this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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Mander

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Viewing votes (mander.xyz)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hello all!

As of yesterday, I have updated the the instance to 0.19.2-rc.5. This should fix some of the remaining federation problem.

This morning it was brought to my attention through the Matrix chat that a feature has been added to the UI to allow admins to view votes: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/pull/2303

I would like to add a bit of context. Viewing votes has always been possible in at least two ways:

  • Since votes are stored in the database, admins with access to the database have always been able to retrieve the list of voters by running a postgres database query.

  • Some applications in the fediverse will display votes by default. For example, content federated with friendica displays the votes as "likes/dislikes", so any user can see federated votes.

What this feature has changed is that admins, regardless of whether they have access to the server, are able to see the list of up-votes/down-votes through the user interface.

This is effectively making a "hidden" admin feature more transparent. This can also help admins easily identify if bots are being used to mass down-vote.

I am bringing this up explicitly here because I think users might be interested in knowing if their votes can be seen, and so I want to be transparent about this change and about votes in general.

I also have some thoughts that I would like to discuss. If users are uncomfortable with admins having this power, I could remove this feature from this instance. But that would only be symbolic, as the votes can always be retrieved from the database anyway - and other instance admins will still have this feature to see federated votes.

I can also keep it this way. Only admins can see votes, and I can simply not abuse that power.

I can enable this feature for every user. Then everyone can see everyone's votes.

Another option is to disable down-votes altogether.

If anyone has any thoughts/opinions about this, please let me know. I'm curious and interested in finding a good way to handle this.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

While I have no strong opinion on the up/down votes, (nothing's private on the internet anyway) I generally think transparency is the right way to go.

Thanks for bringing attention to this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Thanks. My initial gut instinct was that the best would be to enable it for everyone, but after reading other's perspectives and thinking more deeply about the privacy implications, I agree that transparency is the way to go.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure I'm 100% following with what's possible in terms of enabling users' access to see who voted what.

If it's possible to make the feature available I'd support that, but honestly I'm not phased if it's only admins and tech savy outsiders who can access this info. I wouldn't want you going out of your way to implement something like this, how much time and energy you want to spend on it is up to you!

But above all I appreciate that you are being transparent about it and taking our opinions into account.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I like the suggestion of [email protected] of simply making a bigger effort of letting users know that votes are "semi-public" information in the fediverse, and I have opened an issue to suggest implementing that approach (https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/2316)

But above all I appreciate that you are being transparent about it and taking our opinions into account.

One of the big selling points of Lemmy is privacy, and so many users do have a high expectation of privacy. It is important to be very clear and transparent about aspects that can raise privacy-related flags. Votes need to be public for the federation to work and to prevent double-counting, at least the way they are currently implemented, so transparency is the best solution.

The argument for letting everyone see the votes is a bit more tricky. On the one hand, if the tech-savvy can do it, then why not just let everyone do it? On the other hand, if it is easy to do, you make it easier for users to witch hunt and attack each other on the basis of how they vote.

Putting some additional thought on it... Enabling it for everyone has other privacy implications. For example, old votes would also become public and I can't get backwards-consent from everyone. Votes from selective instances federating with us will too. I would need to wipe all of the votes from the instance before enabling that. I think making the effort to be transparent is a better approach.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Fair enough, that sounds reasonable and well thought :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I like the idea of downvotes, and no nobody on this instance is really abusing them

If they were being abused, then publicly viewable votes would probably hinder that a little bit. So far tho, it doesn't look like there is any need for something like that imo

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I like the idea of downvotes, and no nobody on this instance is really abusing them

That is true! I have been lucky and there has not been much trouble. Only very nice people seem to like creating accounts here 😜

Thanks for your input

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've long had concerns with up/down votes and like/dislike, especially the down/dislike. Nothing major, and I have no real solutions.

My concerns are only to do with the ambiguity. There are so many different reasons why someone might vote one way or the other or even just not vote at all that I think it's kind of weird that compiling the votes into a score seems to mostly work pretty good. That ambiguity means that it's difficult to derive meaning from any individual vote, which I think argues in favour of keeping it somewhat private. Just because a non-admin can jump through hoops to get someone's voting history, doesn't mean it should be deliberately made public.

As for keeping down votes, I'd be reluctant to mess with a system that works as well as it seems to. Personally, I very rarely downvote, as even that is more engagement than I'm willing to provide. In fact, one of the things I like about the client I use, Thunder, is that I have to long press a comment in order to vote. That little bit of friction means that I vote less often. When I vote, it's because I really mean whatever I intend the vote to mean.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for your input, it's very appreciated!

As for keeping down votes, I’d be reluctant to mess with a system that works as well as it seems to.

There is a toggle in the admin settings to enable/disable downvotes, and several instances do disable them.

This hides the button and the results from the UI - other instances can still vote, but it's not displayed. This change would be easy to implement and revert messing up anything. Personally, I do think that having up/down votes is a useful metric more often than it is abused. Disabling down-votes might be a good match for an instance dedicated to, for example, sharing one's own art, as users might feel more comfortable sharing in such a space.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There is a toggle in the admin settings to enable/disable downvotes, and several instances do disable them.

I didn't realize that.

Strictly as a user, from what I can tell, there doesn't seem to be anything that resembles rampant abuse of downvotes. I'm glad that is what is visible at the admin level.

Carry on, you're doing great work as a community builder/manager.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Thanks!

This is a comparatively small instance, the problem is more prominent in the larger instances!

Also, I just found out that there is a user-level setting to turn off the visibility of all scores: