I like the suggestion of mozz@mbin.grits.dev of simply making a bigger effort of letting users know that votes are “semi-public” information in the fediverse, and I have opened an issue to suggest implementing that approach (github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/2316)

But above all I appreciate that you are being transparent about it and taking our opinions into account.

One of the big selling points of Lemmy is privacy, and so many users do have a high expectation of privacy. It is important to be very clear and transparent about aspects that can raise privacy-related flags. Votes need to be public for the federation to work and to prevent double-counting, at least the way they are currently implemented, so transparency is the best solution.

The argument for letting everyone see the votes is a bit more tricky. On the one hand, if the tech-savvy can do it, then why not just let everyone do it? On the other hand, if it is easy to do, you make it easier for users to witch hunt and attack each other on the basis of how they vote.

Putting some additional thought on it… Enabling it for everyone has other privacy implications. For example, old votes would also become public and I can’t get backwards-consent from everyone. Votes from selective instances federating with us will too. I would need to wipe all of the votes from the instance before enabling that. I think making the effort to be transparent is a better approach.