this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
217 points (94.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

36984 readers
1041 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I woke up today, to a public comment in a Lemmy community asking a series of tagged accounts why they had downvoted certain posts

I thought that reactions to posts and comments are anonymous and now I don't really know what to feel about Lemmy any more.

In this case I had downvoted a poster because of its design, but was confronted publicly for being racist because the person assumed that I downvoted the message on the poster

EDIT: changed the title from "How" to "Why" because it broke rule nr 5 about it being a support question

(page 4) 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago

Because ignorance is strength

[–] vogi@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (9 children)

Somewhat off topic as the question was answered: Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I believe votes should be scrapped all together. Make it chronological per default with the option to sort by count of comments in the last 24h. I hate the beehive mind that gets promoted with votes.

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] sickday@fedia.io 1 points 2 days ago

As other comments have said its by design. But there is a quirk if they used lemvotes to determine who the down voters were: it doesn't seem to pick up downvotes by mbin users. For example, according to lemvotes I’ve never downvoted anything. This is demonstrably false :)

[–] Asudox@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Locking for rule 5.

edit: Unlocked.

[–] Cherry@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It’s a hard feeling to take but it’s a free place. I have no qualm with the comments however the topic you are posting on, is a devisive one and I agree with it’s not clear if it’s about the actual date or First Nations rights so there seems to be a few conversations going on at the same time. I am personally in the camp of always was always will be, but I think removing or changing the date will just cause more tension.

Dont let this sour lemmy for you. It’s just a day on the internet.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] hesh@quokk.au -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Your votes on reddit or facebook are profiled and sold to every data broker on the planet.

Making them public just removes the illusion that they are private in the first place

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] j4k3@piefed.world -4 points 2 days ago (12 children)

On pyfed, I see your overall "attitude" by default. This is the percentage of positive to negative voting interactions you have had recently. You are presently at 68%, which is rather low.

The activitypub protocol is not at all private. Anyone with a server and admin account is able to see all of these details.

Anonymous negativity is actually rather mental and should not exist in any democratic or ethical sense. You have a right to all information, a right to error, a right to skepticism, and a right to protest in nonviolent forms aka the right to offend others. Anonymous negativity is a violation of freedom of information and anti-egalitarian. Everyone has a right to confront their accuser with transparency.

If you have something to say, you should have the decency of stating it. Downvoting is a mental disorder. It is like people that use four letter expletives to express themselves when they lack the intellectual depth to articulate their thoughts. It only really exists as a corrupt means of artificially influencing behaviors for commercial and political means.

Is it ethical or reasonable to walk up to a stranger and give them negative feedback. Let's say you see a man exit his car to walk into a store. Should you have a right to leave an anonymous message on his car about the style of his shirt? Doing such nonsense will get you labeled a halfwit or worse. Take any real life circumstances and transpose this behavior. It is completely unethical nonsense.

"Trust" as a mechanism, is the primary tool of authoritarians and fascists. That is trash. Democracy and community are built with open transparency and accountability. One is a coward. The other will engage the dialectic and has nothing to hide. My "attitude" is 100% now. I rarely downvote because the behavior fails at fundamental game theory and the prisoner's dilemma. Negative feedback is incapable of creating positive outcomes. It always brings everyone down. So if you are going to be negative, at least do so constructively in a useful way by articulating your thoughts in text.

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›