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YSK: Your Lemmy activities (e.g. downvotes) are far from private

Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)...

What you see via the UI isn't "all that exists". Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see "under the hood". Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won't normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.

Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.

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  • Is this only accessible for the people who host the instance, or for all users?

    • Anybody with access to the database on ANY instance. It would be pretty easy to surface in the UI if someone was so inclined to code it.

      • Kbin was so inclined. You can see who interacted with any post and how they did right from the default UI.

        • There's been lots of discussion of this on kbin. I tend to like it. I think it encourages people to stop and think 'why' before they downvote things - compared to Reddit, where people tended to downvote thoughtlessly and often, and which contributed to a culture on some subs that was quite toxic.

          • Ironically Kbin might be the place where people will follow the downvote reddiquette correctly, something that almost never happened in Reddit itself:

            Please don't downvote an otherwise acceptable post because you don't personally like it. Think before you downvote and take a moment to ensure you're downvoting someone because they are not contributing to the community dialogue or discussion. If you simply take a moment to stop, think and examine your reasons for downvoting, rather than doing so out of an emotional reaction, you will ensure that your downvotes are given for good reasons.

            • So if we don’t like it . . . don’t . . downvote it?

              Isn’t that, y’know, what the downvote’s for?

              That’s cornfusing.

              • No? The votes are for what contributes (or not) to a conversation, and deepens the dialogue.

                That's why it's infuriating when someone is downvoted when they have an unpopular but well-structured opinion, while a one-liner joke gets a million upvotes.

              • No, that's never what downvotes were for. It's not a 'disagree' button. It's just that Reddit got a bit toxic as it grew and the masses started treating it that way.

          • I'll probably be a lot less likely to downvote here, just because if something is so inflammatory that I'd want to, I probably don't want to draw their attention to me anyway. But I'm glad to know early on.

    • Everyone, on kbin u can see who boosted , downvoted/reduced, or upvote/favourited any comment by pressing "more" then "activity". For posts it's at the bottom of the comment section

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