I kept getting the invite only message when I tried to register as well. Then I just typed a username and password into the login, and got an incorrect password message along with "Would you like to register?"
There are too many trolls/shills. This is a good way to keep the spam out. Invite only just means you'll have to prove you're not a bot, and can contribute. I'm for it. They're not banning the researchers. There have been no mass-downvotes lately.
This happens time to time around or during times of mass growth, understand that hosting this platform requires servers (in this cause rented VPS) and operation of this costs money. The site is ran by two people Atko and Putt, they handle the coding, costs and funding. They have done amazing work, they have managed to deliberately avoid funding avenues involving venture capitalists and others they would provide a stake in the site and its direction which would likely harm the site. Its been seen across bounds of other sites, these people come in and more aggressive advertising strategies are implemented, user information is sold, user tracking and analytics, etc. By avoiding this we may not have as much money, but it allows the site to remain a place of free speech.
Originally it was small enough there were no donations or ads. Donations then became necessary, but after a while were not enough. Then as growth continued ads could be purchased, but with strict restrictions on the type. You may have noticed they only consist of text, a picture, and a link. This restriction is fantastic and should be praised, you may know most ads through-out the internet have so much tracking and analytics so this solves that. The next step that occurred recently which some of you were here to witness, is the Voat store where merchandise can be purchased from.
So the gist is that as Voat grows, more funds are required for more server capacity but due to the funding avenues in place (for good reason remember, outlined above) and the nature of the site itself the money comes in but slowly (less ads being purchased by companies who might not want their ads being displayed here as an example) and in less quantity then other sites that whore themselves.
Part of the problem recently though has also been major amounts of spam and shilling, so I believe the logic in this to be to close registration temporarily to catch up on the backlog and clean things up.
So why can't a clear annoucement about this policy be made with an idea of an end date? You are talking about a conspiracy subverse here, people notice things, want answers and want the public to participate. Not being transparent about a major thing like now allowing any new membership seems like a sort of condescension towards a very vibrant part of Voat. Overall I have liked and benefited from the period of calm, but it's time to address this issue formally and tell people what is going on.
So why can't a clear annoucement about this policy be made with an idea of an end date?
Because its a fairly regular occurance, and most other members especially the older ones understand and don't mind. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you may be thinking of Voat as a 'larger' website, as if it were under more mangement and had more professional policies and things.
There is no policy on this sort of thing to my understanding and this is a two man operation, it happens and then when determined by Atko and Putt they lift the restricton when they can handle the capacity of more users to the site and/or when spam issues are cleaned up.
...really reeks of a sort of condescension towards a very vibrant part of Voat.
Understand that as I said before it has happened a few times before at least, its not anything towards you guys. After every Reddit influx essentially theres temporarily registration restrictions, you guys aren't any sort of exception. Feeling as if you were will only further this false feeling of persecution or being targeted in some sense.
In light of this however, I may be inclined to agree that some sort of announcement in
/v/announcements
would be nice even though I'm sure somewhere they've commented on it already.
Actually, I'm sorry about using "reeks" - that's a bit strong and I edited it. It "feels like" something big is going on that we aren't being told about, and I would say yeah us newbies here have no idea what used to go on at voat. Overall it's been a good thing to have a chill down and a mop up, but it is not unreasonable to wonder how long it will go on. Remember we are a bunch of conspiracy minded windmill brains! It doesn't take much for everyone to be sure that it is part of a plot to suppress pizzagate interest. Transparency would soothe the 'fugee gossip mill.
Ping mods by using the @ symbols and asking them when the invite only is planned to be lifted, or if the discussion hasn't been raised could they start raising it. the mods names are at the bottem right of the sidebar
Lurking through the mod threads can be enlightening as well
v/pizzagatemods
Upvote this thread - for the amount of comments on here there should be a lot more upvotes - use your vote!
It is a legitimate question to ask when the invite only is planned to end. It seems to me that it has overall been a good thing so far and the forum has calmed down quite a bit since the invite only, while they've been activey soliciting opinions about broadening the moderator rules and redoing the sidebar.
