Probably better to post in the github issue rather than replying here.
Hard no from me
I don’t want some nutjob with too much time stalking me because I upvoted something about climate change or downvoted some bigoted shit. We all know those fuckos are out there
Voting on Reddit-like platforms is soft moderation by a community, and if you disincentive that, the whole model kinda falls apart IMO
I agree with you. I remember arguing about this a year ago when people first discovered votes were public on Kbin. I don’t want to obsess over who up- or downvoted me and I don’t want anyone else doing that either. Discussions are healthier when voting is anonymous (or at least obscured as is currently the case).
If bots become such an overwhelming problem that all regular users need access to voting records to better report all the bots I’ll maybe revisit my stance. But right now the gains seem dubious.
Mod-admins are already doing this, even if you vote and don’t comment on something.
Yep. Same for me.
It’s already public, it’s just lemmy users who don’t see them.
Isn’t the obvious thing to just have it be an option that admins can enable or disable? Maybe have a third option for only showing upvotes? Then it’s up to each instance to decide, and users can decide to go to instances with the option their prefer.
What might be interesting would be to have it displayed, but grouped by instance. That way we could see some data and potentially uncover troll instances or attempts to brigade the conversation without opening ourselves up to personal attacks.
If they’re a serial downvoter, then it’s easier for you to track them and block them as well. Double edged sword i think
I thought blocks were one way - you can’t see anything from the person you blocked, but they can still see your stuff?
Hmm, i haven’t have experience with that, but even then you achieve your peace of mind and whatever they do means nothing.
I downvoted SO much more on Reddit than I do here. The comment quality here is leagues better.
That’s why I’d like it.
So to catch a single “serial downvoter” you’d open up all your voting to vote stalkers? If it’s a single person, honestly why does it matter?
Actually what’s the case with vote stalker? I haven’t seen them anywhere and i don’t know what’s so bad till have to hold off a feature just because of them.
Would be the people that would go through your vote history and then grief you based on it. Kinda like people that sift through people’s comment history to grief them, just now it wouldn’t allow any “anonymous” interaction with posts.
Ahh, i see.
It doesn’t REALLY matter. More of a thing where it would be fun to catch him since he’s really obsessed with me. But meh, in the end, doesn’t matter. And I blocked him, so…
I don’t want some nutjob with too much time stalking me because I upvoted something about climate change or downvoted some bigoted shit.
They can read your comment history why would you care about them being able to see what you upvoted?
Voting on Reddit-like platforms is soft moderation by a community, and if you disincentive that,
How does that disincentive it? It actually makes it better
I specifically don’t comment on people that give off the vibe they might be one of those kind of nutjobs, precisely because it gives them a notification with my username attached if I do. I’m on this site to kill some time with low effort, I want to minimise the risk of attracting the attention of some weirdo.
I downvote in those scenarios and then report if appropriate. If enough other users feel the same way the comment goes down to the bottom of the thread and fewer users see it. Especially if it’s something that a mod eventually removes, as it reduces the reach until a mod can get to it.
If I risk retaliation for doing that, I (and others) will just stop, meaning those comments stay up front & centre and we lose that soft moderation plus that engagement in general. Going into the comments will just end up being a worse experience
I get your point but if you want to just lurk and read don’t vote either
I don’t want some nutjob with too much time stalking me because I upvoted something about climate change or downvoted some bigoted shit. We all know those fuckos are out there
I’m dealing with one right now! lol It’s crazy.
You don’t even have serial downvoters. You have a few comments without many downvotes. You just consistently post the worst possible political pisstakes repeatedly and constantly and nobody likes them when they run across it every time.
You just consistently post the worst possible political pisstakes repeatedly
Strange that you would say that. I haven’t posted any political articles to this community. This is the fediverse community.
nobody likes them when they run across it every time.
Really? So an article about a ninety year old woman, who finally graduates college, posted to my own sub, with 3 subscribers, and got 9 votes within a minute of posting is political? That doesn’t seem like a political “pisstake.”
Or 13 downvotes in my own educational sub about a college that gives out 3-year degrees. It has 2 subscribers in that sub. That doesn’t seem like a political “pisstake.”
Or 14 downvotes about a program serving underprivileged children and helping them go to college. and the downvotes were within 2 minutes of posting. To a sub that has 2 subscribers. That doesn’t seem like a political “pisstake.”
And since all my postings to a political sub are about third parties, from legit news orgs, seems kind of a stretch to call them “political pisstakes.”
But wait, I haven’t posted any of those articles to this community. So strange how you would know so much about what I post.
