Why can't I use my old Voat username here?

[username]

If you managed to do these 4 things:

1. Posted a submission or a comment on Voat in the last 2 weeks, or earlier in some cases
2. Logged in to Voat between December 21st and 25th 2020
3. Found a message in your Inbox with the title SearchVoat.co Password containing a password (consisting of 2 random English words separated by a random numeric digit - if yours was particularly appropriate or offensive consider yourself blessed)
4. Saved or screenshotted the password

then you can use the password and Voat username to log in to this forum and you will be forever identified as an authentic Voat Survivor.

To date, 475 Voat Survivors have made it this far.

You can identify an authentic Voat Survivor because (1) their username shows in red and (2) they have a Voat Goat avatar (unless they've changed it - and only Voat Survivors can have a custom avatar).

So if you see a red username and an avatar you know for a fact that behind that SV account is the same person you remember from Voat.

But...

If you didn't manage to do all those 4 things above, you can still register an account here but I'm sorry to say you will not be able to register with your old Voat username.

Why not? Because the username is reserved with the SV password, and I have no other way to prove who you were on Voat.

• I don't have your Voat password so you can't use that
• I don't have your password reset email address from Voat, even if you had one, so you can't use that
• I don't have the IP address(es) you used at Voat, so that doesn't help
• I can't test you with questions about what you posted at Voat since all that info is visible in the SearchVoat Archive

If you can think of a way for me to prove who was who on Voat, without the SearchVoat password, please reply to this post with your suggestion.

Meanwhile I will look at implementing some kind of "Tier 2 Voat Goat" user group for those who claim to be @username on Voat. Maybe there could be a system by which authentic Voat Survivors can vouch for such accounts, to enhance their standing. Ideas please below.

[TheGreatWhiteHope]

u/SearchVoat Can't seem to get an image to meet the requirements for an avatar here, not even my old one. Any tips offhand?

Also: how do I get someone to see my mention of their name?

[SearchVoat]

u/SearchVoat Can't seem to get an image to meet the requirements for an avatar here, not even my old one. Any tips offhand?

Also: how do I get someone to see my mention of their name?

Avatar requirements are: Max dimensions 90x90 pixels, max size 6kB.

Username pings don't work yet but it's a high priority.

[1moar]

Haven't messed with phpBB for awhile, keep that in mind...kind of thinking out loud too.

Is there a way to set up a board that doesn't require a user name/registration? Shut down open signups, make a relevant board where old goats who missed the boat could come and verify themselves and it could at least mitigate that piece.

It would be kind of like having a bouncer at the door. Which, admittedly would require spam detail as that would surely be an issue. But it would slow down getting slammed on signups. Disable any/all sort of attachments; except a thought was to have them post/send a selfie with todays date, username and xyz for verification. The date and username would be the lynch pin though.

You wouldn't want to post an email address in format, for obvious reasons. (could do searchvoat at searchvoat dot com; but I don't know how smart the bots have gotten in the last few years...) Even a trash one, but I've been wracking my brain a little trying to think of a solution to this. Couldn't log in for a few because I'm an idiot, but the former has been sorted.

OR, and I put this here for visibility...on signup, I don't suppose there's anyway to include any sort of text or anything. I imagine not, this would require direct interaction to work. Anywho, I was thinking about your reply to my post the other day.

Another solution is for them to suck it up. If we could find a way to verify the user, could you possibly reset their pre-made ID pw, or share it with them?

I guess it comes down to safely being able to interact directly with them, and having a verifiable means of vetting them. Legit users are going to mention Voat, as well as trolls...the latter being easy enough to spot and toss. The rest can kick rocks. All of which would require more work, and I'm apprehensive of suggesting as such because I know there's already a ton of requests for stuff.

/diarrhea for now.

[Deleted User 4246]

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[SearchVoat]

That image is 1920x1080 pixels. I resized it to 90 pix wide, came out as 51px high, looks like this: . That will upload as an avatar - if you'd like me to just do it for you, let me know!

[Deleted User 4246]

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[Deleted User 4246]

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[SearchVoat]

Et voilà