I would suggest that the forum be open to the public again no later than New Year's Day, for a new clean PG kick off to 2017, but I am not privy to any information regarding forum oversight.
I am pushing for a double sticky at the top of the forum - 1st one ALWAYS there, a newcomer greeting and primer on pizzagate without fail, the 2nd for mod annoucements. Just my 2 cents. Surely the "technology exists" to put a 2nd sticky on our main forum page.
I have mixed feelings about this, I want everyone to be able to add new material and comments because we never know who might have key information, but new members also tend to clutter up the forum with duplicate threads in their enthusiasm. It is also nice not to have to hammer down Imwithher and chelsea2020 in every post. overall I think that Voat is doing a good job and using good judgment and the mods are seeming to have valid reasons for their actions. I am new to online forums so, being that we are still here, I trust their experience with this issue.
While it may be difficult to control the content, I think voat should allow new members in more easily than finding someone who is already a member here. A decentralized server-less message board would be ideal, but it looks like AETHER (
http://getaether.net/)
) got scrapped. Typical pattern it was put it out there unfinished and then abandoned - if you have programming skills, get a copy and make it work.
Until then it's probably better to go old-school usenet-style and allow everyone in and everything posted - leaving it up to the user/client to figure out how to apply filters to see the content they want. Sharing filter lists between users and designing your own filters to knock down spam and idiots on the boards. This causes people to learn to apply their own logic and exposes them to a large array of attacks (ploys/shills/disinformation) out there strengthening people overtime. This site would need to increase the filtering capabilities of users to do this.
It's "great"? Who are these lemmings? It is not "great", it suggest that they are halting participation and halting membership. It is the same as the government censoring in order to "protect" us. You have either failed or you are a shill yourself.
No I'm not. People who cared the most and were aware of voat got on board. Then the shills noticeably started affecting the board. Then the membership was locked. Seems linear to me - what am I missing?
By locking the membership, the most active/caring/aware members are allowed to continue the investigation without further flood of shills.
I think what you are missing is that public support and further public involvement is essential. The invite only is okay for awhile, but not long term. I do think there are other issues stretching the resources of the voat owners such as server capability, money, time etc involved.
I have been periodically browsing voat from october till now. This new protocol stems from the need to stave-off the heavy amount of upvote/downvote bots that were hitting the gate threads up really hard. Maybe this will be turned off once they get a handle on the whos who? Lots of shills upvoating total garbage for a while there
This is a very challenging topic. I recommend not reflexively being angry with voat itself. This might have been planned long before pizzagate. Then again, it might relate to pizzagate in innocent ways: this is a challenging topic to host for so many reasons. Personally, I believe this topic beckons the need for new technology, which I hope we see very soon.
This concerns me...how is the forum supposed to grow at an invite only pace? We are on a time schedule....My gut tells me that we are going to see more document dumps/truth bombs as Jan. 20 approaches and we need all hands on deck.
Is there a growing and vibrant invite-only forum anywhere on the 'net?
Maybe the reason they are not excepting new members is because of bandwidth issues? There are a lot of people looking into pizzagate and since it is banned on other sites the heavy load was causing this site to be glitchy.
▼ flyingcuttlefish
Oh No! My friend cannot register at VOAT today either!
What's going on?????
▼ VieBleu
So I asked for some clarification on the mods' sub - anyone who is a member of voat could do the same - you can view it and comment (but not upvote it) here https://voat.co/v/pizzagatemods/1520291#submissionTop
▼ VieBleu
also, there's this:
▼ fetuspizza
There are too many trolls/shills. This is a good way to keep the spam out. Invite only just means you'll have to prove you're not a bot, and can contribute. I'm for it. They're not banning the researchers. There have been no mass-downvotes lately.
▼ jinbnters
This happens time to time around or during times of mass growth, understand that hosting this platform requires servers (in this cause rented VPS) and operation of this costs money. The site is ran by two people Atko and Putt, they handle the coding, costs and funding. They have done amazing work, they have managed to deliberately avoid funding avenues involving venture capitalists and others they would provide a stake in the site and its direction which would likely harm the site. Its been seen across bounds of other sites, these people come in and more aggressive advertising strategies are implemented, user information is sold, user tracking and analytics, etc. By avoiding this we may not have as much money, but it allows the site to remain a place of free speech.
