/kbin meta

Good discussion, there. I like the idea of allowing it to be set per instance; while it doesn't hide the votes from admins, changing the in-instance presentation of the data does allow an instance to customize the "feel" of the instance... much like Beehaw chooses not to use downvotes at all.

I'm on the fence re displaying them. I use the downvotes activity to search for bots / astroturfers and it DOES allow identification of bigots who downvote for that reason, but it also does provide a means of harassing someone for a downvote.

Really, a cultural shift from "Downvote = disagree" to "Downvote =Anti-factual, low effort, or bot" is needed.

Maybe making upvotes counter downvotes is a decent start? Right now, kbin is weighted toward downvotes; some users with thousands of upvotes and hundreds of downvotes are sitting in the negatives.

I see that ActivityPub makes it hard to do it and if it can’t be done then it should be visible (so people can know and act accordingly)

The only “alternative” approach I can see would be to have a per instance account that is given the activity (say upvote/downvote)

So… let’s say I’m on kbin.social and upvote this comment.

Kbin.social knowing me (since it’s my account) logs the upvote but does so as if [email protected] did the upvote.

That is then what is replicated across the fediverse.

I assume that breaks the “intent” of the protocol and could be an issue but does let other instances decide to filter out that activity (if they decide to do so) by having some attribute or flag that denotes that this “account” is the fediverse instance account (e.g. not a user).

Boosts, however, should be shared since it’s like a retweet/shout out and are meant to be shared.

Of course that means I can no longer see my own upvote/downvote activity.

If that was also wanted then you could add a table that basically logs that but isn’t federated. E.g. a local instance reference that can be used for that instance to show the activity.

This way there’s less chance of an issue of somebody knowing a users account seeing activity like this:

• A man, say in Iran, upvoted something about the prophet that somebody else found disrespectful

• A christian teen upvoted something about atheism.

• A woman reading about how to leave a domestic abuse situation.

• Somebody curious about transgender reassignment

Either there needs to be a way to minimize the risks of such activity being seen/shared across the fediverse or it needs to be very very clear that even if you don’t see it that what you do is shouted across the fediverse and that others can and will be able to see it.

Yes, on par I lean towards it being a good thing as publicly available information rather than shadowy mud-slinging. I had one post downvoted by someone who apparently has done nothing else before or since, which takes a bit of the sting out of it. There will probably be debates about it at some point, and probably the occasional tit-for-tat attacks around the place, but overall I think it does link a bit more identity to the person who does the up- or down-voting which creates more of a community feel instead of hiding behind total anonymity.

The data is accessible by nature, and we will probably soon have scripts and extension which will trigger a war of downvotes and counter-downvotes and bot attrition.

I agree it's an odd choice. I had someone I don't know reduce my post and all my comments about becoming a dad. It's been a hard choice to not go and reduce all of their stuff in return ¯\(ツ)/¯ which I guess is why is a bad idea.

I disagree wholeheartedly.

Having your voting history public also constrains people from participating in the community if the things they support or object to would cause harassment or harm from people who know who they are, which is not always preventable, for example a shared household, using kbin from work (activity monitored), etc...

I could easily see an Amazon worker getting fired because they were logged upvoting pro-union threads. They wouldn't even need to be doing this from a company network - just accessing kbin once on their network for any reason would have their user name associated with them, and then Amazon can simply monitor their activity on kbin even when they are using it from home.

Look at everything Amazon has done to their workers and tell me that this isn't a believable scenario. And that's just one example.

Having votes public can cause real harm to people.

As a regular user who doesnt like social media, this is something that all regular users should be aware of. You can easily get your info taken and processed in a way that becomes consistent with a shadow profile of you made by facebook or other companies in order to track you. There would be no difference in using kbin and using facebook if your info is open to everyone for companies to scrape and parse.

This will likely lead me to stop using kbin and wait for something more private oriented to come up

why would anyone obsess about tracking down which account liked which post?

Normal people wouldn't. Unfortunately, there are a lot of assholes, stalkers, and people who are salty they got downvoted and want revenge.

Ever seen people on Reddit say "Whoever downvoted this, go fuck yourselves?" I can guarantee that, if they knew who downvoted them, they wouldn't keep their reaction contained to an edited comment.

That’s a fair point. But there are people who live in situations where such activity has legal/societal implications.

Think some countries that put people to death for blasphemy or people in the states who associate being transgender with being literal child molesters.

Sure keep your account private but that isn’t always feasible even if you try. We see people get doxxed even from innocuous breadcrumbs of statements made over time.

Or don’t favorite/upvote and yet it’s easy to inadvertently do so which can be an issue.

That’s why I’m for a way to handle it, if possible, that minimizes the bad actors. And if not possible then it needs to be really really clear.

Like “upvote” is followed by something that succinctly notes “Favorite saved and ready to share across the fediverse”

Hidden would be a more accurate word, as the way ActivityPub works means that data has to be sent to every instance so gaining access to it isn't very hard. It can never be truly anonymous or private.
The way it works in Kbin makes more sense if you think less of Reddit and more of Twitter instead - Boosts (original Kbin upvotes) are retweets and repost it to your followers, Favourites/Upvotes are likes.

Reddit's comments were archived by third parties too, it's possible to download a backup of everything ever posted to it. Ironically enough the API changes will make that a lot harder to accomplish now, though it can still be done.

It is interesting. It might even help negate hivemind behaviour because your name is tied to your actions.

Why would votes being public make it so that alt accounts (throwaways) would be less effective than they were on reddit or any other public forum?

I think privacy is important but even in public online places, like the fediverse, it is possible to maintain anonymity if it's desired through curation of what information you post, where you post it, and with which account.