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[–]magnora7[S] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

So you give a completely unrelated answer, that is still copy-paste? You seem extremely unable to follow the pyramid of debate. My patience is wearing extremely thin with you, MartinTimothy, as I'm sure many other users feel. I've given you so many chances to act like a normal person, but all you can ever produce is off-topic copypasta and lists of links. Like for months now. I'm not sure saidit needs you around tbh

[–]Stoner 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

While I'm eternally grateful for Saidit and all the work you and @derr have done, this is why I currently don't believe Saidit will make it any further than Voat.

You're basically relying on words and good arguments to keep the assholes out, and as someone who sometimes is a bit of an asshole I KNOW that's not enough

What happens when there's 10 Timothy's and 50 outta 50 to posts are straight up shilled spam posts? What will you do when people spams extreme right wing stuff instead of Timothy's relatively tame stuff? What happens if Saidit becomes a thing instead of an alternative and corporate and government shills starts moving in?

By removing the down vote you've taken away the community's possibility of saying "We don't accept this shit" and by using even less than strong language you're not exactly a deterrent to assholes. The only thing currently protecting Saidit from becoming Voat is simply the low user number.

Please device a strategy so I belive in the future of Saidit and can start to invite my friends. 🤗

[–]magnora7[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

What happens when there's 10 Timothy's and 50 outta 50 to posts are straight up shilled spam posts?

Timothy is about to be cut out, I literally just confronted him a few hours ago about being unable to follow the pyramid of debate and called him out, the wheels are in motion. I am nearly ready to ban. I have been being extra-lenient because the community is small, so we have been careful to both retain our fledgling userbase while also not alienating anyone early on who then talks shit about saidit constantly for months on end afterward. I banned this one guy TheTanster because he was spamming his blog over and over and over with pretty dumb articles to boot. I let him do it for a month, but after a few warnings finally banned him site-wide for spamming. 1 hour later, I unbanned him because I felt maybe it was unjustified. He complained about that in a lying way very visibly on reddit for months, really soiling people's first image of saidit for many people because people believed him and he made a lot of noise. Every time I'd post about saidit on reddit, he would come out of the wookwork somehow, with his sob story about how his free speech was banned on saidit, and I'd have to explain to everyone how he's actually not banned anymore, and it was 4 months ago, and how he was spamming his blog, and yadda yadda. Like 20 different times. It was stupid.

Now... here's the thing. If saidit had 20,000 users, I'd have zero problem banning and ignoring people like this guy. But at the time, we had about 500 users, maybe 10-20 regularly active, and our main weak spot was people not knowing about us, and he was really throwing a wrench in to that by constantly spreading that we censored him.

I can guarantee you timothy is going to do the same after banning. It's a weapon against saidit, I see it coming a mile away. I am waiting until we have enough growth to make a move that might hurt us, to make sure our growth is safe. But because of that traffic we had today, I was comfortable confronting him and will move to ban him, especially if there is community support like you just showed.

The more of a community saidit has, the easier it will be for the good word about saidit to exceed the bad, but I didn't want to have to do tons of narrative management about saidit on reddit early on while the site was barely going... just because of some loudmouth jerks.

We have to regularly weed the garden, not let it build up. But hopefully now you see why I've been dragging my feet about banning anyone at all in the early stages of saidit. It's a tactical move, because one of our main attractions is our free speech and we don't want to jeopardize that image to potential new users in any way. But once we are stable and large enough (which is quickly approaching, if not already) I won't need to hold back quite as much on the obviously unhelpful users, and we won't need to fear them publicly maligning us as much because we'll have enough good word of mouth to balance out their loud complaining about how their free speech was censored.

You know what I mean?

What happens if Saidit becomes a thing instead of an alternative and corporate and government shills starts moving in?

I'm pretty sure they're already here in some small number

By removing the down vote you've taken away the community's possibility of saying "We don't accept this shit"

Yes, but ignoring things is just as useful, perhaps even more so. The upvote/downvote battles are not healthy for the community and I think increases the toxicity and the us vs them mentality. Ignoring something is the same as downvoting it, and the fun vote helps separate out the meme content, when the all the jokes and memes start arriving in the coming years. So the serious content can still be honed in on (with the 'insightful' tab on the main page that we built)

not exactly a deterrent to assholes.

Assholes aren't usually dissuaded by downvotes though, that's what makes them assholes. Being ignored is almost worse than downvotes for many attention-seekers.

So there's my explanation for why things are the way they are on saidit. I hope you find it at least somewhat reasonable, because I've spent a LOT of time thinking about what's best for saidit over the last 2 years. And I am enjoying the feedback because you bring up perfectly valid points.

I also want to point out we've banned about 3 people for trying to basically take over saidit in various ways. So it's not that we've never banned anyone, just not yet for a pyramid of debate violation, but that's the next layer now that saidit is growing big.

[–]Stoner 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I understand the choices you've made for Saidit, and agree with most of them.

