Comment on User "threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works" is banning users for downvoting his posts.
socsa@piefed.social 1 day agoHaving a single voting agent per user doesn't change that though. If you've got downvote trolls you can just ban the voting agent just like you could otherwise ban the sockpuppet. All it does it allow actual users to have a small bit important layer of privacy which allowed them to vote on content they might not otherwise choose to comment on. The Charlie Kirk thing is an absolutely perfect example of a scenario where one might want to upvote a meme without taking the risk of joining the conversation. Having that vote registered as xxyyttrreedd instead of "socsa" makes it a lot harder for someone to come back a month or a year later and say "wow, I saw my coworker's account name over their shoulder and I can't believe they voted on this meme."
Skavau@piefed.social 1 day ago
Sorry, so you mean obfuscating identities of voters but they could still be seen as separate 'agents'? So in that way a community owner could ban downvoters, they just wouldn't know who got banned?
socsa@piefed.social 1 day ago
Yes, that is exactly how the original piefed implementation worked, which was a fantastic compromise between true anonymous voting and the need for community management. But this wasn't enough for a small subset of admins and mods who did not actually thing the issue through, and took offense under the guise of "vote brigading."
Skavau@piefed.social 1 day ago
I don't recall piefed showing you any voter details before Rimu changed it. I recall it being completely anonymous, and only deweighting downvoters if they did X downvotes in a row (meaning their downvote wouldn't count locally). Then he changed it, and added non-federated voting.
But supposing we have a sort of proxy voting system, whereby a downvote by you is identified under a proxy name - if you got banned by a community moderator for voting like that, wouldn't they instantly see who you were by checking the community ban list?
socsa@piefed.social 1 day ago
The way it was implemented was that a user was basically two accounts - one voted, one commented. You could ban either one without knowing the other. The point being that if the issue was vote manipulation, you could ban the voting agent and be done with it. If the issue was as content violation then you could ban the other account and be done with it. It was literally just like having an app where you can log in with two accounts at once and choose which one to use to vote vs comment.