Saw someone with their own instance say on another post (not on their instance) that they could tell that said post had 5 downvotes by users they had tagged.

Not sure that it's true, but I do find it a bit unnerving. I was on (the now defunct) Kbin and the downvotes were public, which didn't bother me as much because it was at least transparent/equal (though I also had someone pester me over a few votes spanning weeks on their just-them-posting-a-popular-comic place, said it was an error with their averages and then they still silently banned/blocked me after).

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Votes are public, they can be seen across different instances, the only thing that's unresolved is seeing them using the standard Lemmy software as a non admin user.

[–] insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This discussion has been had before and people didn't like the idea of it being public. What I am pointing out was there too: that pseudo-privacy is not great either especially when anybody can be a moderator or host an instance (but not to the point where I will expect others will know my dissenting reply is not the source of the 1 downvote).

It would be more understandable if this were semi-anonymized data that could be cross-referenced, but there's already other issues (nebulous or subjective hidden thresholds, moderators moderating their own posts). Unless it is incredibly cautious (detecting mainly scripting or obsession-level voting) I expect it'll be a repeating annoyance especially if the approach is widely used.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think its a core design issue; if votes are free and unlimited then they will be gamified, one method to provide a feedback mechanism here is to make votes accountable.

There are other moderation styles, like the slashdot random moderation points, which show some promise.

I've seen other gamified models where downvotes are scarce, or cost time, or cost money, so they are reserved for bad behavior.

The design of showing votes on posts makes it a signal, and that signal will be gamified. I think for smaller communities having outside third parties chill participation is bad for the overall growth of lemmy. In the long term I imagine a community level system selected by the moderators would fit best.

examples

Only people who have posted or commented can downvote / upvote
Only people who are subscribed can upvote/downvote
only people who have repetitional guarantees can upvote/downvote
posts only visible to subscribers

Just trying to get local representation into communities.

etc. etc

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 6 points 5 days ago

First point is correct.

Actually, you can still use Mbin today to see upvotes on Lemmy communities

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Well the information is out there in the wild for anybody with the know-how to access. Either via running their own instance on the side (doesn't need any comms on it), or just via Mbin etc.