Of course, posting history is public. But I haven’t checked your post history, because I don’t care. Strange that you would check mine. And then not mention all of the non-political posts.
You know, what’s really weird too? I posted some articles to the c/science committee. And even some posters there commented on how strange it was that my posts were being downvoted so much and so fast, when the articles weren’t political at all.
Luckily the science people are cool, and the upvotes quickly outnumbered the downvotes.
But yeah, they were definitely curious about why so many downvotes so quickly on neutral science reporting.
But meh, probably just a coincidence.
I think maybe you are right. Because for sure there wouldn’t be an incel loser, who is so butthurt about my not voting for his candidate, that he’d follow me around. And downvote articles and take screenshots of how much I post, or set up alternate accounts just to engage with me after I blocked him.
That’s way too strange. There is no way a loser would be so pathetic to do that. All because he doesn’t like the Green Party.
So now that I’ve thought about it, I agree with you.
It would be just too crazy that an incel loser like that would follow me around. I mean, sure he can’t get a girlfriend, but hey, I’m sure he’s not THAT mad at the world. :)
Touch sum fucken grass dude
Or how about I use a forum that doesn’t have incels that get off on downvoting people. There is that.
That’s a lot of words man
Well it does take about 20 seconds to read, I so can understand your frustration.
No, votes should not be displayed public.
Blocking those who downvote creates further polarisation, echo chambers and an environment more hostile to discussion and honest exchange.
Following those who upvote creates personality cults and nepotism and devalues the content.
Maybe the upvotes should only be available to the person who owns the comment or post. Maybe to the mods and admins, too?
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Same idiots playing games with each others in the open is better than bots and manipulation going on behind the scenes.
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Do not make votes public. It will lead to personal attacks.
They’re already public if you look via kbin or run your own instance.
The experience of kbin and mbin users say otherwise, however.
I guess all 6 of them can be trusted. Lol
Well, there are other problems too of course, but you can check the rest of the thread for that or check my comment history.
Because the fediverse isn’t as big as you think it is and so the number of crazies aren’t a problem yet.
It leads to an even bigger echo chamber, people with unpopular opinions will get ostracized not just for their comments, but even for their voting. There’s a reason why any real democracy has secret votes.
Comparing to democracy doesn’t make sense, as democracy has mechanisms to ensure 1 person = 1 vote. The internet has no such mechanism. If we did, I’d be all for private voting.
people with unpopular opinions will get ostracized not just for their comments, but even for their voting
Sounds like those people doing the ostracizing should get moderated if they can’t handle being downvoted. Besides, if a dickhead wants to see the votes today, they can find them - votes are public, Lemmy just doesn’t display them in the UI.
Comparing to democracy doesn’t make sense, as democracy has mechanisms to ensure 1 person = 1 vote. The internet has no such mechanism. If we did, I’d be all for private voting.
I know, it’s an issue, but there are certainly ways to solve it, like having the vote identity split between multiple servers that can still confirm with each other that the vote is valid, but neither would reveal the actual identity to make it traceable back.
Sounds like those people doing the ostracizing should get moderated if they can’t handle being downvoted.
That’s unfortunately not how it often works. Small, ostracized and vulnerable groups often get taken advantage of. As an example, imagine I want to make a good faight argument around, say, a political topic like Russia. Or a sensitive topic like paedophilia. Or about abortion or trans rights in a religious subreddit. Chances are I’d get downvoted to oblivion, even if the consensus (at least originally on Reddit) was that downvotes should not be used to simply disagree with someone. But at least I “opt into” that, by putting myself out there, knowing that the comment will be attached to my name.
But that’s not really the standard with votes, and them being public has a chilling effect, makes it easy to harass people just for (dis)agreeing with something, etc. We should find a way to make votes more private, not less.
Besides, if a dickhead wants to see the votes today, they can find them - votes are public, Lemmy just doesn’t display them in the UI.
Yes, the votes are already kinda public, but there’s still at least some barrier to it, and most people either don’t know or care enough.
there are certainly ways to solve it, like having the vote identity split between multiple servers that can still confirm with each other that the vote is valid, but neither would reveal the actual identity to make it traceable back.
This doesn’t solve it. I can still just make multiple accounts and vote multiple times.
The only way to solve it would be to actually verify that each account is associated with 1 real life person and then verify that each person only votes once on each post. But that requires essentially verifying a passport and documents for each user which is totally infeasible and has far worse privacy concerns than public votes do.
This doesn’t solve it. I can still just make multiple accounts and vote multiple times.
I mean yeah, but you could already do that now. The point is to not make it worse, and to not allow malicious instances to vote as if they were other people.
