Update: Thanks mateys for participating! Our instance was really split down the middle on this vote - 49% in favour, 51% against.
After reading all the comments, it honestly seems unlikely to me that private voting will ever be a viable option for Lemmy in any meaningful way, because voting data gets federated out all across the fediverse, so I think on balance the best way forward is just to accept that reality and work under the assumption all votes are public. At least then nobody is lulled into a false sense of security.
Having said that there’s an argument to be made for both sides and I don’t think there’s a “right” answer necessarily. Its more down to personal preference about whether you want/expect private (to the users) voting, or you want to embrace public voting. But until Lemmy can guarantee the privacy of user votes then simply pretending they are private seems like the worst of both worlds.
We might revisit the topic of public/private voting again down the road if Lemmy’s developers provide privacy enhancements in that area though.
Cheers, Unruffled.
Hi again mateys!
As most of you are probably aware, since the development of Lemvotes Lemmy votes are no longer private for users.
The way lemvotes works right now afaik, is it uses an admin level account to collect voting data from all federated instances, thus enabling the identification of every voter. This method effectively bypasses the guardrails the developers put in place to keep this info more restricted.
However, the developer of lemvotes has recently developed an “opt out” for instances that don’t want their user data collected in this way. So now we have a choice of whether or not to continue. For total transparency, I asked the developer to create an opt out because I wanted to give our users the option to choose that path without defederating from the lemvotes instance.
I think there are (at least) two schools of thought on this topic, which I will attempt to succinctly summarize below:
-
Votes should be kept private to users as they were only ever meant to be viewable by instance admins. Making votes public to everyone via lemvotes, when users have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to voting, is a betrayal of user trust. It also leads to arguments and a lot of unnecessary drama, caused by users trawling though each others’ vote histories.
-
It’s good that voting is transparent and that users have the same tools available as admins to conduct their own investigations into other users. This creates a level playing field and helps hold everyone accountable for their voting patterns.
So now you have some of the context, I’d like to ask our community what are your thoughts on lemvotes… is it a social good or a bad idea?
Personally, I quite like it from an admin perspective - it’s a handy tool, and a pretty cool project. But I also have an expectation (mainly from other forms of social media) that users’ votes should be kept private from other users, so I still think it’s problematic from that perspective.
Proposal: To opt out of lemvotes, so that our users’ voting data is kept (at least somewhat) private.
- To vote FOR the proposal to succeed, upvote the post.
- To vote AGAINST the proposal, downvote the post.
This will be a simple majority vote. Similar to the last governance topic, I have no clue what the instance sentiment is towards lemvotes, so let’s find out! Feel free to add your comments below.
Acknowledged governance topic opened by https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/flatworm7591
This is a simple majority vote. The final tally is as follows:
- For:
(3), (3), 
(1), (2), 
(2) - Against: (4),
(2), 
(3), (2), (1) - Local Community: +0.6
- Outsider sentiment: Very Positive
- Total: -0.4
- Percentage: 49.00%
This vote has concluded on 2025-08-09 01:29:16 UTC
Reminder that this is a pilot process and results of voting are not set in stone.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Waat the hek du thees emoji signifie? (si, soy Nederlandishe)
It’s the instance’s voting system that classifies users according to their description upon registration and/or their donation to the instance, see this thread: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/35557475 (it’s linked in the sidebar)
Leaves me more confused, as the icon I got marked with doesn’t seem to be mentioned.
- For:
I dislike the comments I sometimes see which threaten people downvoting certain things and imply that the only possible reason anyone would downvote is because they are <pejorative identity here> and that they will be stalked and shunned for doing so. I see these kinds of comments in situations where something probably got downvoted because the person was being an asshole or an idiot rather than because downvoters are on the opposite side of their ideology or hateful. So it’s like they want to prevent criticism through chilling effects and bullying. I get that it’s tough to see that people don’t like what you have to say, and that sometimes this is not useful information, but that’s what options to hide vote scores are good for, just cut yourself off from this information if you can’t engage with it in a healthy way or acknowledge that you might not understand the unstated thoughts of the people clicking up or down.
Even if it is not ultimately concealable information, I think this kind of measure is good because it at least sends a message that toxic vote stalking is disapproved of.
Against.
This whole software seems like it adds nothing to the fediverse. I abstain, and wish to defederate and avoid software like this in the future.
-
deleted by creator
I don’t want lemvotes. It sounds like some real reddit shit and it’s a terribly dumb word. Not to mention I want less tracking and more anonymity on the internet in general.
This is not going to give anonymity, it at worst gives an increased false sense of anonymity.
Not only could others spin up more copies of lemvotes, last time I checked every mbin instance shows that info freely.For what I’m concerned this proposal would merely make looking up votes slightly less convenient.
Edit: Yep, mbin still shows votes, no login required: Example
Less convenient means more private if more people give up. I don’t expect 100% privacy in my life, but I won’t make it easy for anyone.
Its not making it harder.
Ita barely even less convenient. You can just got to mbin/kbin (without even being logged in) and see the same info. The only reduction in convenience would be one site not showing it.
Votes on Lemmy are not private and you shouldn’t think that they are even remotely, and I think thats something lemvotes does quite well - shine a spotlight on the problem, which should be addressed inside of Lemmy.
Against. Generally I prefer the option of being anonymous, but we shouldn’t promote a false sense of security with a tool that doesn’t accomplish the job.
For.
Against
This information is already public. Something like kbin or mbin which already shows votes could theoretically be used to show them for any federated instances anyway. It’s pointless trying to obscure this information as it’s not actually protected in a technical manor. If you didn’t want this information public you chose the wrong platform.
Like putting plywood over the cistern pit. The privacy risk exists, lets not hide it to make ourselves feel better.
deleted by creator
I don’t see much point in opting out. The data will still be available to anyone who spins up an instance, and this could lead to a big game of whack-a-mole.
Better would be to push the Lemmy devs to find a universal solution.
Against.
Pretty much eeveeryone have clarified the good reasons Against already, and I share most of them. The one that I want to emphasize more is that regarding this point:
But I also have an expectation (mainly from other forms of social media) […]
Half the point of lemmy is that it’s not like other forms of social media, at least the big ones. This is not Twitter where we know already everyone is nazis, or Reddit where people can just brigand and go bomb-review software projects or stuff like that with impunity. The other half is that it’s federated and public. That, by nature, has to somehow include the votes.
We’re on lemmy. Let’s own it.
deleted by creator
Pointless regardless of how you feel, am I wrong? Like wouldn’t other instances that have federated with this instance lead to comments from here
Private votes are a mixed bag. On one hand they can be abused and lead to brigading and making them public defuses this easily. On the other hand sensitive topics obviously are something one may not want to leave a receipt over. Dunno
I doubt there’s any practical way to keep votes 100% private, there’s always a workaround. Playing whack a mole on this stupid little thing is not worth it
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Against.
An illusion of privacy is dangerous. If voting isn’t anonymous (it isn’t, and wouldn’t be after an opt-out) then it’s better for users to know that and act accordingly.
deleted by creator
I have to believe some sort of system could be designed that can preserve privacy while preventing abuse. Maybe zero knowledge proofs, packet filters or fail2ban. Adaptations would have to be made, of course.
But I expect that exposing everyones’ voting habits would enable more vengeance and spite than it would cooperation.
In holding out for a better solution. I choose the lesser evil of risking anonymous abuse over the greater evil of open discord.
