Blåhaj Lemmy is a Lemmy instance attached to blahaj.zone. This is a group for questions or discussions relevant to either instance.
Downvotes were often turned against trans folk on reddit simply because they're openly trans. I have no desire to see that repeated here, and so I disabled them when we were setting up the instance.
Given that lemmy still has plenty of transphobes, it's unlikely we'll change it any time soon. Ideally, it would be a per user setting that allows the admins to set the default settings for new users, but that's not functionality that exists at this time.
Hey there. I really hope you don't mind me replying to something ancient like this, I didn't want to make a whole new post about a subject that has already been fairly thoroughly discussed.
Personally, I basically never downvote anything and at first I loved that downvotes were disabled in this instance. But it also feels a little like having blinkers on, when everyone else is doing it anyway. Also, if a bigoted comment somewhere in a community in another instance gets 2 upvotes but 20 downvotes, does that mean that all I will see is the 2 upvotes? Wouldn't that give me the false impression that this particular community just doesn't care about bigotry?
Another thing is that I noticed there's a Truscum community here. Which I actually don't want to cause any wars over, so another reason that it's better I reply to this year old post. But based on a run in that I had on Reddit when I was still just starting to ask myself tough questions and address repressed feelings, the fact that they're here makes me uneasy. And probably attracts people from other instances here to downvote and spread the misery. I guess what I'm saying is that sometimes in horror movies, the call is coming from inside the house. So maybe it's futile trying to limit downvotes somewhere with downvotes baked in.
If I'm out of line, I apologise. I can see the value in this if you're only ever going to be commenting and participating in certain Blåhaj communities. So maybe that means that I still haven't found the right instance for me, personally. Which makes me sad because I actually love it here.
Just one last suggestion. Instead of making it a per user setting, is there no option to disable downvotes in specific communities? IMO that would be even better because it stops people from other instances downvoting too. Is this something to bring up with Lemmy devs?
If I could give people the option to choose to turn on downvotes for just themselves, I would do that, or if I could block downvotes from remote instances, but allow them from our users, I would do that. But I can't. The only option is enabled our disabled. So the downvotes stay off so that they don't get used against the openly queer instance.
Another thing is that I noticed there's a Truscum community here
Have a closer look :) It's an anti gatekeeping community that is very much anti truscum.
Unless there is a community I don't know about it. If so, please let me know which community it is, and I'll ban it with great joy.
Have a closer look :)
Oh! Fuck. To be honest, I didn't even want to take a look. That's definitely a relief and sorry for jumping to conclusions there.
As far as downvotes go I really get it. There's been one or two features that I've looked up and get the impression that development on this platform is fairly slow. I definitely get that this is the only way for it be implemented. Watch is a pity because it definitely has its drawbacks too.
Thanks for the response after I dug up this ancient post!
Downvotes are the one thing reddit unambiguously got right. It is impossible to sort content well using only support and apathy. That's just feeding engagemagog.
Unless of course you're a member of a marginalised minority, in which case, downvotes will often be weaponised against you, when people who simply don't like you because of who you are, downvote anything and everything you say.
It's that specific aspect that has lead to them being disabled on an instance focused on trans and gender diverse folk
Which they can still do from other instances, apparently.
This is a well-meaning mistake that keeps getting made.
Downvotes are ignored by this instance, wherever the come from. The algorithm that determines display order is calculated independently on each instance, based on the upvotes and the downvotes that particular instance is aware of. Blahaj Lemmy drops all downvotes from all sources, so the feed that our users see, whether the content is originally from our instance or not, is ranked without downvotes being taken in to account.
tl;ldr - People downvoting our content or posts remotely makes no difference to our local users
... then why would it matter if they're allowed? Even if they're like the Close Door button on an elevator. Honestly it could be a per-user option, at least on comment pages.
You're asking the wrong person. That's a question for the lemmy devs, not for the admins of a specific instance.
But you've modified it enough to ignore downvotes globally.
That's out of the box functionality. That's how it works on any instance that disables downvotes
Fair enough.
This feels like we're just halving the influence of user votes. On reddit, I would downvote anything I felt was boring or a subject that I didn't wanna see again. Now on lemmy, I simply mark it as read instead. The effects are the same, causing the post to disappear from my feed without a posing mark.
Would an instance be able to collect downvotes to blahaj posts from other instances? Or do they treat blahaj as the definitive source, and only collect them from their own users?
I prefer not having downvotes. But it worries me if the instances that have them enabled all see a blahaj post with 50 downvotes, that it’s still having the same marginalising effect. While that is then hidden from the blahaj user.
