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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

[–] Lord--Gaben [OP] 9 points (+9|-0)

I would argue that opinions are silenced more on Voat due to the hivemind mentality than they could ever be on Phuks. I've known the admins of this site from MP and IRC, and I have no reason to believe that polite and civil discussion will ever be censored on this site.

[–] AlkaiserSoze 6 points (+6|-0)

I am forced to agree with you on that. In some ways the hivemind on Voat was a little worse than on Reddit although both were horrible at their worst yet manageable at their best. I suppose it came down to who was participating in the conversations. While I agree with some of the mainstream views of Voat users, I did not need to hear it repeated hour after hour, often overshadowing interesting threads and preventing others from forming.

Now, I understand that the frequent use of racial slurs was a canary to show that censorship was not being applied in the standard way, it was also distracting to some users. It also gave new users a poor initial view of the userbase, preventing new ideas and discussions from forming. Truly, there is a difference between censorship and not being a dick. One can encourage discussion while the other will silence it. I feel this concept is lost on many people who were too busy being caught up in red pills and canary shouting. While I am sure there are some who would accuse me of "safe spacing", I merely want discussion, not to soundproof myself from an ideological perspective.

[–] Schreiber 0 points (+0|-0)

In some ways the hivemind on Voat was a little worse than on Reddit

You can ignore them and still post on Voat just fine. I don't have the same ideology as Voat's hivemind (I mean most of them are edgy anti-semite white supremacist neonazi spamming PoC genocide) but I can still accumulate 3000+ ccp in several months posting something that doesn't align with the hivemind.

Theoretically if they are shutting down different views I would be downvoat brigaded to oblivion already.