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Upvotes/Downvotes and boosts being visible on posts. (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by mihnt@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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I don't mean the actual numbers. I mean being able to see who has actually upvoted, downvoted, and boosted a post.

I've already received one message from a user after downvoting their post because I felt the content was a little on the fence. This should not be a thing. I should be able to vote on posts without worrying about someone messaging me because they have a problem with how I voted.

In my opinion, this is a bit lacking for the safety and security of members here. (Or people who just want to lurk for that matter.)

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[–] YouveCatToBeKittenMe@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I personally think making people explain why they downvoted something is more conducive than just....being dogpiled with no explanation.

There are very shy people like me who have to sit and work up their courage to post any comment, much less a dissenting one. (Edit: Or else yolo it and regret it later, like I kind of did with this one.) I'd have at least 4x (probably closer to 10x) the number of comments I have back on Reddit if I posted every comment I wrote and then ended up chickening out and not posting. And I've never commented on a heated thread where I disagreed with the popular opinion (or, at least, not about me disagreeing).

Anonymous upvotes and downvotes allow shy cowards like me to express our opinions in a small way without the fear of being attacked for them. Are they abused by assholes? Yes, but everything is. Assholes shit on everything, it's their way. Like I said in another comment, though I wouldn't be happy about it, I'd be willing to compromise by letting mods see voting history to prevent rampant abuse.

if having to downvote out loud makes people think twice because they don't want anyone knowing they disagree with X, maybe that's a good habit to reassess.

I don't want anybody knowing I, personally, disagree with X because I might be harassed for it, but I want people to know that somebody disagrees with it and they're not just in a big circlejerk. I said in another comment under this post that I used to be in a subreddit where I belatedly discovered a large number of people despised my favorite character and thought people who liked him were bad people because they liked him, or liked him because they were bad people, or something, I don't know. Either way, I certainly wasn't brave or stupid enough to go in there and argue, but being able to downvote the worst comments--before I realized how prevalent they were and left the sub--gave me some measure of agency there. I wouldn't be able to do the same thing here.

The best argument I've seen for anonymizing it is having that information appropriated by corporations. Which admittedly they could just gather from your posts if they wanted to.

With anonymized voting, if you're careful to not say anything that gives away your location, they're not going to pinpoint where you are, beyond a broad area. With public voting, if you go to your town's magazine and upvote a bunch of stuff, they're going to know exactly where you are. That goes for anything else you might not want them or anyone else to know about you. They can certainly build a more complete psychological profile with both your comments and your voting history than with just your comments. And I know a lot of people don't care about privacy anymore, and I think that's a tragedy.