An instance is aware of downvotes from two sources.
Firstly, instances know about downvotes made by its own users. It doesn't matter what those users are downvoting or what instance it comes from, by definition, the users instance needs to know about the downvote so it can forward it on
Secondly, instances know about downvotes that federate to them. Votes federate in one of two ways. (For these example, A B and C are all separate instances)
i) Direct downvotes. If user A downvotes another user, user B, that downvote is federated to instance B.
ii) Indirect downvotes. This is when groups "boost" downvotes to instances that have users that subscribe to the group. So normally, if user A downvotes user B, instance C won't know about that downvote. However, if the downvoted post is made to a group that user C is a member of, then the downvote is boosted to instance C.
Instances with disabled downvotes don't boost downvotes for communities hosted on them, and don't accept downvotes for any content that federates to it.
But it worries me if the instances that have them enabled all see a blahaj post with 50 downvotes, that it’s still having the same marginalising effect. While that is then hidden from the blahaj user.
If the community is hosted on blahaj, then this can happen, but it's not a huge issue, because the only people who will see any particular downvote are other users on the instance of the person that made the downvote. These downvotes don't federate anywhere.
However, if the community is not hosted on blahaj, then what you're describing can happen. Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done about that. The best we can do is ensure that downvotes driven by bigotry don't hide content from our users.
If the community is hosted on blahaj, then this can happen, but it's not a huge issue, because the only people who will see any particular downvote are other users on the instance of the person that made the downvote. These downvotes don't federate anywhere.
Yeah that behaviour sounds fine to me then. I was worried that there would be a federated downvote score amongst other instances for blahaj posts.
Personally I’ve really enjoyed not having to think about downvotes. Yeah I sometimes see terrible opinions that have an upvote or two, but generally the person they’re replying too has far more votes anyway. On reddit I always felt compelled to have to downvote people like that. It meant that I’d end up dwelling on transphobic comments longer, rather than just moving on. I super don’t miss being able to sort by controversial either.
If you see something like that, it's best to block and report the user.
IIRC the idea is that hateful content should be reported so it can be removed.
Yeah, but there’s always content that’s annoying enough to want to downvote, but not bad enough to go against the rules of the sub.
Yeah, Blahaj specifically has downvotes enabled. It feels like most of the queer friendly spaces do. If you find a queer instance with downvotes enabled, could you let me know?
Yiffit.net
I'veen doing fine w/o downvotes. Reddit had too many spam bots that instantly downvote things anyways. Makes it too hard to get out of New
Sounds like a client issue. I have a working downvote button on this very post.
However, because the post was made to a Blahaj Lemmy community, those downvotes will only be visible to folk on your instance, because Blahaj Lemmy just ignores downvotes that federate to us, and doesn't federate them onwards.
Interesting.
So if I'm on the instance "Adama" and downvote a post on "Blahaj", does someone on "Cremmy" see the downvote or not - will Adama tell Cremmy?
If the community is hosted on Blahaj, Blahaj won't federate it to Cremmy
But if the user is a Blahaj user, posting on a group on instance Django, Django will forward the downvote to Cremmy.
However, in both of those scenarios, Blahaj itself will ignore all downvotes, meaning that the sorting algorithm for Blahaj users looking at content, local or remote, doesn't take downvotes in to account
Because you’re on an instance that enables downvotes. Some instances like lemmy.blahaj.zone have them disabled.
Upvotes and Downvotes exist separately from each other and when Downvotes are disabled, just the Upvotes are being counted on our clients.
Same with any content that lives on our instance, if a federated user on an instance that supports them downvotes our content their downvotes just don't get federated, at all. The downvoted contend only recieves a downvote on their instance and all other instances won't recieve it, though only applies to content where the original is on an instance without downvotes.
What's a tankie? Never encountered this word before Lemmy and now every other meme is about tankies
A tankie is an apologist for murderous authoritarian leftist, it's a reference to the Soviet & Chinese government's use of tanks against protesters. Tankies will generally deny, downplay, &/or justify genocide & political mass muder.
I think Ranger has a really good reply, I just wanted to add:
Other places on the internet/IRL don't really differentiate between groups of leftists (because leftists = evil communists always). A lot of us here are pretty left and don't tolerate apologia for totalitarian, oppressive governments just because they attempted to distribute wealth more fairly than American/Western capitalism.
There are many flavors of left. No need to tolerate mass killings and genocidal behavior. Abolish unjust hierarchy, in all forms.