Many people in this thread seem to not realize that votes are essentially public already - this is only about whether the Lemmy UI should make it a bit easier to see the votes. They can already be seen quite easily if you know how.

However, there is an easy solution to this problem. This is clearly a controversial decision, so don't make a choice for everyone. Make it an option. Any admin can decide for themselves whether their instance should allow users to see votes.

That also means that users can decide to go to instances where the votes are hidden or public.

This approach leaves the choice to the individual, rather than forcing the choice on everyone.

[–] Jilanico 18 points 4 months ago (11 children)

It's confusing enough understanding how federation works for the less technically inclined. I don't think we should also expect them to figure out which instance is privacy-conscious. Privacy of votes should be baked into Lemmy. Even kbin users shouldn't be able to see it.

If users want to advertise their approval/disapproval of posts they can use public comments in tandem with private votes.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (10 children)

Privacy of votes should be baked into Lemmy. Even kbin users shouldn’t be able to see it.

This is impossible. The underlying protocol, ActivityPub does not have the concept of private votes. It is not up to Lemmy to decide. You'd need to revise the protocol for this and good luck with that.

[–] Jilanico 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

ActivityPub can't evolve? Is there some insurmountable technical blocker?

I suspected this would be an issue and have avoided voting on controversial posts. But if everyone did as I do, there would be no open discussions about pressing topics.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

It is possible that ActivityPub could add this feature. But it's not certain you'd even want that. Private votes would mean private for admins and mods too, so no more analyzing votes to look for down vote bots or manipulation or down vote brigading and all that stuff. Votes could lose all meaning. Admins and mods are unlikely to say goodbye to those moderation tools.

Even if it could be added, it's probably years away.

[–] Jilanico 8 points 4 months ago

Fair points. I'm warming up to the idea of making votes public so that people don't have a false sense of privacy. I wish votes were actually private, but maybe it's not a big deal if your account can't be easily traced back to you in real life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Pseudonymous voting doesn't mean a unique ID for every vote. It just means the user string itself is tokenized. You can still ban participation for that token without revealing the actual user. Literally the only thing this stops is easily seeing users who use the same name across several instances.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If the token is the same for the user across different posts, it would be easy to figure out who is actually behind the token by correlating voting patterns.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

It would at least provide a means for obfuscating identity for users who care to make an effort. All you'd have to do is not vote when you comment and vice versa.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Evolving ActivityPub is not easy, any additions to the protocol take a lot of time and discussions between the various implementers.

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