this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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I was really confused seeing this post, because I always assumed that Lemmy votes were public. Because how else are instances going to sync them? And indeed, the API exposes them completely, this change will just make it easier.
Then I was really confused when I saw so many comments being against it. A lot of "I'll leave if votes become public" in here. That's a lot of people who somehow assumed Lemmy was private. Aren't we all supposed to be Linux nerds in here?
No! :) The most Linux I use is a Steam Deck.
I feel votes should be visible to admins but otherwise anonymized and private, or else I fear vote-harassment could become a forever-problem on Lemmy. As a woman who has been harassed on Twitter and Reddit in the past, I strongly urge the Lemmy community to embrace privacy on this issue. If there's any way to make votes more private between users, we should do it.
If we don't and users get harassed, they might leave. Lemmy needs more women. And you all are great but Lemmy also needs people who aren't Linux nerds! Lemmy needs diversity.
Kinda same. I also have an Ubuntu homelab server, but I feel like I use my Steam Deck more often than I spend an occasional 3-day all-nighter to get something working on the server over SSH.
But my joke premise was obviously flawed anyway. We are supposed to be, but we clearly aren't.
And to address your point regarding votes being viewable only by admins, it's sort of pointless cause anybody can become an admin, just make your own instance. This just makes your statement to be "let only the more technically advanced people see the votes", which just makes it unfair.
True, anybody can become an admin, but most people won't. I think that a slight barrier to viewing vote identities is a good thing, and reducing that barrier to zero would result in more harrasment and unproductive discussion.
I still think it's just unfair. You can lookup votes and harass people only IF you know enough about computers. Anybody persistent enough to harass other people will put a little bit of work into being able to look up votes.
In addition, as we can see, this "semi-privacy" confuses a lot of people. Better that all users KNOW that their votes are visible, instead of them thinking they are private.