I downvoted maybe 3 posts for being “unwise”, but I guess that’s not allowed. Looked up the mod and they banned a wave of people, all for “…”. Good stuff.
This “banned for using the functions of the website” shit is really getting out of hand. Unless it’s unequivocal support for every post, you’re out. It’s ridiculous out here.
Also! We still can’t block communities we’ve been banned from? Wtf?
Another day, another reason why the fediverse needs private voting. It’s a shame rimu gave into politics and killed the feature from piefed the moment it became a slightly sticky issue.
Also! We still can’t block communities we’ve been banned from? Wtf?
The more I use this software the more problems I see, not surprising given the developers. Hopefully Piefed can keep up with quality control over time.
Didn’t piefed came with built-in echo chamber features, hiding downvoted comments by default and marking people who get downvotes with special marks?
I think in that scenario bans because downvoting patterns would be far more aggressive
Yes, and maybe, plus no.
When individual users have more tools to work with, the mods don’t have to be as authoritarian. e.g. if a bunch of people complain to a mod of a European community that there are too many posts mentioning Donald Trump and Elon Musk, then with PieFed the individual users can use the keyword filtering tools to tailor their personal view of the shared community content to accomplish that end (best of all there, the options include not only All and None but to filter Some of the content).
Another example is that by labeling highly contentious users, e.g. those who receive >10x more downvotes than upvotes, the users themselves can make the choice as to whether to engage or simply keep scrolling, i.e. providing additional options beyond simply block vs. allow. People that would otherwise be blocked will likely have their content be more exposed rather than less using this tool - or at least that’s one possiblity, which Lemmy did not allow or provide for (offering only Block vs. not, with nothing whatsoever in-between).
Still another example are people who post 10x more often than comment - a potential unregistered bot account, where I guess commenting on their posts could be a waste of time if many people block that account and thus a reply on those posts is unlikely to ever be seen by an actual human?
And still another example is new accounts, less than a couple weeks old, so that your reply may be different to them than an established user.
Yes PieFed can also automatically collapse or hide content based on downvotes received. I have these features turned off but if someone wants them on, then such a person might be better off to use them, rather than feel tempted to downvote or comment on such controversial content? (Edit: imagine a world where instead of comments like “this take is disgusting, you should be ashamed of yourself for not thinking precisely as I personally do myself!”, those who don’t want to see such things do not have to, while those that do can have a genuine back-and-forth discussion without such noise. Good fences make good neighbors? This seems the polar opposite of an echo chamber where everyone simply MUST view the same content in one of the same identical manner of options provided, because those are the only options that the developers have deigned to allow for.)
A CRUCIAL difference here is that all of these features above are implemented at the level of individual users, making their own personal choices about what they want to see or not see. Lemmy mainly provides features to instance admins and community mods, but by shifting the choices downwards to the user level, it’s a whole new era in content management, having democratized the process, or at least allowing more for that, rather than leaving all the capabilities - along with all the responsibilities - in the hands of the authority figures higher up in the hierarchy?
I will leave it as an exercise to prove whether putting power into the hands of the people rather than concentrating it into the hands of a few is “good” or not (my personal opinion is that it’s great!), but objectively PieFed seems to offer far more “freedom” to end-users than Lemmy, as I understand it. (Edit: I guess I am saying that if Lemmy is akin to Windows where Big Daddy is always right, not only but especially when he is wrong:-P, because that is simply the only option made available to people - to either stay or go, fully block or fully allow, nothing in-between is provided for - then PieFed is Linux leaving it up to the user to decide individually what is right for them, by tailoring their customization options to suit their desires. Yes that theoretically could lead to an echo chamber where everyone must use a wide variety of flavors of Linux, in which case yes some could make the “wrong” choice - although I would argue there, why is it wrong if that is what they desire? - but don’t forget that the alternative is somehow even more of an echo chamber where everyone must use Windows, so I for one don’t see the addition of these new features as a bad thing? I suppose time will tell.)
It’s not about who have the power. There are still mods on piefed with all the same power as lemmy mods.
But with the downvoting penalty people get an opportunity to banish people they do not agree with to the shadow realm in a way that’s not possible in Lemmy. It’s not the power of the people it’s the power of a furious mob against anyone out of the mob.
You say “hideous user” I say any user who disagrees on the slightest with the mob ideas. And as the echo chamber closes smaller and smaller divergences will get punished until people will literally just be an echo of the allowed discourse.
