Lemmy @lemmy.ml Kalcifer @sh.itjust.works 11mo ago

Should Mastodon votes be federated into Lemmy?

I am concerned that Mastodon's unary-vote system (favorites), and Lemmy's binary-vote system (upvotes with downvotes) are mutually exclusive.

In a unary-vote system, a post's vote count generally has little use beyond expressing the post's absolute popularity/engagement, whereas, in a binary vote system, a post's vote count can be used to gauge opinions, such as its level of quality, trust, or agreement. This difference in usage makes me concerned that the votes federated from Mastodon will water down the votes originating from Lemmy.

Currently, I can think of two possible solutions to this:

Lemmy de-federates any votes originating from Mastodon (might be tricky as it would rely on all instances following suit)
Add an option for the user to toggle within their settings allowing them to toggle off non-binary votes.

28 comments

There are already Lemmy instances that don't allow downvotes, like beehaw, so defederating seems kind of silly.
- There are already Lemmy instances that don’t allow downvotes, like beehaw
  
  TIL
- Yep, I'm using one right now. Upvotes for everyone!
  
  Me too
i thought the protocol allows for all 3... upvotes, downvotes and 'likes'

there would be no overlap on a technical level. they are already completely compatible, even if its not fully implemented. kbin/mbin call this 'boost'
- Interestingly, lemmy and Kbin votes were originally incompatible. Lemmy saw nothing from Kbin (because Kbin upvotes were boosts), Kbin saw Lemmy upvotes as favorites.
  
  they swapped this over the summer to gain compatibility.
  
  i hoping was ernest would add the option for downvotes., but he has not. I dont appreciate devs making decisions for admins, and it would be nice if more of the protocol was represented as at least optional.
- In mastodon, a "boost" is sharing a post. Maybe that's the 3rd option and mastodons likes are upvotes?
- i thought the protocol allows for all 3… upvotes, downvotes and ‘likes’
  
  Do you have a source for that, by chance? From what I can see in the documentation for the ActivityPub protocol, it only states:
  
  6.8 Like Activity
  
  The Like activity indicates the actor likes the object.
  
  The side effect of receiving this in an outbox is that the server SHOULD add the object to the actor's liked Collection.
  
  There doesn't appear to be any other client to server interactions for different types of likes. Afaik, Lemmy extended the ActivityPub protocol to add the downvote.
  
  nope, you were rigt, i was wrong.
  
  mastodon likes -> 'bin boosts
  
  lemmy upvotes -> 'bin upvotes lemmy likes/shares -> 'bin boosts lemmy downvotes -> fuckin nowhere
  
  i am kinda disappointed, to be honest. i want all 3.
- Lemmy's upvotes are same thing as likes, and downvotes are dislikes. This is kinda hard to tell because Mastodon doesn't federate likes, so Lemmy posts will always show up as having no favourites.
I think this is a non issue while we are small. Worst case now is that it's making posts look slightly more popular. I'd say let's cross this bridge when we get there
- I think this is a non issue while we are small.
  
  For sure, but I feel that it is better to think hard on an issue while one has the luxury of non-urgency.
  
  Agreed
  
  Now is the time to figure this out before the next big rush of people
  
  You could post this on [email protected] as well
  
  *Fixed link
Downvotes are often disproportionately used to silence members of vulnerable groups when they post in shared spaces so some instances already ignore them.

Upvotes from the microfediverse is a non issue
- Downvotes are also often appropriately used to silence fascists spewing hate.
  
  If fascists are getting downvoted but not banned, you need to find a new instance
- It does appear that downvotes have the effect of burying posts:
  
  Score = Upvotes - Downvotes Rank = ScaleFactor * log(Max(1, 3 + Score)) / (Time + 2)^Gravity
  
  Perhaps this could be an argument for adding a more diverse set of voting options. For example, a service could have votes separated into emotional categories (e.g. voting with emojis similar to what facebook has). One could then tailor the algorithm to reduce the algorithmic weight of negative emotions (e.g. angry emojis), as, conjecturally, people are more likely to negatively vote on something than to positively vote on it.
Can they be shown separately?
Yeah, I too only trust votes cast by non-binary users.
I don't understand why they federate together at all. Microblogs are different types of discussions from threads, and shouldn't be mixed up this way.

If anything, they should be completely separate sections of the site so you can browse the microblogs if you want.
- Microblogs are different types of discussions from threads
  
  That's really just a matter of how information is displayed, is it not? Fundamentally, the architectures are pretty much identical -- is this not the fundamental reason for why the fediverse exists?
Not really. Also Lemmy's and Mastodon work pretty differently. They may want to like something, but not up vote it. They may not even care about the voting system and not want to participate. Also on a technical level, it'd be messy to make the two compatible.
- They may want to like something, but not up vote it.
  
  Isn't that the point of the "Add activity" (Section 6.6 of the ActivityPub Documentation)? I think it is equivalent to a "Favorite" in Lemmy.
  
  They may not even care about the voting system and not want to participate.
  
  This point feels moot, to me.
  
  Also on a technical level, it’d be messy to make the two compatible.
  
  They already are compatible, though, aren't they? That's the whole point of the ActivityPub protocol. Mastodon, of course, won't accept downvotes since, afaik, that is an extension made to the protocol by Lemmy, but likes/favorites/upvotes should federate normally.
  
  Well ActivityPub isn't 1:1 interoperable all the time. Like you're not going to see the upvotes/downvotes of a Lemmy post when viewing from Mastodon. Which this makes sense, since how would Mastodon even know how to handle that data, and it opens up all sorts of compatibility problems. What does interoperate is the post and comment content which is the important part. Also that you're able to post/comment to other user posted content even if you can't see all of that ActivityPub's application data.
Surly clients can figure it out and seperate it put. If so its not a bug its a feature

28 comments