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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wincraft71 ago
Besides a spam button for comments and submissions, you could also use janitors who are more reputable than a regular user, but less so than a moderator. That way if X numbers of janitors all separately report a submission or comment as spam it can be removed.
Branching off of that, I think each subverse should have a right to defend itself from spam AND low-quality or irrelevant posts by having quality standards that are upheld by the moderators (and janitors if you choose to have them). If a submission is deemed to be watering down the discussion of the subverse then it can be moved to a secondary subverse. For v/pizzagate that would be v/pizzagatewhatever.
The mods can then message the person asking them to improve their post and list specifically what they should improve if they want to make the cut. That way their free speech is still somewhat protected, and they just get their post moved to a related subverse with lower standards until they step their game up to meet quality.
For comments this a little more tricky and downvoats certainly help identify repeat offenders. For negative users, you can use an RES flair, automatic minimize, or some sort of punishment that they have to work off. Yet, I feel this is addressing the symptoms and not the underlying issue that different subverses will all have different reactions to ideas. And I believe all users who are authentic and genuine (and not just trying hard to be shitty) should have a place to voice their opinions and be heard by like-minded individuals.
So I think the solution is:
Identify who is a real authentic user trying to express their opinion and who is obviously just choosing to consistently be shitty at the nuisance of others
Stronger subverses who have the right to defend themselves against low-quality posts, some policing of comments but still letting negative ccp post (with a further discussion needed on how we should restrict or punish them to prevent them from clogging up a specific subverse, or the whole site if they're repeatedly horrible everywhere)
Organization of users and ideas in specific subverses so that everybody (if they're a real, authentic user) has a place to express their own voice and be heard by their community base, whatever that group's opinions may be. So this means creating more subverses, with a strong centralized theme and enthusiastic user base willing to defend themselves and validate each others opinions.
That way, no one user can cry about how their post or comment wasn't getting any play in Subverse A, when they can always go to Subverse B and have a field day. Free speech, just better organization.