this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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In Lemmy, only admins and mods can see votes. But most other ActivityPub implementations show votes freely and there's nothing in the protocol that makes votes private. Votes are inherently public - they are only hidden behind a curtain that is very easy to get around in Lemmy.
I mean, this starts to get moot if no one is aware doesn't it. You might dismiss the design as merely artificial obscurity, but if no one is pulling up the data, then the obscurity is working. The "curtain" you cite isn't trivial for the vast majority of users, which is what this is all about. Starting an instance and extracting the desirable data is a pretty tall hurdle where just the effort alone is prohibitive and enough to give someone a chance to calm down.
You don't need to start a whole instance to find votes, you just need a user on any of the services that show votes publicly.
Also, if someone is getting angry about downvotes in a bad way, moderators should just step in. People should learn that votes is just part of the system and accept them.
Well if that sort of thing started happening, I think it’d be reasonable to have that person blocked, banned or defederated.
IMO, What’s possible doesn’t need to dictate what’s easy and common, especially when there are always balances and countermeasures previously involved.