I do think those piefed feature are a great mistake. People still have all the power via blocking users or instances here. But the “extra power” to the people is not really that, is just a net of authoritarianism in disguise. Heavy punishments to anyone disagreeing with authority, it doesn’t matter that much if authority comes from a King, an aristocracy or a Soviet (assembly of people) it’s still authoritarianism. And that’s what I think will happen with any piefed instance that enables these features.
We all know that no only “hideous users” get downvoted, and that “hideous users” not always get downvoted. We all know that even the platform says to not use the downvote as a “I disagree button” people use it for this.
I’m more on the opposite side of the spectrum on this matter. And more and more I think it’s better to completely get rid of the downvote button. If you really don’t like something block it for you, there’s no need for people to have tools that greatly affect other people. For instance if you downvoted some comment of a third user and that comment gets hidden. I may like that comment but now I don’t see it because you were given a tool that gives you power over me. A tool like that is great for majorities to oppress minorities. As part of several minorities I’ve always been wary of those.
I am not downvoting you but your reply here is not very well thought out. Perhaps it is just your presentation.
It reads like a “you should smile more, because I am such a nice man” Reddit-esque position, where you should have all the freedom to do whatever you want - e.g. downvote people - but then others should not have the freedoms to respond to your actions in whatever manner they decide is best for themselves?
Perhaps indeed you would be happier at an instance - such as reddthat.com - that disables downvotes, rather than the freedom-loving anarchist lemmy.dbzer0.com. But that would be YOUR choice, you do not get to make MY choices for me.
Also, you are factually incorrect: downvotes are in fact public information, despite how the web UI client and most apps do not provide an easy means to disclose them. e.g. your last downvote (that I can see) was on July 27 for https://lemmy.sdf.org/comment/21688252. Anyone at any time can see these, with a tool that discloses that info, and it has always been thus, from the very beginning of Lemmy?
Although I hope you choose to think that thought through more deeply: why should anonymous voting (as you seemed to think it was) be allowed, and also end-users prevented from being able to do anything in response to it? How is that in any way “more” (rather than less) free, when one under-class of users is subject to the nonconsensual recipient of e.g. voting barrages - i.e. you get what you want but neither the recipient nor any innocent third-party bystander is free to do the same? In a truly free society, people need to be able to make choices for themselves - which PieFed provides to end-users in that regard, whereas Lemmy provides that choice only to admins and mods.
Do not gloss over that latter point: there is an enormous distinction between an “institutional(-ized)” echo chamber, where the tools or locality themselves enforces it - an example being lemmy.ml that infamously site-wide bans people from communities that they have never even heard of for comments made in unrelated communities, if they are even slightly critical (or not support enough?) of Russia, China, or North Korea - and the choices of the end user. People should be allowed to dislike things, if that is what they desire, and they should not be forced into using 4chan, if they do not choose to, imho. I can see why authoritarians would want to literally force people into viewing content that they did not want to see, but why would freedom-loving people do so?
Again, do as you please, but I ask that you allow me to do the same (even if I only speak on behalf of those who may choose to use those tools, I am a HUGE fan of their existence, in offering that choice to people for them to make, as they please!:-). As an example, perhaps for 350 days of the year I choose to expose myself 100% to people’s emotional vomiting, but then for a couple weeks I decide to take a break from (waves hands) all of this that is going on in the world - am I allowed to have desires, and to make that choice? PieFed says: ABSOLUTELY, here you are FREE! Lemmy: lol no bitch, you’ll take what a mod decides to offer and like it.
Sorry if I came across too strong here - I recognize that you have been under the oppressive regime of Lemmy and Reddit for so very long, that your position of what “freedom” is (the ability to make choices) is likely very skewed, as mine was too, but the good news is that you do not have to remain under that yoke any longer than you want to: you too are free! Research how PieFed.(social|world|blahaj.zone|ca|zip|au|dk, etc.) works and you will surely stand in awe of it like me! But if not… then that’s okay too, I support your right to do as you please - though I would hope that you would offer the same consideration to others too?
And more and more I think it’s better to completely get rid of the downvote button.
