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?

MHLoppy,
@MHLoppy@fedia.io avatar

For what it's worth, seeing the source of downvotes was recently removed in mbin (kbin fork).

ADHDefy,
ADHDefy avatar

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

ADHDefy,
ADHDefy avatar

I'm calling you out, @BadWolf 😂

ThatOneKirbyMain2568, (edited )
ThatOneKirbyMain2568 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

CoffeeAddict,
CoffeeAddict 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.

livus,
livus 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Arelin, (edited )

Slightly off-topic, but I don’t think downvotes should be a thing at all honestly. Silences minority opinions by lowering 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”.

minnieo,
minnieo 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

aroom,
aroom 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?

Dio,
@Dio@lemy.lol avatar

Is this really an issue for people. Lol.

magnetosphere,
magnetosphere avatar

You’re asking this in a thread where someone describes exactly how it’s an issue for them.

canis_majoris,
@canis_majoris@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah but it’s a non-issue, because they’re describing a behavior that cannot be prohibited regardless of if you can see who did it or not. It’s not like there’s a hard archive timer on votes disallowing comments to be interacted with; people can go down the whole history of any of our accounts and downvote all of it.

It’s literally a non-issue, this guy is freaking out because he can just see who did it, like it makes a difference. It’s the ostrich syndrome, if you bury your head in the sand (can’t verify) then it matters less.

billothekid2,
billothekid2 avatar

Who's freaking out my dude? My point was this wouldn't have happened if THEY didn't know who I was. You and others make some good points about some how this happens regardless, and how there are upsides to seeing who downvotes you. I honestly wasn't aware this was a common thing until now. It's why I asked if this has happened to anyone else. Chalk it up to me being a bit naive.

canis_majoris,
@canis_majoris@lemmy.ca avatar

I just don’t get how anybody doesn’t understand how user voting works, regardless of the ability to identify who did which votes.

Are you just now learning that on the internet people are just randomly dicks? Like it hasn’t been that way for the last 20 years?

billothekid2,
billothekid2 avatar

Oh, I'm aware. I've just never heard of "Downvote Fairies". In any case that was never my point, as I've explained.

originalucifer,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

its completely contradictory

' i dont care about imaginary internet points, but heres why its not fair' is an oxymoron

canis_majoris,
@canis_majoris@lemmy.ca avatar

stop caring about votes like they mean anything.

billothekid2,
billothekid2 avatar

I don't. That's why I called them imaginary internet points. Lol. My point was about the fact that you can see who downvotes you.

snooggums,
snooggums avatar

If you didn't care you wouldn't have posted.

muse,
muse avatar

If he didn't care he wouldn't have downvoted you just now either

Kusimulkku,

That’s hilarious. Another upside

livus,
livus avatar

@billothekid2 this exchange raises another point. You and @snooggums downvoting each other here seem to be engaging in "downvote-to-disagree" with each other.

I don't see nearly as much of this on kbin as I do on, say, lemmy.world and I'm sure it's because of our more transparent voting system.

I'm personally not a fan because I think it's vaguely hostile and discourages open discussion.

snooggums,
snooggums avatar

I am downvoting because complaining about downvotes while saying they don't matter is hypocritical and not a discussion made in good faith. Just wanted to see if they voted in response, showing their hypocrisy.

sour,
sour avatar

is difference between getting downvoted and effect of getting downvoted

billothekid2,
billothekid2 avatar

You see? That's literally not what I said. I seem to have struck a nerve with you here and I'm not sure why. But go ahead. Give me my downvote that I apparently care so much about.

snooggums,
snooggums avatar

canis_majoris said to stop caring and you replied with

I don't. That's why I called them imaginary internet points. Lol. My point was about the fact that you can see who downvotes you.

Yet, you noticed someone downvoting a bunch of your posts and took the time to contact them and ask for reason. Then you didn't like their response and made this post. Then when I downvoted it you downvoted my post. The only reason for you to do any of this is because you care about being downvoted. You react to it, yet say you don't care. That is what you said and did, and what I am responding to.

I hate being accused of lying, so I responded to you implying that I'm lying by claiming something other than what you said.

be_excellent_to_each_other,
be_excellent_to_each_other avatar

FWIW, I usually downvote if the person is a dick. Often I also disagree with them, but not always. If you are dragging the conversation down (in some way other than having an unpopular opinion) you get a downvote.

livus,
livus avatar

Fair enough. I think my dick threshold is pretty high, they have to be spamming or griefing or something like that.

billothekid2,
billothekid2 avatar

Agreed. Also, party on dude!

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

Same, generally speaking when I'm writing a comment in order to disagree with someone I want that other person's comment to be more visible to other readers. That way they can read it, see my response, and realize how wrong the original comment was and how right I am. :) I save my downvotes for comments that are so wrong they're not worth a response.

