Currently, almost anyone in the Fediverse can see Lemmys votes. Lemmy admins can see votes, as well as mods. Only regular Lemmy users can’t. Should the Lemmy devs create a way to make the votes anonymous?
There is a discussion going on right now considering “making the Lemmy votes public” but I think that premisse is just wrong. The votes are public already, they’re just hidden from Lemmy users. Anyone from a kbin/mbin/fedia instance can check out the votes if they are so inclined.
The users right now may fall into a false sense of privacy when voting because the votes are hidden from Lemmy users. If you want to vote something and not show up on the vote list, please create another account to support that type of content and don’t tell anyone.
Everyone’s fleshed out a lot of the discussions so I’ll just bullet point my opinion to try to better explain the discourse I’m seeing on here
I view “Lemmy” like it’s a Community Center with group discussions, Community gatherings, and/or lectures with public comments. If you’re in the crowd “Booing” (downvoting) without standing up and making your position clear, you’re not adding anything to the discussion.
Downvote/Upvote is not like “Booth Voting” at all. You have ONE vote in a democracy, that’s the core principle. You don’t vote Yes for a candidate then vote No for another. You don’t see a ticker above the booth tallying everyone’s vote that was before you (voter manipulation, why hidden scores became a thing).
I think this would go over a lot better if mods had the choice of how to present the votes. Opt in or out of showing voters, opt in or out of showing scores or eliminating downvotes or even upvotes if you want. Give the power to the community and create useful tools for mods to try out.
Multiple votes is not why we have secret ballots IRL. Votes during referenda where you don’t vote for one candidate are also secret.
The purpose of secrecy is to protect from repercussions (ie worker vs boss, person vs family, tenant vs landlord…)
I’m not being pedantic. It matters here, because your votes can have repercussion if they’re easy to see at all times. I don’t want to be harassed because I downvoted an obsessive tankie.