Originally it was small enough there were no donations or ads. Donations then became necessary, but after a while were not enough. Then as growth continued ads could be purchased, but with strict restrictions on the type. You may have noticed they only consist of text, a picture, and a link. This restriction is fantastic and should be praised, you may know most ads through-out the internet have so much tracking and analytics so this solves that. The next step that occurred recently which some of you were here to witness, is the Voat store where merchandise can be purchased from.
So the gist is that as Voat grows, more funds are required for more server capacity but due to the funding avenues in place (for good reason remember, outlined above) and the nature of the site itself the money comes in but slowly (less ads being purchased by companies who might not want their ads being displayed here as an example) and in less quantity then other sites that whore themselves.
Part of the problem recently though has also been major amounts of spam and shilling, so I believe the logic in this to be to close registration temporarily to catch up on the backlog and clean things up.
▼ VieBleu
So why can't a clear annoucement about this policy be made with an idea of an end date? You are talking about a conspiracy subverse here, people notice things, want answers and want the public to participate. Not being transparent about a major thing like now allowing any new membership seems like a sort of condescension towards a very vibrant part of Voat. Overall I have liked and benefited from the period of calm, but it's time to address this issue formally and tell people what is going on.
Edit: Thanks for the history BTW. I simply asked for clarification on the mods sub https://voat.co/v/pizzagatemods/1520291#submissionTop
▼ jinbnters
Because its a fairly regular occurance, and most other members especially the older ones understand and don't mind. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you may be thinking of Voat as a 'larger' website, as if it were under more mangement and had more professional policies and things.
There is no policy on this sort of thing to my understanding and this is a two man operation, it happens and then when determined by Atko and Putt they lift the restricton when they can handle the capacity of more users to the site and/or when spam issues are cleaned up.
Understand that as I said before it has happened a few times before at least, its not anything towards you guys. After every Reddit influx essentially theres temporarily registration restrictions, you guys aren't any sort of exception. Feeling as if you were will only further this false feeling of persecution or being targeted in some sense.
In light of this however, I may be inclined to agree that some sort of announcement in /v/announcements would be nice even though I'm sure somewhere they've commented on it already.
▼ VieBleu
Actually, I'm sorry about using "reeks" - that's a bit strong and I edited it. It "feels like" something big is going on that we aren't being told about, and I would say yeah us newbies here have no idea what used to go on at voat. Overall it's been a good thing to have a chill down and a mop up, but it is not unreasonable to wonder how long it will go on. Remember we are a bunch of conspiracy minded windmill brains! It doesn't take much for everyone to be sure that it is part of a plot to suppress pizzagate interest. Transparency would soothe the 'fugee gossip mill.
▼ VieBleu
The thing to do is familiarize yourself with some formal channels for getting your opinion heard:
post your suggestions here https://voat.co/v/ideasforvoat/1518519
Ping mods by using the @ symbols and asking them when the invite only is planned to be lifted, or if the discussion hasn't been raised could they start raising it. the mods names are at the bottem right of the sidebar
Lurking through the mod threads can be enlightening as well v/pizzagatemods
Upvote this thread - for the amount of comments on here there should be a lot more upvotes - use your vote!
It is a legitimate question to ask when the invite only is planned to end. It seems to me that it has overall been a good thing so far and the forum has calmed down quite a bit since the invite only, while they've been activey soliciting opinions about broadening the moderator rules and redoing the sidebar.
I would suggest that the forum be open to the public again no later than New Year's Day, for a new clean PG kick off to 2017, but I am not privy to any information regarding forum oversight.
I am pushing for a double sticky at the top of the forum - 1st one ALWAYS there, a newcomer greeting and primer on pizzagate without fail, the 2nd for mod annoucements. Just my 2 cents. Surely the "technology exists" to put a 2nd sticky on our main forum page.
