this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Vote manipulation is getting more common. Some recent examples:

While the accounts were banned, the malicious voting activity stuck around.

Should admins have the ability to discard votes, and if so, which admins? Should community mods have that ability? Can you think of any ways that tools like this could be abused?

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[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

giving a lot of downvotes is usually a sign of toxicity

Emphasis mine. When is it not a sign of toxicity? Rules are defined by their exceptions, so I am curious as to how this exception is navigated, if at all?

Essentially someone who posts with high frequency has a capacity to issue more downvotes without compromising this admittedly imperfect tool.

Now I was never really a reddit user, but the problematic karma farming of accounts associated with that place was directly linked to these kinds of tools and metrics, no?

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Emphasis mine. When is it not a sign of toxicity? Rules are defined by their exceptions, so I am curious as to how this exception is navigated, if at all?

In my experience, it is almost always the case, but I said usually in case someone came up with a very unique situation.

Essentially someone who posts with high frequency has a capacity to issue more downvotes without compromising this admittedly imperfect tool.

Are you saying that because they would get more upvotes, they could offset the downvotes they receive? Potentially, but this is where the second metric comes in (giving a lot of downvotes), and as we said, the two are almost always present at the same time.

Now I was never really a reddit user, but the problematic karma farming of accounts associated with that place was directly linked to these kinds of tools and metrics, no?

Karma farming is an issue when users can see karma as an absolute value. It's not possible on Piefed, which only shows a percentage of attitude (downvotes given, visible to everyone: https://piefed.zip/u/Blaze ) and reputation (downvotes received, visible only to admins)

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Are you saying that because they would get more upvotes, they could offset the downvotes they receive? Potentially, but this is where the second metric comes in (giving a lot of downvotes), and as we said, the two are almost always present at the same time.

Right, though it's a mitigating factor. I guess there's something I don't know about piefed: Lemmy comments all have a default upvote from the user that makes it. But it can be revoked by the user. Does Piefed work the same way? My thought only applies if that's the case.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 1 points 40 minutes ago

The upvote you give yourself is there, but IIRC it doesn't count for your score.

While we are talking, this is the kind of users who gets the two warnings: https://piefed.zip/u/grimreaper@sopuli.xyz