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
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PuttItOut ago
I really like how radical of an idea this is.
As far as brain storming goes, A+.
Thank you for submitting this.
TimberWolfAlpha ago
The downside so far as I can tell, is that it requires a user to get into bitcoin to create an account. This is going to be a big bottleneck, lots of people aren't going to go to the trouble.
Crensch ago
a P.O. box that you send envelopes with $10 in and your username. No return-address needed, and wear gloves touching the bill, envelope, and stamp. BOOM.
TimberWolfAlpha ago
a fine suggestion, just not one encompassed by the proposal. I'd be onboard with this.