deal with this?
MinorLeakage ago
There is an unfortunate side effect to standing up for principles. You will always end up defending the fringe people who you don't actually like or agree with.
I think I would maybe just blanket ban pictures or drawings of children. I'm sure this would spark a shitposting war over what actually qualified as a drawing of a child, and destroy and fracture the place. I really wish I could offer a simple solution.
Aside from that specific user, I still think you should narrowly define the difference between a system sub, a public sub, and a private sub. Public/private do not necessarily need to be completely standard-free, but we need a clear ruling. The feeling right now is that all public subs are basically system subs, and mods should only delete malicious content/spam.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
I'm more concerned with the kind of people on the site, rather than how many of them there are. That's why more tools for users to oust undesirables and control their own community would act as a filter to select for quality
most people end up here because the admins on reddit deleted the things they post and banned them, all were asking for is that when people come here they don't treat those here like the admins of reddit treated them
PuttItOut ago
We have to teach them though. Teaching takes time and understanding.
I absolutely love the posts about users who have changed and grown, and this is what we prevent from happening by going Goat Bezerker right away.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
I don't have a lot of faith in assimilation personally, but teaching also takes those willing to listen and if this minecraft guy had his listening ears on he might've stopped making bad moves and provoking more bad reactions at an earlier point. Understanding takes trust, and trust requires insurance in case the trust is betrayed.
PuttItOut ago
Only argument I have is when under emotional influence, most people make regrettable decisions.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
true, but decisions you make under that kind of duress are made in the moment and are very primal, and the way one acts when they don't spend much time thinking through or planning their actions ahead of time in many ways can be said to be closer than our inherent nature as a person. It can't always be said that the way we present ourselves is who we truly are, but the way we are when caught unpresentable can often be very honest.
PuttItOut ago
~ Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
AR47 ago
This I agree on, and perhaps this is something to deal with at a later date and time?
PuttItOut ago
I'd say that if a mod is deleting relevant content then we have a major issue. If it's shit posts and abuse it falls into a different category.
AR47 ago
Alrighty I am glad to have your take on it, and that is only because I have never seen you say it.
I am going to go back to making a new AR 15.
Got me a 10.5 upper in 7.62x39. Going to call it my
AK-KK (going to paint it all white too)
What you think?
PuttItOut ago
Hey! AR10 or AR15? We should talk.
AR47 ago
AR15
I mill lowers out on the regular. Same with glock gen 3s on the 80% kits.
If you are within USA I suggest CBC industries and Sanders Armory.
When I get enough cash I will mill one of my AR10 lowers and make me a serious reach out and touchem gun. We will have constitutional carry here in Oklahoma Nov 1st, and this white one will be my carry gun.
I have found that an AR15 that is not black or FDE isn’t seen as frightening to people.
This is the wives and people are actually very receptive to it and don’t see it as scary as mine.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
it was a brand new sub now, but it wouldn't always remain that way and it it grew into a problem later it would've been harder to deal with. The site is full of conspiracy theorists are you honestly expecting people not to be paranoid and not to jump at shadows that spark their paranoia?
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
right, but the mod should govern with the consent of the users. The mods shouldn't be the ones who decide the "way it sees fit" for the whole community, at least not without the input and oversight of their userbase
PuttItOut ago
That's a brand new sub that someone decided to 'test' right away, and the mod saw his excitement shit on and deleted it. Who wouldn't feel this way?
I see your point concerning large subs but isn't this different? Who is the community in this scenario? And isn't this the opposite of a power mod... Isn't this a mod that is undersiege by the community?
And forgive me if I'm getting the details wrong. Correct me if I'm mistaken.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
right, but the impetus to do so is concern that the mod will go on to act like a power mod. If the users of the sub could depose him themselves this would be a needless concern. Give the users of the sub more power and power modding will be beneath concern and thus easier to ignore. I'm not saying what happens on v/protectvoat or the results of such is right, I'm talking specifically about the main or at least the most justifiable motivations behind it.
People don't want power mods abusing the mod tools here.
What I'm asking for would address the underlying concern, thus removing the cause itself so we won't need to worry anymore about the effect in this cause effect scenario. users of v/protectvoat act the way they do to prevent power mods, if the users had power over their mods then power mods will be dealt with internally by the subverse, thus no one will need to be as concerned by mod behavior, thus actions predicated on this concern and the problems those actions cause will be overwhelmingly less likely
PuttItOut ago
I see both sides and this is what makes it hard.
This particular situation reminds me of a child who puts their finger in someone face and repeats "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you." then gets punched. Who caused it?
Mumbleberry ago
I feel a little guilty now, but the guy could have taken it with a bit better.
PuttItOut ago
We can all be better. Even me. That's how life works.
Voat changed me greatly, but it took a while for me to learn my faults. So it is with each of us.
I wonder what would have happened if I was run off when I first came to Voat as a user? There wouldn't be a Voat today. This is perhaps why we should be a little more understanding.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
it would be easier to be understanding if there was less risk in doing so, we gave mods on reddit the benefit of the doubt and when that turned out poorly. If you want us to trust people in similar positions now give the people here a way to deal with them if "being understanding" doesn't work out again
PuttItOut ago
Voat will soon become entirely community managed.
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
I'm glad it will, each community should manage itself rather than mods managing each community carte blanche with an angry mod managing the mods
Mumbleberry ago
Good advice. Thanks boss.
PuttItOut ago
Spammers deserve it though! ;)
Mumbleberry ago
No doubt on that!
Rainy-Day-Dream ago
as long as the other kid can punch back they'll sort it out themselves, and that's basically what happened here the annoying kid punched a lot harder though. I'm asking for you to give them a better way to solve their disputes so they'll stop hurting each other.