I'll even sometimes downvote a comment, ponder for a moment, and then remove my downvote and write a response instead.

livus,
livus avatar

The way I see it, downvotes = "I wish this comment didn't exist" and doing it to punish someone for having a discussion with us is weird, since social media is all about discussions, and exchanging disagreeing points of view is interesting.

billothekid2,
billothekid2 avatar

Fair enough. I tend to think downvotes are warranted when it's not adding anything to the conversation and/or are somewhat hostile. Not that it's worth anything at this point, but the downvote was because I literally just explained myself on the very post they were responding to. People are just putting words in my mouth at this point just because they want to disagree, and at some point it's easier to downvote that to repeat myself.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

I see that @AmidFuror was not a fan of this comment. :)

AmidFuror,

Damn straight.

ThatOneKirbyMain2568,
ThatOneKirbyMain2568 avatar

I don't think it's as simple as that. Downvotes do have some kind of meaning — when you give a downvote, you're doing it for some reason that you want to convey — and people are going to interpret downvotes accordingly. If downvotes didn't mean anything, then there'd be no point to them existing at all. What exactly a downvote means depends on the person giving it, but it's ideally (imo) used to express that a post is spam, hateful, or otherwise a bad contribution to the discussion. Obviously, people shouldn't take downvotes personally, but a post being downvoted does and should mean something.

Thus, what OP mentions in his post is a legitimate concern. Public votes allow people to more easily downvote spam someone who downvoted them, which is unequivocally a bad thing that we'd prefer not to have. However, whether we should make votes private is a matter of whether the downsides outweigh the upsides, and they don't.

bedrooms,

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

billothekid2,
billothekid2 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 avatar

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

sour,
sour 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. They’re either doing that, or are so illiterate they completely misread what was said and try to put words in others’ mouths.

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.

Damaskox,
Damaskox 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.

Eggyhead,
Eggyhead 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 avatar

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

Omega_Haxors,

Sounds like flat out platform manipulation. There should be systems in place to prevent this.

squiblet,
squiblet 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 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.

livus,
livus 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.

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 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,
bluGill avatar

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

KinNectar,
@KinNectar@kbin.run avatar

It could be done on a Magazine by Magazine basis if not on a global basis.

magnetosphere,
magnetosphere avatar

The same thing happened to me. The downvotes don’t bother me nearly as much as knowing that trolls can stalk us like that. It’s creepy. That’s the real issue.

Everyone telling you not to care about downvotes is missing the point.

livus,
livus avatar

@magnetosphere but trolls stalk people anyway, I've had Downvote Fairies on reddit and kbin.

The kbin one wasn't even someone I'd downvoted.

magnetosphere,
magnetosphere avatar

That’s even weirder. I’m sorry to hear that.

livus,
livus avatar

@magnetosphere just the nature of the internet.

Sometimes people get weird bees in their bonnet. Personally I'd much rather know who it's coming from.

If I put a lot of effort into a comment or post and it gets downvoted by someone out of spite, I'd much rather know that's what happened than sit there wondering what's wrong with my post.

magnetosphere,
magnetosphere avatar

Right? Leave me a comment telling me why you disagree! Maybe you have a point of view that I hadn’t considered. Maybe I got a fact wrong - I’d rather be corrected than keep on being wrong! I’m a big boy; I can take it.

Or, maybe I’m just being a jerk and all someone needs to do is talk some sense into me. By itself, a downvote doesn’t tell anyone anything. Reply! Talk to me!

livus,
livus avatar

@magnetosphere this! I love it when someone points out stuff I haven't considered, especially if it turns out I'm wrong. Acknowleding that is the fastest way to actually turn it around and become right again.

OpenStars,
OpenStars avatar

Man, I miss Reddit!

Said nobody here ever.:-) The average discussion experience here is just better, with people who care about facts rather than purely trolling.

livus,
livus avatar

@OpenStars totally!

I originally only came here for something to do during the blackout, but it's just so much better here that I ended up never going back.

canis_majoris,
@canis_majoris@lemmy.ca avatar

It doesn’t change the behavior if you can verify who did it or not. It literally doesn’t matter that you can see who downvoted you when it’s always been the case that anybody can go into your history and downvote all of it.

How are you going to call viewing a post history on the public facing internet “stalking”?

Jesus you guys play some gymnastics up in your domes.

magnetosphere,
magnetosphere avatar

Looking at post histories isn’t stalking. That take would be a bit paranoid. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

Abusing someone’s post history to harass them is stalking, though.

canis_majoris,
@canis_majoris@lemmy.ca avatar

You make downvoting over and over sound like a cybercrime lol

magnetosphere,
magnetosphere avatar

In your interpretation, maybe. I just think it’s obnoxious and rude to do it to all of someone’s comments. If someone genuinely disagrees with what I’ve posted, that’s not a problem.

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