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Blocking and Downvote Stalking (kbin.social)

submitted 9 months ago by wagesj45@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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Should blocking a user still allow them to vote on your posts? I'd rather have nothing to do with particular users, and it seems that they continue to show up in the activity for every single post I make around kbin.

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[–] daredevil@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I agree with you. Though, I'd also be curious to hear arguments why this shouldn't be implemented.

edit: Thank you for the replies everyone, it's helpful to hear from other peoples' perspectives.

[–] bridge_too_close@kbin.social 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If you're a bad actor, you could block anyone who downvotes your bad takes or whatever garbage you're posting, and over time, you could block most active users (or at least the ones who disagree with you) until your posts aren't downvoted into oblivion. I suppose by then, your total rep would be pretty pretty low and it would probably be easier to just make a new account.

I'm not sure how viable this would be, just a thought.

[–] wagesj45@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But if the bad actor blocks everyone, they are putting themselves into a bubble where no one will see their garbage takes.

[–] bridge_too_close@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

Perhaps, or they'll at least remain visible to the casual users and lurkers. They would have the most influence over people who wouldn't actively downvote them, anyways. FWIW, I think there should be some measure taken to mitigate downvote stalking, but there's always one shithead who takes things too seriously and has to ruin things for everyone else.

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This was a concern raised when Reddit updated the way blocking worked to make posts mutually invisible, between the blocked and the blocker. Some sort of scam had a cadre of dedicated users calling them out everywhere they went on Reddit. When blocking became mutual, i.e. the anti-scammers could no longer see the scammers' posts, it was believed the scammers would have a way easier time finding Marks.

[–] AmidFuror@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You block someone when you don't want to see their stuff anymore. It shouldn't have any effect on whether they can see or interact with your comments and the rest of the community. If they are block-worthy, other users can block them too.

You shouldn't really care about what they have to say after you've blocked them. If others see you never engaging with them, they should get a clear picture that you don't deem a reply necessary. If you're really concerned with rebutting everything they have to write about you or your ideas, then the correct course of behavior is not to block them.

[–] wagesj45@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Except up and down voting has implications for whether or stuff is visible in certain sorting algorithms.

[–] CoffeeAddict@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Could it be made that a blocked person's votes simply have no effect on the posts of people that blocked them? (ie from the blocked persons end it looks like they downvoted the person but the actually didn't.)

Also, by hiding everything from the blocked person you also run the risk of the blocked person finding out they were blocked, which is not exactly a good thing either; they could have an alt and easily see the person's content and harass them that way.

[–] ContentConsumer9999@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Blocking someone means that you don't want to interact with them anymore and making all of your content invisible to them is a pretty surefire way of doing that.

[–] AmidFuror@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, but making them invisible to you accomplishes the same thing and is preferable, IMO. It doesn't change what they can do. Keep in mind blocking, which can be done by any user for any reason at all, is not the same as banning, which is restricted to a smaller set of people with more power.

[–] ContentConsumer9999@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I guess if they're constantly harassing you under your threads/microbologs/comments you can just report them and get them banned.

[–] CoffeeAddict@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago

I can only think of two, and they would be exploiting this system for their own end. (Also, please keep in mind that at the time of writing I am not 100% sure how kbin & the wider fediverse's blocking system works. If I have some incorrect assumptions please correct me.)

They block the person to get the last word in, thereby "winning" the argument. Silly, yes, but people do this.
They create a post/thread and block anyone who comments/disagrees with them. Those people can no longer interact with the post/thread. The only reason this is a problem is because it is a form of self-moderation. (Though, as @wagesj45 pointed out this could be a self-solving problem if they continue to block everyone they disagree with.)

I consider both of these to be pretty rare exploitations of the blocking system, but they happen. I guess it is a question of is this system worth it with these downsides? Some people will go to extreme lengths to harass people, so I don't feel qualified to say either way.