I'm starting to see some serious downsides to being able to see who downvotes you.

A few days ago I downvoted someone's comment, and the next day I happened to notice every single comment I've ever made had at least one downvote. All from the person I dared to downvote the ONE time. I straight up asked why they did it, and they seem to think I'm an "obvious" troll account that "apparently just exist to downvote other people". I assure you I'm no troll account, and ironically don't really downvote all that often.
I know the topic of public downvotes has been discussed before, but I never used to care either way. Now I'm kinda leaning in the "I don't like it" side. Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little offended, maybe even attacked. Also, there goes all my imaginary internet points. Lol
Has anyone else had something like this happen to them, or am I just unlucky?

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

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.

Destragras,
@Destragras@kbin.social avatar

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.

Eggyhead,
@Eggyhead@kbin.social avatar

I think the significance of votes expires after “generally positive/negative reception”. One or two downvotes seems insignificant.

KevonLooney,

I thought this was a good point, so I upvoted it. Now you have two upvotes.

I’m rethinking my decision…

Eggyhead,
@Eggyhead@kbin.social avatar

You’re more than welcome to, my friend. It’s your vote to do with as you please.

livus,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

@billothekid2 I just thought of another aspect.

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.

Arelin,

Slightly off-topic, but I don’t think downvotes should be a thing at all. Silences minority opinions by lessening their visibility and discouraging further discussion even when they’re correct. People also tend to not respond to those comments/posts in good faith, as if the downvotes prove them wrong. Turns the place into an echo chamber.

Taking out downvotes would allow for less popular opinions to have higher visibility and discussion since the majority can’t just downvote it, just because they slightly disagree with it or are biased against it, and silence discussion.

People who do agree would also be able to show it through upvotes, and it wouldn’t be eaten up by the downvotes.

Spam, hateful and rule-breaking comments/posts would just be reported instead. As is the case for some Lemmy instances already.

Donut,

Agreed. Downvotes were never used in the intended way and just turned into “I disagree with this”.

aroom,
@aroom@kbin.social avatar

I don't think that it's off topic at all, in the contrary. If you analyse the situation described by the OP, the issue is not the fact that our actions are transparents, the issue is due to the consequence of downvoting a post and how this action made another person feel and how they acted on this feeling.

Downvoting is not a constructive tool and should be abolished. It's not a matter of the users not using it the right way, it's a matter of psychological behaviour.

We should design tools that help us to bring the best in us, not the worst. We are not here on a commercial platform who need to hook us with dopamine shot, and trigger us on engaging by frustrating us. We need to build things differently. Federating servers is great but not enough.

I think that an option to be able to remove the display of the downvote tool and downvote count should be available in the settings. I would like to abolish it all together but I'm not interested to impose this on other users, so bring me an opt out please.

what do you think @ernest? let's change this paradigm and build another better tool?

minnieo,
@minnieo@kbin.social avatar

if you take out the downvotes, the upvotes must go with it. but also, kbins algorithm isnt over-programmed and calculating, i see varying levels of upvoted and downvoted comments mixed together and i like it that way so everyone is included. on kbin, if youre downvoted, its usually been for good reason as far as ive seen, and ive also never had to go LOOKING for downvoted comments that are buried like on reddit. they are right there on kbin. the 'algorithm' is no algorithm. its honest

ADHDefy,
@ADHDefy@kbin.social avatar

Agreed. I can see this being more harmful than helpful.

ADHDefy,
@ADHDefy@kbin.social avatar

I'm calling you out, @BadWolf 😂

ADHDefy,
@ADHDefy@kbin.social avatar

Wait, how do you see who downvoted you? I didn't know that was thing here.

Bizarroland,
@Bizarroland@kbin.social avatar

You should be able to block that user from interacting with you by simply clicking on their name and pressing the block button.

That will prevent them from downvoting future posts and if you have a negative interaction with somebody you can do that as many times as is needed to create the environment that you will enjoy participating in here.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Blocking people blocks their votes, and not just prevents you from seeing their posts?

Bizarroland,
@Bizarroland@kbin.social avatar

As far as I am aware, it prevents them from seeing or interacting with your account and prevents you from seeing or interacting with their account.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I know it doesn’t stop them from seeing you. They can still reply to you; you just won’t see it. So I’m not so sure it blocks their vote, either.

billothekid2,
@billothekid2@kbin.social avatar

I think this is correct.

Damaskox,
@Damaskox@kbin.social avatar

I'm okay with someone not agreeing with me. I'm okay with someone downvoting me.
Someone downvoting everything I have and will ever make? Well, there's a magazine I'd love to get more folks in and this behavior could cripple it badly, since I get next-to-no votes in there from others so it's already difficult to get more eyes on it. But other than that I think I get more agreements so I wouldn't care that much.

Therefore I'm happy that there's an upvote and downvote (and a reputation) system.

BaroqueInMind,
@BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

Name and shame, otherwise your post here is as worthless as the troll who spent the time and effort to troll you.

HarkMahlberg,
@HarkMahlberg@kbin.social avatar

It's... It's public info? Like that's his point lol. You can go to his user profile, find a couple of downvoted posts, and see who he's talking about.

KinNectar,
@KinNectar@kbin.run avatar

I for one would like to see a minimum ratio of upvotes to downvotes as a measure to mitigate abuse. That is to say you "earn" a down vote for each upvote you cast.

Additionally I think the ratio of downvotes to upvotes you give should be public on your profile, and an admin tool should be available to Magazine administrators to block voting, posting new threads, etc. Based on a user's vote ratio.

This is a behavioral problem with clear mechanical fixes.

