this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
56 points (91.2% liked)

Lemmy

2172 readers
50 users here now

Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to [email protected].

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I am concerned that Mastodon's unary-vote system (favorites), and Lemmy's binary-vote system (upvotes with downvotes) are mutually exclusive.

In a unary-vote system, a post's vote count generally has little use beyond expressing the post's absolute popularity/engagement, whereas, in a binary vote system, a post's vote count can be used to gauge opinions, such as its level of quality, trust, or agreement. This difference in usage makes me concerned that the votes federated from Mastodon will water down the votes originating from Lemmy.

Currently, I can think of two possible solutions to this:

  1. Lemmy de-federates any votes originating from Mastodon (might be tricky as it would rely on all instances following suit)
  2. Add an option for the user to toggle within their settings allowing them to toggle off non-binary votes.
all 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago (2 children)

There are already Lemmy instances that don't allow downvotes, like beehaw, so defederating seems kind of silly.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

There are already Lemmy instances that don’t allow downvotes, like beehaw

TIL

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yep, I'm using one right now. Upvotes for everyone!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

i thought the protocol allows for all 3... upvotes, downvotes and 'likes'

there would be no overlap on a technical level. they are already completely compatible, even if its not fully implemented. kbin/mbin call this 'boost'

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Interestingly, lemmy and Kbin votes were originally incompatible. Lemmy saw nothing from Kbin (because Kbin upvotes were boosts), Kbin saw Lemmy upvotes as favorites.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

they swapped this over the summer to gain compatibility.

i hoping was ernest would add the option for downvotes., but he has not. I dont appreciate devs making decisions for admins, and it would be nice if more of the protocol was represented as at least optional.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

i thought the protocol allows for all 3… upvotes, downvotes and ‘likes’

Do you have a source for that, by chance? From what I can see in the documentation for the ActivityPub protocol, it only states:

6.8 Like Activity

The Like activity indicates the actor likes the object.

The side effect of receiving this in an outbox is that the server SHOULD add the object to the actor's liked Collection.

There doesn't appear to be any other client to server interactions for different types of likes. Afaik, Lemmy extended the ActivityPub protocol to add the downvote.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

nope, you were rigt, i was wrong.

mastodon likes -> 'bin boosts

lemmy upvotes -> 'bin upvotes lemmy likes/shares -> 'bin boosts lemmy downvotes -> fuckin nowhere

i am kinda disappointed, to be honest. i want all 3.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

In mastodon, a "boost" is sharing a post. Maybe that's the 3rd option and mastodons likes are upvotes?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Lemmy's upvotes are same thing as likes, and downvotes are dislikes. This is kinda hard to tell because Mastodon doesn't federate likes, so Lemmy posts will always show up as having no favourites.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think this is a non issue while we are small. Worst case now is that it's making posts look slightly more popular. I'd say let's cross this bridge when we get there

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think this is a non issue while we are small.

For sure, but I feel that it is better to think hard on an issue while one has the luxury of non-urgency.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Agreed

Now is the time to figure this out before the next big rush of people

You could post this on [email protected] as well

*Fixed link

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Downvotes are often disproportionately used to silence members of vulnerable groups when they post in shared spaces so some instances already ignore them.

Upvotes from the microfediverse is a non issue

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Downvotes are also often appropriately used to silence fascists spewing hate.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

If fascists are getting downvoted but not banned, you need to find a new instance

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

I agree, that's why Beehaw sucks. You can spew all kinds of hateful garbage but as long as you use the right dogwhistles to have a veneer of civility people will blindly upvote it because all they see is positive reactions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

It does appear that downvotes have the effect of burying posts:

Score = Upvotes - Downvotes
Rank = ScaleFactor * log(Max(1, 3 + Score)) / (Time + 2)^Gravity

Perhaps this could be an argument for adding a more diverse set of voting options. For example, a service could have votes separated into emotional categories (e.g. voting with emojis similar to what facebook has). One could then tailor the algorithm to reduce the algorithmic weight of negative emotions (e.g. angry emojis), as, conjecturally, people are more likely to negatively vote on something than to positively vote on it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Can they be shown separately?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not really. Also Lemmy's and Mastodon work pretty differently. They may want to like something, but not up vote it. They may not even care about the voting system and not want to participate. Also on a technical level, it'd be messy to make the two compatible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

They may want to like something, but not up vote it.

Isn't that the point of the "Add activity" (Section 6.6 of the ActivityPub Documentation)? I think it is equivalent to a "Favorite" in Lemmy.

They may not even care about the voting system and not want to participate.

This point feels moot, to me.

Also on a technical level, it’d be messy to make the two compatible.

They already are compatible, though, aren't they? That's the whole point of the ActivityPub protocol. Mastodon, of course, won't accept downvotes since, afaik, that is an extension made to the protocol by Lemmy, but likes/favorites/upvotes should federate normally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well ActivityPub isn't 1:1 interoperable all the time. Like you're not going to see the upvotes/downvotes of a Lemmy post when viewing from Mastodon. Which this makes sense, since how would Mastodon even know how to handle that data, and it opens up all sorts of compatibility problems. What does interoperate is the post and comment content which is the important part. Also that you're able to post/comment to other user posted content even if you can't see all of that ActivityPub's application data.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Well ActivityPub isn’t 1:1 interoperable all the time

It will be interoperable up to the base spec (assuming, of course, that both services adhere to the base spec).

Like you’re not going to see the upvotes/downvotes of a Lemmy post when viewing from Mastodon.

If both Mastodon, and Lemmy adhere to the spec, then they can interoperate. If Lemmy's upvotes are federated as ActivityPub like activities, and Mastodon intereperets like activities as favorites, then there should be no issue. Downvotes will certainly not federate as Mastodon doesn't use them, and they don't exist in the base spec.

What does interoperate is the post and comment content which is the important part

Likes federate as well. See Section 6.8 of the ActivityPub spec.

[–] muntedcrocodile 1 points 11 months ago

Surly clients can figure it out and seperate it put. If so its not a bug its a feature

[–] aaaa 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't understand why they federate together at all. Microblogs are different types of discussions from threads, and shouldn't be mixed up this way.

If anything, they should be completely separate sections of the site so you can browse the microblogs if you want.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Microblogs are different types of discussions from threads

That's really just a matter of how information is displayed, is it not? Fundamentally, the architectures are pretty much identical -- is this not the fundamental reason for why the fediverse exists?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I too only trust votes cast by non-binary users.