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What's the plan for downvote federation? (kbin.social)

submitted 11 months ago by ThatOneKirbyMain2568@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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Right now, downvotes (reduces) don't federate to (and from?) Kbin instances. This lack of federation makes the downvote counter really inaccurate—a comment that looks like it's +10 might be -15 when you look at it from lemmy.world.

This leaves me with a few questions:

Is downvote federation going to be implemented?
If so, is it a priority or something that'll happen much further down the line?
If not, will downvoting be removed?

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[–] ThatOneKirbyMain2568@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Kinda? Your example wasn't really an exaggeration of the situation with downvotes but a different situation entirely, so it didn't really address my point. Again, as long as there are downvotes on the fediverse, the people behind them will be visible to anyone who wants to know just by looking at an instance that shows them. Thus, being on an instance that doesn't show who you downvoted doesn't make your downvotes more private than if you were on an instance that did.

I 100% get being worried about people seeing who you downvoted, but in that case, I'd suggest being on an instance that just doesn't have downvotes. Those exist, and I've seen plenty of people who prefer things that way.

EDIT: A bit of clarification.

[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Not having downvotes at all makes the exact reason I dont like kbin even worse. A lack of downvotes is, in part, what made facebook so vividly toxic and rife with hate speech and fake news. When a site lacks upper moderation and a method of inter-community moderation, there is no way to filter out bad content and bad users.

Removing downvotes is something wanted by people who dont want content filtered. Showing downvotes is something wanted by people who want to weaken filters. Weak or nonexistent filters is what allows the worst aspects of the internet to fester and rot.

I did literally say I am drawn towards instances that would refuse to federate with privacy free instances, which includes the ones that make votes public. In the exact same way I would not want federation with instances that make your ip or view history public.

[–] livus@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

I mean beehaw has no downvotes and they're not toxic at all if viewed from within their instance.

[–] ThatOneKirbyMain2568@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

Understandable. I don't view showing downvotes as weakening filters—I see how it could deter downvoting to some extent, but in my experience, it leads to people handing out downvotes less freely and when it's more justified as opposed to not downvoting at all. Nevertheless, I see where you're coming from, and I want to stress that I think it's completely fair to not want people to see if you've downvoted them.

Note: I don't think defederating from an instance prevents them from seeing your content (according to this thread), so I'm not sure if defederation would make your votes private.