Yep! I wish all Lemmy instances would get rid of the downvote button. So many drive-by serial downvoters would have to find a different hobby.
wrong
How so? Are you defending serial downvoters?
no, just that they would comment negativity instead
https://lemvotes.org/user/ech@lemmy.ca
- List of votes for ech@lemmy.ca:
- Total post upvotes: 28
- Total post downvotes: 68
- Total comment upvotes: 532
- Total comment downvotes: 333
voting history
And your old lemm.ee account
- https://lemvotes.org/user/ech@lemm.ee
- Total post upvotes: 165
- Total post downvotes: 905
- Total comment upvotes: 4848
- Total comment downvotes: 3841
Out of curiosity, what was your motivation for posting this?
The OP made a post about their own voting behavior being a issue a moderator banned them for. Looking at their voting record is part of evaluating the the amount of Power Tripping Bastard the moderator is. OP is inviting us to examine their situation to render a judgement.
Their extreme preference for downvoting is a factor here, it is illustrated by their voting record.
I wouldn’t call someone who upvotes more than they downvote “extreme preference for downvoting”. That would be a “slight preference for upvotes”.
If you look at their post voting they downvote 240% more then they upvote.
Compared to your good self who downvotes 11% as much as they upvote.
Not sure why we are looking only at post voting when that is in all cases a sliver of users’ total votes. In this users case, if you include both posts and comments, they upvotes more than they downvote on both accounts.
Also not sure why my personal upvotes/downvote are being evaluated just because I made a single comment on this thread.
it was illustrative to compare OP against a normal user.
And since you are the person I’m talking with, what example would be more relevant?
Downvoting aside, not actually giving a reason for a ban is really stupid and comes across as being done in bad faith, imo. That alone makes this feel unjust to me.
Regarding downvotes, can someone explain to me why it’s bad or wrong? I’ve posted my drawings before and they were downvoted. While that stung a little, isn’t this just the nature of the internet?
Regarding downvotes, can someone explain to me why it’s bad or wrong? I’ve posted my drawings before and they were downvoted.
Now imagine you had your own community centered around your art. And instead of someone just not liking your work, there’s this one person who goes out of their way to downvote everything you post, no matter what it is. He doesn’t block your community. He actually waits around just to downvote your stuff.
Now let’s say you have another community. Not art-related at all. It’s about pears. That’s right, just pears. Poems about pears, pictures of pears, pear facts. Suddenly, every single post gets downvoted.
And guess what? It’s the same guy.
Sounds weird, right? Like what kind of person follows you around the platform just to downvote everything?
Let’s take it a step further. You look up the guy’s profile and realize he’s never posted anything. No comments. Nothing. Out of curiosity, you check his voting history and it turns out all he does on Lemmy is downvote every new post he sees.
Creepy, right? But also way more common than you’d think. That’s why you keep seeing this topic pop up.
Everything I described has happened to me. Sometimes all of it, sometimes just parts. But I’ve definitely run into people on Lemmy who downvote just because they think it’s funny. For me, some people just downvote my shit because of my name and the fact they don’t like me. And they have been very open about it.
One guy even said about me, “I can’t help it. I see Universal Monk’s name. I downvote.”
Lemmy seems to attract folks who are a little more extreme in their obsessive behavior than other platforms. Sure, a few users have been wrongly banned here and there for downvoting. But the number of serial downvoters here is ridiculous, especially the extreme political types or the hardcore anti-AI crowd.
I had someone downvote some stories I posted the other day. In a pattern that seemed to imply he didn’t actually read them. But he let me know that it’s because he didn’t like the cover art or the story subject (Trump, hamsters, vampire nuns with strap-ons, and nutraloaf).
That kind of downvoting is fine and what the button is for. But it’s not like he went in and downvoted everything.
And since he didn’t like my writing style, he blocked the community so he doesn’t have to see my posts there (I post a lot). That’s how Lemmy should work.
And of course I didn’t ban him; he didn’t do anything wrong.
You are in too deep.
Nah, the people who live to follow people around and downvote are in too deep. Easy to ban them now, so easy peasy to deal with them. That’s what makes them so mad! lol
I’ve been banned from a community that I wasn’t part of just because, while browsing /all, a post with some stupid take came up and I downvoted it. I rarely downvote and I only do when it’s really an awful take or harmful content but apparently, the mod didn’t like that.
The smell of freedom can be felt from miles when a sub includes a rule of “no downvoting”
A long time ago I downvoted a bunch of posts from a person spamming and got banned from a half dozen unrelated communities for being a “mass downvoter”
Technically true, I’ve probably downvoted more posts than upvoted. But to ban someone for using fediverse features as designed? I dunno
