Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)…
What you see via the UI isn’t “all that exists”. Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see “under the hood”. Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won’t normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.
Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.
At first I agreed with the general “whatever” sentiment. It has some important implications, however.
It discourages people from voting if they’re concerned about other people seeing their activity. This could result in a lower quality of scoring for posts.
I disagree, a lot of people troll-downvote meaning they downvote content that they don’t like, or just downvote because it’s already low score. Same also happens with upvotes and content that shouldn’t be upvoted. If you’re concerned with other people seeing your vote history you probably shouldn’t be making those votes.
Semi public voting discourages this form of misconduct because people who want to can audit their history and see that they’re a troll.
Is there a valid reason, according to you, to use the downvote button? I’m really interested in knowing.
Downvoting has always been an indicator that you disagree in some way. Whether it’s a disagreement with the substance or format never mattered. You’ll sometimes see people jump through hoops trying to justify how their form of disagreement is the only valid one though.
The accepted reason for downvoting since early Reddit times is content that either doesn’t contribute to discussion or is factually false. Downvote was never meant to be a disagree button, but I am sure we’ve all broken that rule occasionally.
Exactly. It seems everyone here is of the impression that voting is for agree/disagree. That sucks and it’s simply impossible to fix.
I upvoted you because I agree with you.
Good. A type of voting it discourages is using multiple accounts to game the system. People on lemmy have already been caught doing this and quickly shunned.
If you think that someone will judge you negatively for your vote - then do not make that vote. That is the entire point. And I like it.
You do see how it could have a chilling effect on engagement if the “someone” judging you negatively for your vote is, say, a repressive government, right? And what’s the point of a social network without engagement?
Exactly.
“I see you up votes posts about my election rival… see you soon!”
“Dear child, I see you up voted LGBT content. Let’s talk about your sins, then try some electroshock”