The SearchVoat Forum

Listen, I know you are reading this, AOU.

February 8th was the day your site effectively died.

I used to think highly of you. You appear to be a skilled programmer. Together with PMYB2 (who appears rather silent lately), you brought unique innovation such as (semi-)public downvotes, which finally defeated vote brigading. You also listened to suggestions and quickly implemented several, while Voat nearly was stagnant in developement and even locked subverse creation. Not to mention fancy features such as polls, Pic8.co integration, clipboard image pasting, website expandos, and even the multimedia platform Vid8.

But lately, you started dismissing legitimate concerns by users as whining (which is a kiked thing to do in online debates), rather than refuting their arguments, which is insincere and hostile. This also makes you appear immature and un-masculine. It is the kind of behaviour your users sought to escape coming from other community sites.


And now, you did something not even the censored leftist cesspool known as Reddit has ever done. Users can now selectively exclude others from commenting to threads and replying to comments they have started.

Sorry, but I've got to call it out for what it is: Twitter-tier bullshit.

I hope you do realize that this can be used by any coward to suppress criticism rather than engaging in meaningful discourse or at least being held accountable to other readers.


If AOU fails to respect the community's autonomy, this is no longer the Poal.co I knew.

Farewell.

Artemis wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:29 pm Listen, I know you are reading this, AOU.

February 8th was the day your site effectively died.

I used to think highly of you. You appear to be a skilled programmer. Together with PMYB2 (who appears rather silent lately), you brought unique innovation such as (semi-)public downvotes, which finally defeated vote brigading. You also listened to suggestions and quickly implemented several, while Voat nearly was stagnant in developement and even locked subverse creation. Not to mention fancy features such as polls, Pic8.co integration, clipboard image pasting, website expandos, and even the multimedia platform Vid8.

But lately, you started dismissing legitimate concerns by users as whining (which is a kiked thing to do in online debates), rather than refuting their arguments, which is insincere and hostile. This also makes you appear immature and un-masculine. It is the kind of behaviour your users sought to escape coming from other community sites.


And now, you did something not even the censored leftist cesspool known as Reddit has ever done. Users can now selectively exclude others from commenting to threads and replying to comments they have started.

Sorry, but I've got to call it out for what it is: Twitter-tier bullshit.

I hope you do realize that this can be used by any coward to suppress criticism rather than engaging in meaningful discourse or at least being held accountable to other readers.


If AOU fails to respect the community's autonomy, this is no longer the Poal.co I knew.

Farewell.

Poal was never good though. It was just mediocre tending towards worse.

"If you can't win with reason, just reframe the criticism using ridicule!"

This is the tactic of internet cowards who want to appear like tough guys.

AOU frequently replies to critical comments with "boohoo", similar noises, and whining accusations, rather than, you know, actually refuting their points! So cowardly....

A site administrator is supposed to be more competent than this. Sure, he implemented nice site features, even 2-in-1 posts with both text and links. But sites run by who can't handle criticism can not be trusted.

This new blocking feature is strongly at odds with what Poal.co claims to stand for. The worst thing to happen to Poal.co since its foundation. Voat.co collapsed comments by blockees, which was perfectly fine! There might be a hidden reason behind this.

If the abusers' goal were to restrict speech by making users capable of censoring each other, then they have succeeded, and Poal.co has lost!


Post title:

The user block feature just got a minor update and now prevents users you've blocked from commenting to your posts/comments, and this was done to prevent abuse (off-topic trolling and comment flood from blocked users).

First of all, if AOU adds a justification attempt right into the announcement's title, he must have damn well known that this was going to be a controversial decision.

The upvote count (+26|-3) is meaningless, as he has already been exposed for apparently manually manipulating vote counts in the site database, which is close to Spez-tier comment manipulation (Reddit co-founder). Downright dishonest.


AOU might think that he has won against the spammers through this move. But Poal.co succumbing by restricting speech might just have been the abusers' disguised goal!

Site operators should know that spammers are out there. On the Internet, there is a perpetual stream of spam. While this indeed is inconvenient, the restriction of vital site functionality, thus compromising legitimate and productive use, is a victory for the abusers!

AOU didn't "win". He backed down!

And "you don't know how Poal.co works under the hood" is no excuse. If it can not handle this without compromising legitimate uses and making the experience worse for genuine users, it does not work "under the hood" properly.

Downvoting already existed as the autonomous measure to combat spam. Few downvotes will significantly reduce the visibility of a post or comment (if not sorted by new or low), making it pretty much futile. Yet AOU had to compromise one of the site's founding principles.

Like I said above: This is the worst thing to happen to Poal.co since its formation.

@Artemis, in case you did not know, AOU would ban user's account without notice (e.g. account lock-up) and then nuke the comments. What could go wrong with a tyrant with OCD? Also, he is likely not a single person. Ask yourself this, how can someone be so busy coding and at the same time having an incredible amount of time spent stalking at user's activities?

Edit: there is a Voat clone going strong XD

OP obviously didnt see the block feature of original Voat

argosciv wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:32 pm

Cynabuns wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:37 am

Update The user block feature just got a minor update and now prevents users you've blocked from commenting to your posts/comments
~by AOU - 7h ago

https://poal.co/s/Poaldev/289452

Speech for me but not for thee.

Am I really reading this right??

Kinda sad to see from former Voat guys

Y'know, I may cop some flack for this, but in a way this is kinda what I'd expect from a typical block feature. I mean, in an ideal world blocking is kind of a last resort when you REALLY don't want to deal with the asininity of the blocked user(s). That said, though, I came to appreciate and work with the level at which Voat blocking worked; that being to merely auto-collapse content from the blocked user(s) and disable personal messages/notifications.
In my mind, Voat's implementation was sufficient enough to deal with issues without impeding the right of free speech for those who I disagreed with...

I think poal has, although keeping with expected functionality (similar to, say, twitter), gone a step too far and proven that (as if it weren't already clear) they are no true replacement to or competitor against the ideals of Voat.

cc: @MadWorld

Sounds great on paper, until you realize a couple powerusers make up a significant amount of content on the site and one day you're blocked for whatever reason and can no longer reply to 1/3rd of the threads.

ArcturianDeathTrap4 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:13 am OP obviously didnt see the block feature of original Voat

You're kidding, right?