Probably better to post in the github issue rather than replying here.
Yes make votes public
I don’t see the benefits but I see drama this would cause.
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
I would hate to have to deal with “why did you downvote me?” comments, but I’m also not sure I would have the self control to abstain from leaving such a comment myself.
I think that making vote identities easily accesible to every user runs the risk of increasing harassment and decreasing discussion quality.
Do not make votes public. It will lead to personal attacks.
deleted by creator
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.
environment more hostile to discussion and honest exchange.
“Voting” and “discussion” are separate things. The old forums did not have voting but still had polarization, personal attacks, hellthreads, etc.
The problem is that Reddit/Facebook turned “voting” from a tool meant to measure “quality” (e.g, this post is relevant to the community, this comment does not add to the discussion) into a tool to measure “popularity” (I agree with this, so I vote up. I don’t like this, so I downvote).
Either get rid of voting altogether, or let’s bring back a culture where “votes” are meant to signal quality.
(Score: 5, Insightful)
Reeditors did that, rather than reddit I’d argue. Still the same result of becoming a far less useful heuristic though.
Not really sure how to “fix” a system like that, which depends on the masses to do something correctly. They… don’t.
We can fix that by having moderators that can establish clear guidelines and show enough authority and can be trusted by the community. And yes, if the guidelines include something like:
Downvotes are not for disagreement. It’s fine to downvote if the argument is false or deliberately misleading, but if someone is making a good faith argument that you disagree with, either make a constructive response or simply let it go
Then the mods would be completely justified to call out users who are drive-by downvoting.
Or some self entitled 3rd party admin would do that just because they’d feel like people owed them explanations.
Hey, do I owe you anything for all the space I’m taking in your head or am I still living rent-free?
If you did it would not be rent free, or would it, einstein. But no worry, i don’t think about you, just this topic and your enthusiasm for it triggered my reply :)
Have a downvote for going off topic and “personal”.
You are the one pontificating in my comment, and I am the one going personal. Seems like you reasoning is as good as your reading comprehension.
But hey, thanks for stopping by!
But… we had those on reddit. I didn’t see many actual examples of the “moderator gone power crazy” stereotype that is so often echoed there (especially by people who fully deserved the moderator action they received).
The issue wasn’t that the rules were clear. The issue was that people refused to read them in the first place, and became hyper-defensive and obstinate whenever they were called out on it, even by moderators.
deleted by creator
What alternatives to votes would you propose to handle this better? Because I have no doubt the same thing will happen here too…
It’s just how people work, especially when things get heated. That said, perhaps that’s a poor example as a heated discussion isn’t necessary a helpful/constructive one…
Maybe the upvotes should only be available to the person who owns the comment or post. Maybe to the mods and admins, too?
Lemmy admins can already see the votes (up and down). Used to just be in the database (
select * from comment_like where person_id = ?), but since some 19.x update, it’s a menu item with a GUI popup:
Apparently, non-admins can already do this on platforms like kbin.
Same idiots playing games with each others in the open is better than bots and manipulation going on behind the scenes.
Sure, but I think we can go further.
Filter the votes I see based on which users or instances I’ve blocked. I’ve blocked them for a reason.
Yes, absolutely. I am for pseudonyms but transparency. I would be very keen on having colors of the usernames to signify how old the username is. Also having a possibility to load block lists from files ( like github ) to allow sharing the block lists of the trolls
deleted by creator
This would probably escalate a lot of arguments that break out in comment sections.
Yes, and there’s no genuine argument otherwise.
If you want Lemmy to grow and not be completely overrun with bots posting propaganda and signal boosting extremism, showing votes is the only way forward. It’s the only mechanism by which independent parties can discover and expose things like “every post and comment by this account is upvoted by these 20 other accounts that have never posted and whose names follow the same formula”.
The privacy you’re mourning never existed in the first place and it can’t exist on any platform. For Lemmy, it’s required for federation. On sites like Reddit, you have privacy from other users, but not from the company or anyone they sell that data to.
Since true privacy isn’t an option, it would be far better to be open about that lack of privacy. This thread is already riddled with people who thought their votes were private, rather than just inconvient to look up. That’s far more dangerous and deceptive.
This needs to happen, regardless of the ill-informed tantrums it may cause. If you want to upvote pornography without it being used against you, create accounts that are strictly for pornography and properly compartmentalize your accounts.
Why not try it, then remove the feature if it turns out toxic?
My posts and comments are already exposed, so it seems like it would make sense to make votes public as well. I think it contributes to the general spirit of the platform.
Absolutely not.
This will like lots of other people say start witch hunts and people will absolutely develop bots and websites which scrape all that information and classify all users based on that. Like those Reddit sites where you can search for a user and see where they are active and all that. But this will be worse.