▼ 2impendingdoom
I have mixed feelings about this, I want everyone to be able to add new material and comments because we never know who might have key information, but new members also tend to clutter up the forum with duplicate threads in their enthusiasm. It is also nice not to have to hammer down Imwithher and chelsea2020 in every post. overall I think that Voat is doing a good job and using good judgment and the mods are seeming to have valid reasons for their actions. I am new to online forums so, being that we are still here, I trust their experience with this issue.
▼ lawexaminer
I have noticed this happening for about a week.
▼ adam_danischewski
While it may be difficult to control the content, I think voat should allow new members in more easily than finding someone who is already a member here. A decentralized server-less message board would be ideal, but it looks like AETHER ( http://getaether.net/) ) got scrapped. Typical pattern it was put it out there unfinished and then abandoned - if you have programming skills, get a copy and make it work.
Until then it's probably better to go old-school usenet-style and allow everyone in and everything posted - leaving it up to the user/client to figure out how to apply filters to see the content they want. Sharing filter lists between users and designing your own filters to knock down spam and idiots on the boards. This causes people to learn to apply their own logic and exposes them to a large array of attacks (ploys/shills/disinformation) out there strengthening people overtime. This site would need to increase the filtering capabilities of users to do this.
▼ ProudTruther
Yeah besides invite only, i mean a shill will know somebody to invite them.
▼ lawfag123
It's great that it's invite only. But how do we invite people?
▼ DeathToMasons
It's "great"? Who are these lemmings? It is not "great", it suggest that they are halting participation and halting membership. It is the same as the government censoring in order to "protect" us. You have either failed or you are a shill yourself.
▼ lawfag123
No I'm not. People who cared the most and were aware of voat got on board. Then the shills noticeably started affecting the board. Then the membership was locked. Seems linear to me - what am I missing?
By locking the membership, the most active/caring/aware members are allowed to continue the investigation without further flood of shills.
▼ VieBleu
I think what you are missing is that public support and further public involvement is essential. The invite only is okay for awhile, but not long term. I do think there are other issues stretching the resources of the voat owners such as server capability, money, time etc involved.
▼ Orangutan
Who owns, operates, or run Voat.co? Can we contact them about this?
Currently 9568 subscribers, and 1159 users here.
▼ Azagthoth
I have been periodically browsing voat from october till now. This new protocol stems from the need to stave-off the heavy amount of upvote/downvote bots that were hitting the gate threads up really hard. Maybe this will be turned off once they get a handle on the whos who? Lots of shills upvoating total garbage for a while there
▼ Infopractical
This is a very challenging topic. I recommend not reflexively being angry with voat itself. This might have been planned long before pizzagate. Then again, it might relate to pizzagate in innocent ways: this is a challenging topic to host for so many reasons. Personally, I believe this topic beckons the need for new technology, which I hope we see very soon.
▼ witch_doctor1
This concerns me...how is the forum supposed to grow at an invite only pace? We are on a time schedule....My gut tells me that we are going to see more document dumps/truth bombs as Jan. 20 approaches and we need all hands on deck.
Is there a growing and vibrant invite-only forum anywhere on the 'net?
▼ nathanwblair
i think they're trying to filter out the many shills who mass downvoat & spam propoganda
▼ DeathToMasons
That is a lame excuse for halting membership growth.
▼ Yuser_Manuel
Maybe the reason they are not excepting new members is because of bandwidth issues? There are a lot of people looking into pizzagate and since it is banned on other sites the heavy load was causing this site to be glitchy.
▼ Yuser_Manuel
its been that way for a couple of weeks now and i guess only mods can invite others because i haven't seen a way to do so.
▼ SlackeryTurnBull
Has Pizzagate been confined to the Ghetto?
▼ fetuspizza
I think they're treating it more of a gated community. Keep out the shills/undesirables/trolls.
▼ VieBleu
Gated community is just another term for ghetto.
▼ VieBleu
well put.
▼ flyingcuttlefish
that looks scary. I signed up at voat after the Reddit pizzagate ban (recent) and had no trouble.