Comment on Lemmy devs are considering making all votes public - have your say

9point6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Your votes are already public. It’s a matter of (a) do we want to make it slightly easier for the people who aren’t technically inclined to see them too (b) do we want people acting with the awareness that they’re public.

  (a) doesn’t have a clear answer to me. The answer to (b), though, is clearly yes.

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  • rimu@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Your votes are already public.

    People say this all the time, but it's not really the case.

    I don't think privacy is a binary thing that one either has or does not - there are degrees of privacy. Currently what we have is mostly private, requiring either technical skill or admin access to circumvent. This is a pretty high bar which 99% of people would not be able to reach. You're proposing removing the bar entirely because it is not high enough.

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    • rglullis@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      requiring either technical skill or admin access to circumvent.

      What if some troll sets up a website that indexes/publishes this data? What technical skill would be required then?

      The data is public and ignorance is not bliss. People need to be made aware of this. If this will lead to people being more careful about what they post online or how they interact with a public social media service, then all the better.

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      • rimu@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        They'd get defederated from.

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      • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        How is the data public? I’m asking in the most technical sense?

        This informs an issue I’ve had lately with a group of three people or bots following along my comment chain (All my comments, for a while, were dropping consistently to -2 score in all contexts).

        It’s my understanding that votes are not public. Am I wrong?

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      • systemglitch@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Your idea of a nice world and mine are very different.

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      • SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        They already can

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    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You're proposing removing the bar entirely because it is not high enough.

      Incorrect. I said that I see no obvious answer as to whether to remove the bar -- that's the (a) part. What I'm proposing to do is definitely to educate people about the existence of the bar and the fact that they shouldn't be voting on porn, or contentious political topics from an account with their real name, or etc etc like that.

      More than 1% of the currently active Lemmy users are actively running a server (it's 1.4%, 649 active instances out of 45k MAU), so I think the number is definitely less than 99% of people who wouldn't know how to do it in the first place. The broader point about it being fairly difficult / fairly rare to have the knowledge, I can agree with, but I wasn't saying necessarily that we should make it easier for the 98.6% of people to do; just that everyone should be aware that it's possible.

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    • adam@doomscroll.n8e.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Image

      You say that, but you simply have to be using something that isn’t Lemmy and that information is there (doubly so if you’re an admin on any of these systems)

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    • Fillicia@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      People say this all the time, but it’s not really the case.

      Except that it is, people with the skills already bridged that gap for everyone.

      kbin.earth/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/…/favourites

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      • rimu@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Hmmm I see a bunch of my friends have not upvoted my post. I will contact them to ask why not and ensure that they do.

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    • mke@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The bar is not nearly so high, it simply takes opening the post in the right kbin/mbin instance. That requires neither technical skill nor admin privileges.

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    • kux@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      piefed is already exremely reddity maintaining behind-the-scenes ‘karma’ and ‘attitude’ for users whether they signed up for it or not. why shouldn’t this info be public instead of in the hands of admins only?

      join.piefed.social/…/piefed-features-for-growing-…

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      • can@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Oof, I’d rather just stick to Lemmy and let people see my votes rather than delà with karma.

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      • sramder@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        People who downvote more than upvote tend to be the ones who get in fights a lot and say snarky, inflammatory and negative things.

        Summed up my whole sense of humor in half a throwaway sentence ;-)

        Seriously though, interesting read, thank you kux… you can really feel the author’s frustration and yet I can’t help but feel that they are interested in a certain kind of idealistic online community. Reddit but with a really restrictive HOA where everyone has the exact same color mailbox.

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    • dandroid@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Admin access means nothing if you can set up your own instance in an afternoon, federate with everything, then get all the votes copied to your database. I have done this just to prove it could be done, btw.

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    • index@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Currently what we have is mostly private, requiring either technical skill or admin access to circumvent. This is a pretty high bar which 99% of people would not be able to reach.

      I’m down to work on an analyzer tool that would make it easier for everyone to see the votes

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    • silentknyght@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Technical people can struggle when a choice isn’t a zero or a one.

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  • zerofk@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    (b) will just lead to free up and down votes, i.e. less engagement. That in turn could lead to slowly bleeding out.

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  • it_depends_man@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I would like a © where my instances collects all the votes on the post, and then transmits an anonymized aggregate.

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    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That would require a major change to the ActivityPub standard, which is not easy or trivial. This is at worst infeasible to impossible, at best something that is 5+ years away.

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      • socsa@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        This is not true, the piefed admin implemented pseudonymous voting agents in around 48 hours

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  • socsa@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    My votes on piefed are not public. This dev took the obvious idea of a dedicated voting agent and implemented it in about 48 hours.

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• Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• UniversalMonk@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You don’t even have serial downvoters. You just consistently post the worst possible political pisstakes repeatedly and constantly and nobody likes them when they run across it every time.

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    • UniversalMonk@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      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, whats 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 is so strange. There is no way a loser would be so pathetic to do that. All because he doesn’t like the Green Party. So thank you for letting me realize my mistake.

      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. :)

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      • zecg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Touch sum fucken grass dude

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      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That’s a lot of words man

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• Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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

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  • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I thought blocks were one way - you can’t see anything from the person you blocked, but they can still see your stuff?

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    • Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Hmm, i haven’t have experience with that, but even then you achieve your peace of mind and whatever they do means nothing.

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  • UniversalMonk@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s why I’d like it.

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    • TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      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?

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      • Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        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.

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      • UniversalMonk@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        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…

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  • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I downvoted SO much more on Reddit than I do here. The comment quality here is leagues better.

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• zecg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s already public, it’s just lemmy users who don’t see them.

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• cyborganism@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yep. Same for me.

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• Xyre@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Mod-admins are already doing this, even if you vote and don’t comment on something.

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• SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• index@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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

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  • 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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 don’t want any 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 and centre and we lose that soft moderation plus that engagement in general. Going into the comments will just end up being a worse experience

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    • index@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I get your point but if you want to just lurk and read don’t vote either

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