I mean yeah, but you could already do that now
Yes, but because the votes are not private, I can be found out by correlating votes. Like if I made another account and just used it to always upvote everything my first account posts, that would be pretty obvious. If votes are private, there is no way to find out such conduct.
Vote in good faith and if someone attacks you they will be on the wrong side
Enabling retaliation disincentivizes personal attacks
I think people misunderstand. I too would prefer privacy, but theres a big BUT.
Due to how the federation works, anyone who is tech savvy enough can already see votes. One way is to run an instance.
This change doesn’t lower privacy, it aligns expectations with reality. A false sense of privacy, which people obviously show here in the comments, is way more dangerous.
I think it’s a bad idea. It’s just going to start harassment and witch hunts when someone gets a downvote they don’t like. Stalking is going to be a thing, people are going to aggregate all the votes you’ve done to make assumptions about you to then bully you. Once public, sources outside Lemmy will start gathering and cross referencing data about you.
In the US, when you vote, the vote is private to protect the person. Making votes public will only empower those that would abuse it. It very well could end Lemmy due to massive bulling, harassment, and the decline of activity.
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No need for a Lemmy server, kbin/mbin put it in their interface
https://kbin.earth/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/267356/Lemmy-devs-are-considering-making-all-votes-public-have-your/favourites
Saying the fediverse is good for privacy is just plain false, that’s the kind of information anyone can acquire, even an ad company. All they have to do is federate a silent instance and see all you do.
Kbin/Mbin show votes too.
Edit: But I think downvotes are hidden by default now.
anyone can set up a Lemmy server
This is not the case. What percentage of the population could set up a Lemmy server, do you think? 1%? 0.1%? Of those, what percentage have the time to set up a Lemmy server? 1%?
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Yes I know. Mbin and Kbin should be encouraged to change this. We’re currently in a fairly benign environment so it doesn’t really matter but if the threadiverse ever got big then this could become serious enough to be a cause for defederation.
Mbin and Kbin should be encouraged to change this.
Who are you to impose how others run their instance? Clearly this should be an option that each instance can set by itself. You are of course free to defederate, but that’s kinda like an instance that has downvotes disabled defederating from instances that have downvotes enabled. You can do it but it’s kind of arbitrary I would say.
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That’s way too much work. I just logged into my original account on kbin.social and tapped on the activity button to see votes before that instance went down. If I want to see votes again I can set up an account on any kbin or mbin instance in less than a minute and do the same thing.
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Boy oh boy, it sure is a mystery why democracies have people vote privately
The last thing I need is people knowing I upvoted a nsfw post, so nope thanks.
I rather not. If it does happen, I’ll just rss Lemmy and stop using my account. I like Lemmy the way it is because there’s not much focus on votes and more on actual discussion.
I was really confused seeing this post, because I always assumed that Lemmy votes were public. Because how else are instances going to sync them? And indeed, the API exposes them completely, this change will just make it easier.
Then I was really confused when I saw so many comments being against it. A lot of “I’ll leave if votes become public” in here. That’s a lot of people who somehow assumed Lemmy was private. Aren’t we all supposed to be Linux nerds in here?
Have you SEEN the drama that happens in this place? I feel like this is just asking for weird nobodies to harass anyone who quietly disagrees with them.
If this passes then I’m outta here.
No thank you. I’ve already had one person go off on me because of some perceived offense: https://lemm.ee/comment/13768482
This is exactly what worries me about this idea.
Not everyone has a github account and can comment or vote there.
But, agree. Don’t think any good will come from making votes public. Any pro/con should be measured against who it benefits. If it’s mods or devs, there are always alternatives
If it’s end-users, consider the edge-cases and the repercussions of malicious actors having access to those individual preferences.
I’m seeing lots of comments here saying that server admins can already see vote data, and therefore it is not private.
But from my point of view, having a handful of people able to extract voting data using their position of trust on the lemmy network is very different from broadcasting voting data to everyone on lemmy. And although you can argue that it is possible to create a new server and federate and blah-blah-blah to view votes; that argument sounds to me like “don’t bother locking your front door, because that type of lock can be defeated by a lock-picking tools.”
And even aside from all that discussion about who can access what; there is another key point that I think is overlooked: Making voter information public makes it ‘normal’ thing to monitor and discuss. Currently there is an expectation that people won’t look at or discuss that information (even if they hypothetically could get access). But by making it public, the expectation then is that everyone will look at that information. That would create a change in tone and meaning of votes and discussion around votes.
I don’t want votes to be public, but they already are, so.
Someone can easily host a website to leak this information and people should know, instead of believing they are private
