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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ExpertShitposter ago
To my knowledge, nobody has ever been restricted by -100 with the exception of @MightyYetGentle1488 aka sanegoat aka amalek.
He is literally the only person that has suffered from this, and had to make 1000 alts and an upvote bot to combat this. There have been a few more obvious trolls who probably don't care and enjoy the reputation of "the most downvoated person".
And the only reason why the above mentioned user receives so much dowvoats from everyone is because of his spam campaign against you and Atko. We actually believe that aggression played a role in atko's leaving, even tho he never said it did.
Everybody was laughing when amalek was about the anti-jew spam. Its when the hostility was turned against you two and fuzzy that everybody started pushing back against him.
In my opinion, you should have been more aggressive with the ban hammer back then. Memebr when you threatened to ban him and your comment received 6milion upvotes? Absolute support from the community because we knew that that situation had nothing to do with "freedom to state an unpopular opinion" but obvious destructive behavior due to mental illness and a complete lack of a life. Possibly even money involved tho various findings that came later just show mental illness.
So i don't think you need to feel bad because in the end those restrictions affected only one user that should have been banned long time ago for destructive behavior anyway.
With all that said, now that things have calmed down, removing that restriction might be a good idea, but ONLY if you can get decent control over spammers with a combination of both ban hammer and ALT CONTROL/limitation, something that was never even attempted. If it can even be controlled.
Here's one that people don't agree with: registering a voat account should require an e-mail and have a delay. It doesn't raise privacy concerns because everybody has a throwaway email, or can easily make one.
That extra step, plus a 24 delay means nothing to a real user who needs one account, but make it one more annoying step for spammers.
Who ever doesn't have the patience for that once, probably isn't here to contribute anyway. Think voat is passed that point where it needs to make it super easy just to attract as many users as possible just to get up and running.
Also, you mentioned you would clean up all the "sleeper" accounts that all the shithead redditor scum from r/thedonald made in an attempt to overpower v/thedonald . Deleting those accounts, requiring an e-mail and a 24h delay for new ones, would keep those kinds of mass actions at bay to a small degree. That's something to keep in mind.
10247084? ago
I know of many ordinary users, as many as 10, who are restricted in their daily comments because of negative CCP. I can only name one or two of the top of my head though, but they are out there -- and as long as there is even one user who's voice has been restricted based on opinions, we should pursue a better system.
ExpertShitposter ago
I agree, tho post some of those 10 accounts that you can think of, I'm interested in that.
10247127? ago
p0ssum is the only one I can think of right now. He's a massive faggot, but he deserves to have as much a voice as the rest of us.
10251498? ago
P0ssum? What an "ordinary user"...
Next example, please.
10251616? ago
Evidently I should have been keeping a list of every one of them I encounter. People are (quite rightly) desiring specific examples. For many (such as myself) the idea that the system is obviously structured in a way that does not directly punish spam is enough to motivate a desire for change, but I do understand and respect the desire to have concrete evidence of those actually negatively affected. I fear that some desire this so they can look at the affected users and say "Well he was obviously asking for it" either by being aggressive or otherwise. I just don't see how that matters. The restrictions were only ever designed to slow down spammers but by no stretch of the imagination do the restrictions necessarily only apply to spammers.
10251753? ago
Start with a single example of a user unfairly targeted. One user that isn't a trolling, destructive retard.
10252202? ago
My point is that this:
is entirely irrelevant. Are we not allowed to troll, to speak like retards on Voat, without our speech being limited as a consequence? That does not strike me as a freedom platform for all, but instead a freedom platform with a conditional -- you can speak here freely not only if you respect others' liberty (which is the justification for banning spam), but also only if you respect your own.
Frankly my liberty is mine to handle, not yours or anyone else's. If I want to use it to act like a moron, any true freedom platform ought to allow me to do so.
10252232? ago
...so you are defending VoatIsForNiggers, SGIS, MHM101 etc?
10252246? ago
Not if they spam; if they spam they have violated the platform and ought to be banned (although the first entry on that list was not really an abusive spammer and more than a joke account). Who I am defending are those who finds themselves with negative CCP without ever having spammed. I do think that I have encountered some, but even without being able to cite exact names the point remains that it is easily conceivable that it could happen to someone with the current system. It is that possibility that likely motivated Putt's writing of this announcement to begin with.
10252311? ago
Why do you defend trolls?
10252370? ago
I defend freedom. Trolls are not exempt. The only people who have surrendered their freedom are those who through action or expressed intent to act have jeopardized the lives or liberties of others. Spam is an example of this where forums are concerned, and so I do not defend spammers against these restrictions or account deletions. I will defend paid shills, ordinary blue-pilled folks with naive ideas, or people with tourettes. They have as much right to speak as freely as you or I on this website which is dedicated to precisely that freedom.
10252391? ago
You defend people who wants to tear down what others build, then package it in a broad package with innocents who are not affected.
10252406? ago
You assume I am only defending those you dislike, while I am defending everyone unjustly affected by this, only some of whom are those you dislike. Furthermore what the shills intend is irrelevant; Voat is structured in such a way that they are incapable of truly destroying what we have. We have transparent modlogs to save us from corruption and unchecked censorship; we have protection against spam so if any force begins to overwhelm a thread of community we can justify removing them; we have protections against vote manipulation to stop them from building up their accounts; we have captchas on the account creation to reduce their number considerably; we have downvotes that still hide posts from sight; we have a user block feature that hides all posts from certain users from sight.