I think it's a bad idea. It's just going to start harassment and witch hunts when someone gets a downvote they don't like. Stalking is going to be a thing, people are going to aggregate all the votes you've done to make assumptions about you to then bully you. Once public, sources outside Lemmy will start gathering and cross referencing data about you.

In the US, when you vote, the vote is private to protect the person. Making votes public will only empower those that would abuse it. It very well could end Lemmy due to massive bulling, harassment, and the decline of activity.

[–] Aermis@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

I agree. I already tend to get tossed into a category because I don't agree with a majority of the user base. If people can get categorized more by how they vote, and lemmy users are already pretty savvy, I can see a scenario where people get tagged.

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

Exactly. We need counter views. One of the problems with any type of social media has been echo chambers and the lack of healthy debate/conversation. People have forgotten how to have a civil debate/conversation with someone else. And people tend to act like, if you don't 100% agree with me, than not only can we not be friends, but you're actively an enemy. That shouldn't be the case. We do not need everyone to agree on everything, it should be acceptable to have a different opinion.

With everything public, we're going to have no healthy conversation since people will use previous votes (up or down) against someone. One of the issues is, an up/down vote by itself doesn't give much insight into anything. It's not like the vote itself is quantified. We already see people try this with digging into post history to make assumptions of someone and bring it up as "evidence".

[–] Aermis@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

Man it doesn't even need to devolve into a debate. You get berated just for having an opinion on something more and more. That's the problem with the voting system anyways. People that don't share an opinion with you shouldn't even have an option to down vote. Just don't vote at all. Up votes are for shared opinions. But even then the biggest gripe I had with reddit was the system has the up voted "popular" comments as the most viewed as well, leaving the opinions of people unseen without looking for them.

People are impressionable. If they see everyone agreeing with a comment they feel they need to skew their opinion towards the common dissent or risk being alienated. We're communal creatures. And social media screwed with our heads with the need to fit in.

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