Skip Navigation
/kbin meta @kbin.social aroom @kbin.social

As for now, upvotes, downvotes and boosts are public on kbin

On every thread or post, if you click on more and activity, you'll get the info.

I personally find this to be a good things, I've seen people using downvote way too easily. I like the idea that we need to be somehow accountable for those mechanism.

edit: It could be somehow improved to have an option to let this info only available between concerned users.

edit edit: I think that up/downvote info shouldn't be public, but kept private between the users involved. we need to address this privacy issue.

71

You're viewing a single thread.

71 comments
  • I understand what you're saying, but in the broader scheme of the internet we should have the ability to dictate what of our data and actions get broadcast and therefore able to be mined by advertisers or other nefarious entities. This is actually a hugely important idea in fighting the corporatization of the internet. We need to stop letting mega corps build profiles on us based on our clicks.

    • I totally agree, but I find it refreshing to make people accountable. Maybe there is a solution to keep it somehow private between users?

      • I still don't really understand what your dissatisfied with. You said something about people downvoting too much? Say you see someone who is downvoting in a way you don't like. What is your recourse? Why do you want that information?

        • If I see someone downvoting all my thread or post, I'll block them. Anonymity is not always bringing the best out of people.

          • People are allowed to disagree with things, although I understand if someone is just spamming the entirety of a thread with downvotes for no appreciable reason.
            I'm in agreement with @eatmoregreenfood, that displaying your votes should be opt in, if available on the front end at all.
            On a social basis, I don't think it matters; Whilst it would be preferable that someone explains why they disagree with something (assuming it is actually a disagreement, and not just malicious), I don't think anyone should be fearful of downvoting because the OP might call them out on it and expect them to explain, or forever see nothing from that user again. Disagreement isn't inherently negative.

            • I'm sorry but we talked about silly things being posted in an other thread, we exchanged our point of view and at the end, you literally downvoted all of my silly intervention in the thread. so you do you but that is exactly this kind of behaviour I'm not looking forward here.

              you could also argue that it would be a shame that anyone feels fearful to post because of people downvoting whatever it not pleasing them.

              for me downvoting is a strong statement, not to be taken lightly. it can be part of building an very unwelcoming environment and also shaping the discours of users in only one direction.

              please let's try to take what's the best of the fediverse here as well, be kind with each other if not excellent.

              • Myself, and a handful of users by the looks of it, disagreed with the content of some of your posts, or thought it wasn't relevant / contributing to the discussion. I certainly didn't downvote the entirety of your contribution to that thread, and I don't intend for you to think it's a personal attack.

                If you'd like to have a discourse on why I downvoted 4 of your comments, I, like many others aren't looking for the 'redditification' of another site, regardless of how similar the premise might be, and that's what I felt those comments were promoting, particularly 'gesundheit'. I understand wanting things to be 'just as good as they were', etc., but this is new, things can be better, and I personally don't want to see the site become reddit 2.0 just because there's been a big influx of users after the blackout started. You're entitled to want kbin.social to become something else, of course, and that's arguably what the voting system is there for.

                • you shouldn't assume that much about my intention tho. and I rather talk to you and argue that being told to "shut if up", even tho you didn't say it, it's how a downvote feels.

                  I certainly don't want kbin to be a reddit 2.0. but id like people to feel free to express themself in all matter, not only being serious. We don't have to agree about that, it's ok. But one thing that I really wish would stay on reddit is this downvote culture.

                  • I understand what you're saying, but at the time, would you have rather I replied to each of the comments with 'I disagree', 'I don't like this', etc? That's just opening things up for unnecessary arguments that end up taking over a whole thread, which is sort of what's happening now.

                    • well taking up the whole thread is not an issue or is it? I quite enjoy talking with you to be honnest.

                      but your right, I understand that you don't want to reply to all my silly post. but I'm my book, you could have just ignored them and do nothing.

                      that's what I do when I see something that I don't agree with or don't like. either reply or ignore. I'll downvote only at the last recourse.

                      but I understand that we don't share the same value as what downvoting mean, and I'm ok with that. I just wish that this place will be build on the fediverse values from now on.

                      • well taking up the whole thread is not an issue or is it? I quite enjoy talking with you to be honnest.

                        If the thread is relevant to the topic at hand, then no, and I think this is relevant.

                        you could have just ignored them and do nothing.

                        I could have, but I chose to downvote a handful of comments that I didn't think were adding anything to the discussion, and I felt could have been seen on any top 100 reddit thread.

                        but I understand that we don't share the same value as what downvoting mean, and I'm ok with that.

                        I'm ok with that as well, and I appreciate that we can have a civil discussion about it. Like I've already said, it wasn't a personal attack or me saying "shut up". If I wanted to do that, I'd have commented that, and likely been deservedly downvoted into oblivion, because that's just not productive.

                        Edit; My first reply sounds a bit authoritarian, I think, and that's not what I want to convey- I'm not saying there can't be discussions that slowly veer off the topic of the post, but at the same time, if you're clicking into post comments, you don't want the first thing you see to be a 50 comment chain that winds up in a heated name calling argument, or two people just talking about PS1 emulators on your @knitting post, especially when there's no way to collapse comments currently (officially).

                  • Are downvotes not a way in which people freely express themselves?

              • And your post is currently up to 17 downvotes. Seems like people pretty much proved the point you were making. I think that is kinda sad, but not entirely unpredictable. I'm still new here. I used reddit, sometimes I really liked it. But it wasn't perfect. I see this as a chance to improve. If we want to. I agree with what you said, I don't very often downvote. We will see what happens.

    • You have a pretty ironclad point. A company having access to years of that from any user would be a huge boon. Which is upsetting, because I viewed it as a helpful development in terms of group dynamics. Not for blacklisting purposes, which they also run the risk of turning into, but because, knowing your name is up there, you're more likely to mull over whether something is really actually bad enough to deserve the downvote and throwing them around willy-nilly is a great habit to break yourself of.

      If you can't downvote something without being called out by name, you're stuck admitting it really didn't matter all that much, or hopefully explaining why you dislike something in words. Which does not happen nearly as often as it should. Forcing people to own up to them could curb the tendency to downvote things into oblivion

      Thinking it over, I'm forced to admit the cons outweigh it, but I don't have to like it.

      • A company having access to years of that from any user would be a huge boon.

        This could be said for any bit of information you post publicly. You don't think they can learn the same info from your posts? I agree it is a problem but I don't think private up/down votes address it.

        • Im doing ("did") a lot more of up/downvoting than writing longer replys to different topics.
          It should be much easier for a company to scan a wide array of users on their voting behaviour than reading their posts one by one.

          • I highly doubt it would be a human reading the posts.

            • maybe i didnt express correct what i mean...

              Lets say after 5 years of kbin running and lots of user interactions.
              -It should be really easy to pick out 50 or 100 (for example politcal) threads and filter all the up and downvotes. After that you could identify for most of the users which direction they are leaning.
              -in the same scenario its much more work to read (or train a AI or bot or something)all the posts to interpret what point of view all these users have.

              • I think you underestimate how easy it is to determine the "mood" of a comment, but let me perhaps come at this from a different angle: even if kbin did as you request and made up/down votes hidden, there is nothing that says a server that is federated with kbin has to hide that information, as well.

                It's probably best to just assume that any information you give in public will be public, and act accordingly.

                • Huh thats scary.
                  Im honestly not that deep into the AI theme so im not really able to recognise which of all this AI things are real and which are more wishfull thinking or marketing.

                  • Just hop on over to chat GPT and ask it to write something in an angry tone, then ask it to write the same thing in a supportive tone.

71 comments