Sorry for the spam, I kept hitting "Create Thread" and it never loaded until after a minute or so and then there were 4 threads 😅 Kinda illustrates my point...
I agree with @Drewski, defederation should be the last choice. Kbin does have an option where you can block whole domains, so if you'd prefer that, go here and click the block button: kbin.social/d/fanaticus.social
Honestly, I feel like blocking someone should prevent them from interacting with your posts in any way, or even seeing them. I would think that’s the entire point.
Yeah. Blocking is hard for a federated system. And that's before the philosophical differences that have popped up in this thread on how blocks should work in theory.
Should blocking a user still allow them to vote on your posts?
Yes
Otherwise it would be possible block all users who disagree with you to ensure 100% positive upvotes.
and gollygosh sweetheart why are you even in a situation to be looking at all this? 1x account downvoting you is totaly survivable. feel free to downvote me. :)
I would prefer if blocking hides or removes any kind of interaction between us. One issue I have noticed is that when you block someone you can’t see any replies which unfortunately hides comments from others
A 'hide downvotes from blocked users' might be a good function. Won't solve the problem of reducing visibility of posts, but if you're bugged by it, it would be a help.
If you're a bad actor, you could block anyone who downvotes your bad takes or whatever garbage you're posting, and over time, you could block most active users (or at least the ones who disagree with you) until your posts aren't downvoted into oblivion. I suppose by then, your total rep would be pretty pretty low and it would probably be easier to just make a new account.
I'm not sure how viable this would be, just a thought.
This was a concern raised when Reddit updated the way blocking worked to make posts mutually invisible, between the blocked and the blocker. Some sort of scam had a cadre of dedicated users calling them out everywhere they went on Reddit. When blocking became mutual, i.e. the anti-scammers could no longer see the scammers' posts, it was believed the scammers would have a way easier time finding Marks.
Perhaps, or they'll at least remain visible to the casual users and lurkers. They would have the most influence over people who wouldn't actively downvote them, anyways. FWIW, I think there should be some measure taken to mitigate downvote stalking, but there's always one shithead who takes things too seriously and has to ruin things for everyone else.
You block someone when you don't want to see their stuff anymore. It shouldn't have any effect on whether they can see or interact with your comments and the rest of the community. If they are block-worthy, other users can block them too.
You shouldn't really care about what they have to say after you've blocked them. If others see you never engaging with them, they should get a clear picture that you don't deem a reply necessary. If you're really concerned with rebutting everything they have to write about you or your ideas, then the correct course of behavior is not to block them.
Could it be made that a blocked person's votes simply have no effect on the posts of people that blocked them? (ie from the blocked persons end it looks like they downvoted the person but the actually didn't.)
Also, by hiding everything from the blocked person you also run the risk of the blocked person finding out they were blocked, which is not exactly a good thing either; they could have an alt and easily see the person's content and harass them that way.
Blocking someone means that you don't want to interact with them anymore and making all of your content invisible to them is a pretty surefire way of doing that.
Yes, but making them invisible to you accomplishes the same thing and is preferable, IMO. It doesn't change what they can do. Keep in mind blocking, which can be done by any user for any reason at all, is not the same as banning, which is restricted to a smaller set of people with more power.
I can only think of two, and they would be exploiting this system for their own end. (Also, please keep in mind that at the time of writing I am not 100% sure how kbin & the wider fediverse's blocking system works. If I have some incorrect assumptions please correct me.)
They block the person to get the last word in, thereby "winning" the argument. Silly, yes, but people do this.
They create a post/thread and block anyone who comments/disagrees with them. Those people can no longer interact with the post/thread. The only reason this is a problem is because it is a form of self-moderation. (Though, as @wagesj45 pointed out this could be a self-solving problem if they continue to block everyone they disagree with.)
I consider both of these to be pretty rare exploitations of the blocking system, but they happen. I guess it is a question of is this system worth it with these downsides? Some people will go to extreme lengths to harass people, so I don't feel qualified to say either way.
Happens on reddit anyway. Even though people can’t see who downvoted them, they guess. Or someone (or a brigade) mass downvotes not because you downvoted their comment but just because they disagree with or resent your comments. Reddit avoided this by ignoring repeated downvotes from one person and on profile pages.
Personally, if there’s someone who is really abrasive or I just really disagree with and find their posts agitating or distracting, I just block them and that avoids the problem for both of us.
I have the downvote button hidden completely using the KES script because of that issue.
Reddit allowing you to hide your own up/downvotes to others is a really nice privacy feature that I wish the Fediverse in general had, but unfortunately the nature of federation doesn't make that possible unless you prevent them federating to other servers.
On reddit about 8 years ago there was a bunch of discussion of how people were running automated scripts to downvote everything by people they didn't like or whatever.
And reddit had to build in a safeguard so those automated script downvotes no longer counted. Those kinds of shenannigans would be much easier to spot in kbin's current system.
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