The issue with a growing userbase is twofold, yes Saidit needs active users but not redditors that accept the current reddit paradigm - How can you know they won't try to make Saidit more like reddit and start campaigning for banning unsavoury opinions?

Also, If a person is so prone to groupthink that they won't even explore the alternative because the group narrative is that it's objectively evil... Do you really want them as users?

You have some very good points on why "you've been dragging your feet", and I think this is the core disagreement between us; I'd rather have a small group of regulars that posts interesting stuff rather than a large group of people with a higher total of regular users with interesting stuff.

It doesn't really matter, it seems Saidit is about to change it's policy regarding spammers and asses and that's what I want so I'm happy.

Yes, but ignoring things is just as useful, perhaps even more so. The upvote/downvote battles are not healthy for the community and I think increases the toxicity and the us vs them mentality.

But I'm here to get away from "them", the people that spew nonsensical hate in the comments and the people that seek out moderating positions to abuse the power. By creating Saidit you guys have quite directly stated that you/we aren't one of "them" and that "their" platforms doesn't suit you...

Assholes aren't usually dissuaded by downvotes though, that's what makes them assholes. Being ignored is almost worse than downvotes for many attention-seekers.

True, but it strips them of visibility. Again you're counting on everyone to do the proper thing to combat bullshit comments and posts but I don't believe that's going to happen. I think people will use the only tool they have to show their disgust and thus reply with comments and presto, you've got a flamewar going.

So there's my explanation for why things are the way they are on saidit. I hope you find it at least somewhat reasonable

Most of your arguments are very reasonable.

I also want to point out we've banned about 3 people for trying to basically take over saidit in various ways.

It's a start, but this is still a site where the admins gets into a "no u"-level debate with copypasta spammers to protect the site reputation. I don't want saidit to get the reputation that Voat has, a site with very hands off admins who rather have rampant unfunded radical extremists on the site than a reputation of less than absolute freedom of speech.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

How can you know they won't try to make Saidit more like reddit and start campaigning for banning unsavoury opinions?

They will, and they have.

I'd rather have a small group of regulars that posts interesting stuff rather than a large group of people with a higher total of regular users with interesting stuff.

Well it's not between those two things, if that was the choice then I'd agree with you. And now that we have a lot more users, that might be the choice. But 6 months ago the choice was "have a small but interesting userbase, or have an even smaller but interesting userbase with some super pissed off people who are constantly maligning saidit on reddit".

But anyway, this is changing as we grow. We won't need to worry about this threat anymore once we reach a certain size, so I won't need to hesitate to "take out the trash".

you've got a flamewar going.

Flamewars break the pyramid of debate rule, so that's already covered.

I don't want saidit to get the reputation that Voat has

I've literally spent hundreds and hundreds of hours making this site because of how much I hate how voat has turned out. Trust me, I'm not going to let it happen.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If the discourse is civil and respectful, those with groupthink or unsavoury opinions can argue their points to those who care to engage.

[–]Stoner 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My argument is that if one guy on reddit says saidit is shit, then saidit doesn't want those who believe him without question.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I've actually got an idea for an alternative to banning, but I'd need some help (read: insider knowledge of the database structure all of the things – actually, I couldn't do it myself e35c5f6a3045e170620240808123ca8b9ca5c38c) to implement it. It'd help avoid the PR issue (without us having to propaganda people / suppress writings, which aren't options).

I'm being deliberately vague here, but I won't be secretive about this in general. If it becomes a thing, the people of Saidit will know about it.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What, remove all their points? No need to be vague really. You can PM me with your idea if you wish.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I know, thanks; the funny alphanumeric string I posted was a commit ID and I've contributed code to the site. Plus there's a link at the bottom of every page.

If I didn't know, I'd be extremely pleased to find out. So, thanks!

[–]test978383133 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

How is it you support freespeech but then choose to ban someone?

[–]Jesus 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

MartinTimothy seems like a shill. He had close to a hundred alt-accounts on reddit spamming everything everywhere. His schtick is Jews and their crimes with broad generalizations but he literally copy and pastes to flood comment sections and /s/All. Shills use this tactic all the time. It's to muddy the waters and disengage a userbase. You post long winded posts or links mixed with truth, lies and unrelated material. Voat shills did this on v/pizzagate all the time. Cryptome database has documrnts on this very tactic.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The down vote can also be abused. I don't think it's critical to maintaining a classy joint.

IMHO the current problem is not about asstrolls. We need to discuss and develop policy that protects the future of SaidIt. There will be more asstrolls and the policy should deflect them.

InfoGalactic has a virtually useless GalacticTribunal to resolve problems. It's almost useless in part because there are no problems to speak of, and because there's no community to speak of, nor responsive administration.

Some kind of roundtable court might actually work on SaidIt.

Wikipedia transparently does their admin gang ups to censor people, but the folks who get to be admins play the game.

I'd prefer to have clear guidelines than a jury of my peers.