FaceDeer,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

I don't see how that ratio thing could be enforced on a protocol like ActivityPub, it would be an instance-by-instance thing and people from instances that weren't enforcing it would be able to downvote however they liked.

There are instances that blocked downvoting entirely (beehaw.org, for example) but when I saw threads from there here on kbin.social there was plenty of downvoting on them from non-beehaw users. Only on beehaw.org would the threads be seen downvote-free and would users be prevented from downvoting on them.

bluGill,

Still a good idea, kbin doesn't need to use your downvotes as part of any algorithm if you are negative.

uphillbothways, (edited )
@uphillbothways@kbin.social avatar

I don't see an issue here.

  1. try to explain your downvotes, or, better yet, voice your disagreement and have a discussion without relying on downvotes to express yourself. Use your words.
  2. when you feel it necessary and that using your words isn't working, upvote/boost everyone but the person in question. Realize downvotes don't really do what you'd hoped and are a poor crutch and means of expression. Elevate what you do agree with. Worry less about what you don't.
  3. just don't care about internet points. As others have said and covered extensively.

Hopefully, what remains is that conversations are important. Having an outlet for undescribed/unformed/ambiguous disagreement/dissent really doesn't add anything to anything for anyone. Making a point or saying something correct is more valuable than shooting down those you find to be incorrect. And, ultimately, it's not just what you think that matters. The consensus of the group and the conversation that gets them there, the experience and the interchange and the community itself are all much more valuable than the destination of a single conversation.

Edit: (And, for the record, while I disagree with your assessment, I've boosted and upvoted your thread, because I think the conversations being had here are valuable and worth seeing by more people.)

muse,
@muse@kbin.social avatar

Counterpoint: it makes it even more apparent when bigoted alt right trolls like AnotherAttorney post and we can see they're the ones upvoting and boosting their own terrible posts, and ridicule them til they quit or switch sock puppets

bedrooms,

Somewhat off topic, but I'm tired of people who can't argue properly.

billothekid2,
@billothekid2@kbin.social avatar

?

bedrooms, (edited )

You know, those people who can't read, start their comments with "lmao you're the dumbest person I've ever seen" and end them with "you're a troll".

magnetosphere,
@magnetosphere@kbin.social avatar

Or deliberately misinterpret what’s being said, either radically or just subtly enough to make their obnoxious “point”

sour,
@sour@kbin.social avatar

do they use fallacy

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

They pretty much only use fallacies. Begging the question, whataboutisms, straw man… It’s practically all they seem to know.

bedrooms,

On Reddit, these people got their comments deleted as soon as they moved on to insults.

Fediverse generally lacks mods for now. So we're largely on our own.

I learned to check for red flags before commenting.

ThatOneKirbyMain2568, (edited )
@ThatOneKirbyMain2568@kbin.social avatar

While that's definitely a notable downside, I think the upsides outweigh it.

For one, being able to see upvotes & downvotes seems to have made a lot of people a bit more thoughtful with handing them out. This obviously isn't the case for everyone — there's still a good bit of downvoting people for disagreeing with the hivemind — but I and others have observed that downvote quality is a lot better here on kbin.social, and I think that vote visibility is a big part of that.

It's also just transparency on kbin.social's part. If votes federate, anyone can set up an instance to view your votes or just go to one that shows them. Someone could literally make a website listing downvotes throughout the fediverse, and there's nothing stopping them. Kbin.social is being transparent about the fact that votes on the fediverse can be accessed by the public, and I have no issue with that.

EDITː Removed a stray asterisk

livus,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

@ThatOneKirbyMain2568

Kbin.social is being transparent about the fact that votes* on the fediverse can be accessed by the public

This is important. The kind of petty, persevering trolls that @billothekid2 is worried about are exactly the kind of people who'd be likely to look up who downvoted them.

Kbin just makes it clear to us that this info is out there. Anonymous voting isn't possible in federated social media.

CoffeeAddict,
@CoffeeAddict@kbin.social avatar

Also, even if they wanted to I don’t think voting could be made anonymous at this point, either. I’m not a programmer in any sense, but I imagine it would totally break federation. Total anonymity would probably need to be a feature from the start.

Kbin at least puts it out there so you know it’s not totally anonymous. Sometimes I wonder how many lemmy users are unaware of this because the software doesn’t make it apparent.

Mounticat,
@Mounticat@kbin.social avatar

Hmm... I'm no expert, and probably not even competent at these sort of matters, but the thing that popped to my mind was "something something encryption something something trust". I wonder if this has a smart solution.

losttourist,
@losttourist@kbin.social avatar

No. The whole point of Federated software is that things happen on one server, and by the very design of the system those things get shared out to other servers. "Things" could be anything from posts to comments to up/down votes.

The only way to have anonymous voting would be to make the up/down votes strictly local to a particular server, which kind of defeats the purpose of a federated system.

JowlesMcGee,
@JowlesMcGee@kbin.social avatar

Actually, our downvotes don't federate out, and we don't get incoming downvotes either, so you could totally make them private within an instance since that information doesn't leave the instance anyway.

Not advocating one way or the other, just pointing out that it technically could be an option.

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

I think it would be possible. The software would just have to record a downvote, saying “we checked out this account and registered one downvote, and everything was valid”. The downvote is only reversible on the original instance the logged in user is on, anyway, and that’s between the user and server. The identity doesn’t have to be displayed to others on the original instance or federated.

CoffeeAddict,
@CoffeeAddict@kbin.social avatar

Someone could literally make a website listing downvotes throughout the fediverse, and there's nothing stopping them.

This is why I agree that it should be shown upfront. A lot of people won’t like it, but I think users should be somewhat aware that it’s all technically visible.

Someone is gonna make an instance that does exactly this at some point. It will be inevitable as the fediverse matures.

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