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The Voat Situation

posted by Lord--Gaben on Whatever

So as we all know, voat.co went down a couple days ago. I haven't seen a comprehensive write-up on the situation yet, so I'm putting this out there.

voat.co now presents a 503 error:

The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response.

By this, we know that Voat is not gone for good. It is not the end. All the Stormfags will still have their board.

Some Voat users went to /r/Voat in confusion, but their thread was mysteriously deleted. All of the most current posts on /r/Voat seem to be about how Voat sucks.

Voat is still accessible at the old beta preview site, which is currently has the largest congregation of Voat users. Using this site, Atko has confirmed that Voat is not being abandoned. EDIT: It has been pointed out that Atko has not necessarily confirmed that Voat is OK. His exact words were

I don't have any info on what happened. At this point, everything is possible, but there is also a good chance that Putt is simply enjoying a golfing trip somewhere in airplane mode and that everything will be back to normal in a few days.

Currently the front page of the site consists of some /pol/ tier memes, despair about Voat, and some shit about raiding Phuks.

Let's talk about the raids.

Kevdude made a post to /v/ProtectVoat, stating that Phuks "could use some Nazi content," and saying that the userbase is composed of "faggots who attack Voat" and "cancer mods." Seeing as the point of ProtectVoat was to keep Voat from being phukked by SRS, this is a rather strange thing for him to do.

For all coming from Voat(and take this with a grain of salt as I am not an admin):

Phuks is more or less a free speech site. It's somewhat reminiscent of Voat in the early days, before Reddit banned CT. Opinions are not censored, and we encourage open discussion. HOWEVER:

There is a difference between open discussion and merely being a cunt. This is not Stormfront, and you will be expected to be civil(remember /v/thedinnertable?). The hosting provider for Phuks does have some rules on content(no inciting violence, etc.) and the TOS is enforced. If you have a problem with that, Voat is expected to be up at some point, and you can happily return to your shittier /pol/.

If you're chill, welcome aboard.

So as we all know, voat.co went down a couple days ago. I haven't seen a comprehensive write-up on the situation yet, so I'm putting this out there. voat.co now presents a [503 error](https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html): >The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response. By this, we know that Voat is not gone for good. It is not the end. All the Stormfags will still have their board. Some Voat users went to /r/Voat in confusion, but their thread was [mysteriously deleted](https://www.reddit.com/r/Voat/comments/8daj5v/whats_going_on_with_voat/). All of the most current posts on /r/Voat seem to be about how Voat sucks. Voat is still accessible at [the old beta preview site](https://preview.voat.co), which is currently has the largest congregation of Voat users. Using this site, Atko [has confirmed](https://preview.voat.co/v/whatever/2137800) that Voat is not being abandoned. EDIT: It has been pointed out that Atko has not necessarily confirmed that Voat is OK. His exact words were >I don't have any info on what happened. At this point, everything is possible, but there is also a good chance that Putt is simply enjoying a golfing trip somewhere in airplane mode and that everything will be back to normal in a few days. Currently the front page of the site consists of [some /pol/ tier memes](https://preview.voat.co/v/whatever/2137800), [despair about Voat](https://preview.voat.co/v/whatever/2137890</a>">https://preview.voat.co/v/whatever/2137890), and some shit about raiding Phuks. Let's talk about the raids. Kevdude made [a post](https://preview.voat.co/v/whatever/2137793) to /v/ProtectVoat, stating that Phuks "could use some Nazi content," and saying that the userbase is composed of "faggots who attack Voat" and "cancer mods." Seeing as the point of ProtectVoat was to keep Voat from being phukked by SRS, this is a rather strange thing for him to do. For all coming from Voat(and take this with a grain of salt as I am not an admin): Phuks is more or less a free speech site. It's somewhat reminiscent of Voat in the early days, before Reddit banned CT. Opinions are not censored, and we encourage open discussion. HOWEVER: There is a difference between open discussion and merely [being a cunt](https://imgoat.com/uploads/97da629b09/106311.png). This is not Stormfront, and you will be expected to be civil(remember /v/thedinnertable?). The hosting provider for Phuks does have some rules on content(no inciting violence, etc.) and the TOS is enforced. If you have a problem with that, Voat is expected to be up at some point, and you can happily return to your shittier /pol/. If you're chill, welcome aboard.

89 comments

[–] Justintoxicated 4 points (+4|-0)

The early days were good though, when people were just glad to be on a site where they could talk freely and build fun subs. I think when all witch hunts started and raiding of subs it just lowered the bar.

[–] AlkaiserSoze 2 points (+2|-0)

Hm. Agreed. I liked those early days. I often wonder if the current toxicity was caused by the user base or outside actors.. Perhaps both, even.

[–] Lord--Gaben [OP] 1 points (+1|-0)

The main problem in my opinion is that Voat's incoming userbase was always from subs Reddit banned. There was a finite number of people who came over on principle over censorship when FPH was banned, but all subsequent influxes were from CT and the like.

[–] Schreiber 1 points (+1|-0)

Edited

Just say it like what it is. Some of those accounts are so low effort hate spewing machine that can't even present a coherent argument. I could name some... but probably that won't be a good idea here.

Internally angry white man who's failure in live, probably incel and basement dwelling and looking to blame external factors for their lack of success. Or a highschool outcast, passive aggressive and mentally unstable who looked like Dylan Roof.

I said all these as someone who supports populist nationalism. The whole conservative movement needs intellectuals capable of holding rational argument, not just hateful ignorant backward uneducated outcasts in life, in order to move forward. The group you want to "brainwash" is the academia and upper middle class, because currently such group is mostly in the political left (rootless cosmopolitan) in North America and West EU, or even Israel.

[–] AlkaiserSoze 1 points (+1|-0)

I wasn't part of any banned subs, actually. I just didn't like the fact that things were being banned just because the subject matter made some people sadface. It seemed only a matter of time before all pretenses were stripped away and full censorship would occur in broad daylight and sure enough, it did. But you're correct in that a decent amount of users came from those affected subs and that contributed to a bitter mentality which permeated Voat culture.