As stated elsewhere in the thread, my vote audit shows no participation from any of the 29 banned sock accounts the in the !news feedback thread, or this one for that matter. Please take the votes more seriously. If you'd like to spread FUD about the legitimacy of a vote, ask an admin to audit them first so you can state with evidence that a specific vote has been manipulated.

People trust the software to tell them what others are thinking, and if you successfully spread the false idea that votes that disagree with you are manipulated, you're not just arguing in bad faith, you're undermining the federated system we should all want to succeed.

I'm sorry if I come across as preachy in the below post, but I wanted to try and explain to you where the critique is coming from. And also that it's not personal or any widespread resentment.

I (and many others) get what a thankless and also necessary job moderating is. It's not easy to do it well, it's frustrating, it's thankless and without it the community would be dead. But being a moderator and sticking out your neck brings you exposure and you are guaranteed to meet more asshats than you ever thought existed. But the users are not one homogenous group, it's not because one user has flung abuse at moderators, that all users are now suddenly resentful of moderators.

The person you are replying to, put a good bit of time in listing what comments were most up voted, which are probably the comments that found most support amongst the users in that thread. In the same way that we should not be dismissive of what you do or say, you shouldn't be dismissive of what others do or say (or up vote). Mutual respect and all that.

Self reflection is also important, it's important to realize and accept that it is possible to be wrong about something. Doing a mea culpa and moving on is far easier in the long term than doubling down and digging a deeper hole, yet it's a lot rarer because it hurts our ego in the short term.

Their final point about a problem with handling feedback rings true to me:

• You (not you personally, but the team that did that feedback thread) have apparently treated up- and down votes on a thread as a poll and a popular mandate for action, but up- and down votes are not a poll and most (probably most) people don't use them as such.

• Up- and down votes on comments are useful for finding which remarks resonated with or turned away other users. They are not a poll either, and most upvoted are not automatically most correct at all, but they give you a chance to read the room.

• You (now you personally) have thrown shade on the people that up voted comments against the bot, by insinuating that those people might have been bots themselves and that therefore their opinions are irrelevant. Yes it's possible that there are some users using alts, but all those users? Not very likely.

• The best feedback I saw in that thread was not in the up or down votes, it was in the comments themselves. There were some very compelling arguments as to why using a biased site to display bias, was a bad idea. Those comments also had quite a bit of upvotes, so the way I read the room, that was a popular sentiment.

• The person you are replying to made a few arguments and one scathing critique which they probably hoped that you would improve on in the future. Imo a polite disagreement with your previous statements. You respond by being dismissive of his arguments and acting like it's a personal attack. They were sticking to facts, you're making it about you as a person. I really don't think that was their intent.

We want the bot gone. That's it. It's really that simple.