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Up/Down Voting Question (reddthat.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hi all, Hi Ticoombs,

Firstly, thanks so much for making this great instance. I'm completely new to Lemmy; I really love how open, tolerating, and friendly it feels on this specific instance!

Secondly, only a question: is it correct that some instances have upvoting & downvoting, and this instance only upvoting?

If so, I'm curious about the rationale behind this. I actually don't have an opinion on this. Just curious.

If this question has already been answered, I'm sorry, I couldn't find it.

Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No worries & Welcome!

That is correct, we have downvotes disabled though this instance. There was a big community post on it earlier over here: https://reddthat.com/post/110533
Basically, it boils down to: If we are trying to create a positive community, why would we have a way to be negative?

While that is also a very limited view on the matter, it's one I want to instill into our communities. Sure downvotes do help with "offtopic" posts & the possible spam, but at the current time of that post. No application thirdparty (a mobile app) or firstparty (lemmy-ui) had any features about hiding negatively voted content. (ie; if it was -4 don't show it to me).

By default (which is the same now as it was then) "Hot" only takes into account the votes as one of many measures about how "hot" a post is for the ranking. Up & Down votes are only really good for sorting by "Top".

My biggest concern, from then and now. Is that because we now federate with over 1000 different instances, and by design Lemmy accepts all votes from any instance that you are federating against, vote manipulation (10's of thousands) of accounts could downvote every post on our instance into oblivion. Or the even more subtle and more nefarious, down vote every post until it hits 0/1 constantly. You might assume that the posts are not doing well, and nothing is happening.

As Reddthat is basically run by a single person at this point in time and for the foreseeable future (3-6 months), adding downvotes would have added extra effort on my part in monitoring and ensuring nothing nefarious is happening. Moderation is still a joke in Lemmy, reports are a crapshoot and the ability for people to spam any lemmy server is still possible.

Until we get bigger, have more mods in our communities, and I can find others who are equally invested in Reddthat as myself to become Admins, I won't be enabling downvotes (unless the community completely usurps me on the matter of course).

I hope that answers your question.

Cheers

Tiff

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

Thank you very much for your quick, considerate and comprehensive answer. It gives me a better understanding of the current complexity. I understand your vision, and strategical and tactical choices in the current situation. They seem reasonable at the moment.

Just my personal 2 cents: my interest in this issue primarily stems from 2 points:

  1. I tend to by suspicious of the whole concept of 'blocking' in general.

a. Overall 'good' people/instances/groups can belief or state 'bad' things at particular moments.

b. People can change.

c. People are complex and layered. Blocking inherently is not. d. Blocking leads to bubbles, almost by definition.

  1. I like information to be open, visible and findable.

a. I preferred reddit to traditional forums, because the latter have always felt like Google search at the moment: sifting through the unuseful to find to useful. I find Slack inefficient for similar reasons.

b. I tend to prefer neutrality, even over objectivity. I hope Lemmy can be a place where I can find vast amounts of information in general, as well as a variety of knowledges, experiences, contents, and views. Even incorrect ones. I am less interested in single narratives, even if they seem cohesive or confirm my own biases.

Reddit seemed to provide at least some of this in a better way than many other social media. And this seemed contributable in part due to their, albeit flawed, up/down vote system.

N.B. Most of these points mainly concern my personal experience/preferences regarding comments/comment sections. I am a noob when it comes to posts and how voting, trending/hot etc. work behind the scenes, and a lot lot of other things.

I don't know whether any of this is helpful or not. (If not, eh, ban me? 😊)

Anyway, I fully support your vision and well-considered choices in the current context!

Thanks again for all your efforts in making this such an open and welcoming instance!

ArOa

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I tend to prefer neutrality, even over objectivity. I hope Lemmy can be a place where I can find vast amounts of information in general, as well as a variety of knowledges, experiences, contents, and views. Even incorrect ones. I am less interested in single narratives, even if they seem cohesive or confirm my own biases

You will be welcome here and I think you have chosen the right place! Lemmy by design federates (integrates to use another term) with every other "activity pub" enabled software. You can see the complete list of every server we (Reddthat) are connecting with: https://reddthat.com/instances . (It's at the bottom of every page)
If you manage to scroll alllllllllll the way down to the bottom, you will only see 3 instances we are blocking, and those are the developers' test instances. Where they test the latest version of Lemmy, as well as other items. It is a very small list of blocks that we do on an instance level. Users are welcome to block as many other users or communities as they wish.

We might be one of the biggest instances that still federates with, what others would classify as, "problematic" instances. You can read more about my stance on ensuring we federate with everyone here https://reddthat.com/comment/371578 and then the followup comment here: https://reddthat.com/comment/372073 .

Reddit seemed to provide at least some of this in a better way than many other social media

Something I like to tell people face-to-face is Lemmy isn't Reddit. It's Reddit-like. We don't need to be the same as Reddit, so why don't we try something different. Something better. At the end of the day if people don't like it here they can migrate to another instance. I hope they don't, but they can! There is zero lock-in. There are even Lemmy migration applications popping up. A great win for the users.

I wouldn't want Reddthat to be the biggest instance. There have already been issues with 3 (at the time) biggest instances and now they no longer talk to each other. (See here: https://reddthat.com/post/35469)

Our (all lemmy instances) explosive growth has happened in what amounts to less than 2 months. We are still in our infancy. There will be roadblocks, there will be issues, and there will be differentiation of opinion. I hope Reddthat can come out on top as a place where everyone is welcome. As long as they can be civil of-course 😜 .

I don’t know whether any of this is helpful or not. (If not, eh, ban me? 😊)

This is always beneficial to hear! No-one on reddthat who can have an actual conversation will be banned while I'm here. Hearing and learning from a differentiating point of view is how society works, and how we grow as people.

Tiff

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Heya, Tiff!

I wasn't originally in this conversation but I have to say that this reply encompasses everything that drew me to Reddthat, what I stand for and what I want to defend and I can only hope this is a long term goal and stance that governs this instance.

Thank you for the work so far handling Reddthat, and know that you are appreciated by us all.

<3

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

β™₯ No worries & I'm glad you are here!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Thanks again for you quick and extensive answer.

I was indeed looking for an instance that federates with a large number of other instances. And I did look at the server lists of a lot of them. But there are a LOT πŸ˜… So it is great to hear I actually found the right one!

Just as pedantic sidenote, sometimes public space is conceptualized more as a cupboard than a square, while low mobility attributes to closed stratification. (sorry) Anyway, I really like the concept behind the fediverse.

So great! Lemmy is all new to me and you are absolutely right in your point about Reddit! I actually hope things will be different here ☺️

Thanks again for your work and open vision!

ArOa