I have made a decision to alter and/or remove various restrictions on Voat. I’ve thought a lot about this and it’s something both @Atko and I believe needs to be reevaluated.
Voat has always had a problem with spam. @Amalek would spam posts and hijack the new queue making it unusable. MH101 and then later @SaneGoatiSwear would hijack comment pages making them unusable. The rules Voat uses were put in place in to combat this behavior. They are old rules, mostly remaining unchanged from the initial versions of this site. Most, if not all, of the rules were in direct response to spam attacks. It was never Voat’s intention to limit non-spam accounts, but this is what has happened as an indirect result of these rules.
Voat will not keep in place a system that permanently limits a segment of users from debating and conversing. This isn’t Free Speech as I see it or as I want it.
Voat will shortly be going live with a new code base, and I want to have a new system designed and ready for when this happens, so I am posting this announcement to get feedback from the community.
The main areas of concern:
- Commenting restrictions on negative CCP accounts that aren't spamming their comments
- Limiting any account that spam comments
TL;DR
We need to allow unpopular opinions while preventing comment spam.
How do we do it?
All options are on the table
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
view the rest of the comments →
10246343? ago
Will Amalek, SGIS, and his/their alts still be banned?
The way I see it, if negative CCP no longer rate limits accounts, the only thing keeping subverses clear will be moderator action. We've seen what overactive mods did to Reddit.
Even in this thread one of his alts (-448, and he's earned a net negative of CCP in the thousands) is celebrating the cessation of limitations. Consider too that people who wish to detract from a free speech forum are most likely going to have time and resources that casual users will not; they can operate dozens of accounts (as we've seen in Amalek's case), either because they're multiple individuals or because he's a spergelord who goes through manic episodes.
If one earns a punishment, is that really an undeserved limitation?
Andalusian1 ago
Mods can be held accountable for banning/removing comments of non-spam. We wouldnt need this if people only dv'ed spam and not dv'ed people they disagreed with.
VieBleu ago
It takes a lot of work to hold mods accountable, often with negligible results. Work to the point of unreasonable burden. At least at the PG forum, this has been the experience.
EDIT to add - Here is a thread that overwhelmingly shows the community calling for a minimum of 100 points to comment, due to the level of shill attacks on the forum. https://voat.co/v/pizzagatewhatever/2030995
The mods are fully aware of this vote, yet take no steps to implement change or even address it. Just a massive shoulder shrug and a return to their pizza party.
10246569? ago
Mods that seek to circumvent a report system can also spawn 50 alts and invite them all as mods, and those alts would have alts. Just look at Reddit, which is moderated by a spiderweb filled with nepotism and fake accounts. Once a system like that is in place your only option is to devote admin time to playing whack-a-mole.