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Tell me if I'm wrong -- since votes are federated, anyone who's tech-savvy / motivated enough can always expose the identity of who upvoted or downvoted things anyway. No?

Maybe publicizing voting and making sure people know voting is public would be better (esp if it's already exposed to all end-users through Friendica). I could see a few different ways it could lead to problems if people assume it's private information when it's really not.

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Sal@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Tell me if I’m wrong – since votes are federated, anyone who’s tech-savvy / motivated enough can always expose the identity of who upvoted or downvoted things anyway. No?

I think that the easiest way is to create an instance and collect votes.

But, as far as I can tell, It is not possible to retrieve the votes that were cast before the instance was created. The votes only get sent out to the subscribed instances at the time of voting. If you pull a comment or post later, it will arrive with 0 votes.

Maybe publicizing voting and making sure people know voting is public would be better (esp if it’s already exposed to all end-users through Friendica). I could see a few different ways it could lead to problems if people assume it’s private information when it’s really not.

I think so too. I have already been part of a few conversations with users who have just discovered that this is possible. I think that this transparency is something that the feature wants to achieve, but it is important to publicize it to avoid surprises.

I can include this information in the instance’s application, then at least new users would be informed.

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- mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I think that the easiest way is to create an instance and collect votes.
  
  Or even just make a little tool "hey I wanna stalk this (political / porn / whatever) community, run an endpoint for me that's subscribed to it and give me a little report of who all is upvoting stuff in it".
  
  I sort of assumed that the process that downloads a community's history when it's first federated also includes the identity of all the votes (I feel like it has to be that way in order to make sure we're not double-counting votes during federation?), but that's just uneducated guessing.
  
  I think so too. I have already been part of a few conversations with users who have just discovered that this is possible. I think that this transparency is something that the feature wants to achieve, but it is important to publicize it to avoid surprises.
  
  Honestly I think that for new users the upvote / downvote buttons should literally pop up a message on every vote that says, "Hey! Due to the nature of the fediverse your upvotes and downvotes are semi-public information!" until you check the box that says "don't show me again."
  
  Personally for me I don't have a problem with people being aware of my votes, but that's partly because I assume it's semi-public knowledge in the first place. I feel like enough people are unaware that taking too close a look at votes might be a privacy issue, but really the issue is the unawareness, not the looking.
  
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  - Sal@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I sort of assumed that the process that downloads a community’s history when it’s first federated also includes the identity of all the past votes (I feel like it has to be that way in order to make sure we’re not double-counting votes during federation?), but that’s just uneducated guessing.
    
    What happens is that the content arrives with 0 votes. There is no double voting, votes are just lost. The instance only sends out “user #X up-voted comment #Y” at the moment when the button is clicked. The list of votes does not get sent when a community is federated.
    
    Honestly I think that for new users the upvote / downvote buttons should literally pop up a message on every vote that says, “Hey! Due to the nature of the fediverse your upvotes and downvotes are semi-public information!” until you check the box that says “don’t show me again.”
    
    That’s a very good idea!
    
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    mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    What happens is that the content arrives with 0 votes.
    
    With Mastodon and Kbin I think you're right, but I thought Lemmy deliberately went back and populated it all. I literally just federated https://lemmy.world/c/callofcthulhu@ttrpg.network to test (it wasn't on lemmy.world until I searched it) and it arrived with all the right scores. IDK if that means vote identities go over though.
    
    That's a very good idea!
    
    Yeah! I think so. It might be worth a post to a wider swathe of the community.
    
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