Currently, if your post count drops below -50, you can only post 5 comments in a day. Today I discovered this is not as difficult a threshold to reach as I thought it would be. Earlier today, was up to +17 CCP (which took a week to reach), but after making several unpopular comments in this thread I'm now sitting at -27 CCP (and still dropping). Now, the point of this threshold is to discourage troll accounts, but it was not my intention to be a troll; my perspective just happened to be unpopular in that particular thread, and my attempts to enunciate my perspective resulted in numerous downvotes. I'd encourage you to read my postings in the thread and decide for yourself whether this type of disagreement is reasonable, or whether it shouldn't be allowed at voat. Because to me, this -50 CCP policy seems to strongly discourage voicing unpopular opinions, because people often receive downvotes just for having a view that others disagree with, and not just because they're being inflammatory.
If you want an echo-chamber where only the majority opinion is heard, by all means, keep the rule in place, but if you want to encourage any sort of debate, you can't punish users for merely having an opinion that is unpopular in a specific thread.
EDIT: I've just hit -57 CCP. I know I should have stopped replying, and deleted my comments, but I'm a man of principles and stand by what I said. Anyhow, if a mod ever happens to read this, please consider what I've said, and think about what type of community you want at this site, and if the current voting rules are well suited for achieving that goal. Thank you.
EDIT2: Replying to your posts here, since I can't post comments:
-Hypnogoat, I'm well aware of the importance of being amicable, and not unyielding in comment replies. I'm curious if you read everything I posted in that thread or not, because I thought I was doing an okay job at that for the most part (notwithstanding that first comment which was meant to be a joke, and the second comment when I thought my first comment had been deleted). If you have any specific advice for how I could be a better debater, I'm all ears, because that's something I'm definitely trying to get better at. If you could take some quote excerpts and deconstruct them, that would be quite useful. I'd find it hard to believe that I'm the worst debater in that thread though.
-o.o, I was actually just conversing with a trans person who commented that voat is not the most welcoming place for trans people, to put it lightly. I agree that they had a right to downvote me, it just seems a bit strange that I'm also deprived of my ability to post because of it. To be honest I was blindsided by the apparent hostility towards trans folk here. Not that I'm saying this particular issue is completely one-sided in the trans persons favor; it's just that the aggressiveness of people who disagreed with me was a lot stronger than I was expecting.
-Watdabney, I'm not disagreeing with their ability to "shut down my argument", I just don't think that I should have my posting privileges removed because of it. I felt I had valid points and was no more emotional or "driven by bias" than my opponents.
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[–] Numzane ago
Ahh I see