Should admins have the ability to discard votes, and if so, which admins? Should community mods have that ability? Can you think of any ways that tools like this could be abused?

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[–] Blaze@piefed.zip -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every single time I see someone with a low reputation warning, they are toxic users.

It's an imperfect tool, but it helps identify trolls and sea lions.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Basically if someone goes against hive mind once or twice can cause getting removed or limited on their instance.

Except it appears designed for that not actually detection of the bad users. And does nothing when the toxic users just say on their own instance or comm. (like goat, pugjeasus and with recent db0 votes the feddit.org admin)

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If "going against the hivemind" is insulting people (which is what I've seen most of the time with users with both warnings), then it works as intended.

Also, giving a lot of downvotes is usually a sign of toxicity, and that's only based on the user's actions, not the downvotes they receives.

And does nothing when the toxic users just say on their own instance or comm

As I said, it's not a perfect tool. To solve toxic users creating their own communities where they reign alone would require admins stepping in. And in the case you mention, when the person is an admin themselves, there isn't a lot you can imagine, no tool would be able to address that.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

giving a lot of downvotes is usually a sign of toxicity

Emphasis mine. When is it not a sign of toxicity? Rules are defined by their exceptions, so I am curious as to how this exception is navigated, if at all?

Essentially someone who posts with high frequency has a capacity to issue more downvotes without compromising this admittedly imperfect tool.

Now I was never really a reddit user, but the problematic karma farming of accounts associated with that place was directly linked to these kinds of tools and metrics, no?

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Emphasis mine. When is it not a sign of toxicity? Rules are defined by their exceptions, so I am curious as to how this exception is navigated, if at all?

In my experience, it is almost always the case, but I said usually in case someone came up with a very unique situation.

Essentially someone who posts with high frequency has a capacity to issue more downvotes without compromising this admittedly imperfect tool.

Are you saying that because they would get more upvotes, they could offset the downvotes they receive? Potentially, but this is where the second metric comes in (giving a lot of downvotes), and as we said, the two are almost always present at the same time.

Now I was never really a reddit user, but the problematic karma farming of accounts associated with that place was directly linked to these kinds of tools and metrics, no?

Karma farming is an issue when users can see karma as an absolute value. It's not possible on Piefed, which only shows a percentage of attitude (downvotes given, visible to everyone: https://piefed.zip/u/Blaze ) and reputation (downvotes received, visible only to admins)

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 0 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Are you saying that because they would get more upvotes, they could offset the downvotes they receive? Potentially, but this is where the second metric comes in (giving a lot of downvotes), and as we said, the two are almost always present at the same time.

Right, though it's a mitigating factor. I guess there's something I don't know about piefed: Lemmy comments all have a default upvote from the user that makes it. But it can be revoked by the user. Does Piefed work the same way? My thought only applies if that's the case.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The upvote you give yourself is there, but IIRC it doesn't count for your score.

While we are talking, this is the kind of users who gets the two warnings: https://piefed.zip/u/grimreaper@sopuli.xyz

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That's an interesting example of a user this is designed for/around.

The general system of up/downvotes seems to be doing its job quite as intended: their views appear routinely unpopular and there's a seemingly pretty strong community consensus around that.

It looks like their threads have comments that solidly and clearly refute the garbage manosphere stuff. For some people it's the opportunity to express a refutation of it publicly and directly. The public viewer gets to read those responses too.

So with that example: what do the flags do that the content of their posts don't already communicate?

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

So with that example: what do the flags do that the content of their posts don’t already communicate?

It warns other users that this commenter may be a bad faith user / troll.

Usually when I encounter a troll, I check their profile to see if they are indeed a troll. The warning saves some time on that, and is accurate the vast majority of the time.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I guess I approach it inversely. I encounter what looks like a troll post and I'll only check profiles when either I am interacting with them, or there's such deep downvoting already I'm just doing a morbid dive into someone's history.

Most of the time though the user just has a deeply downvoted argument but otherwise normal and/or low engagement posts, so they wouldn't be flagged by this.

So I understand that it can save some time with some niche cases.

But I can't help but note that the system seems intentionally blind to targeted harassment, which can be a source, if not cause, of bad faith accounts. (And likely those need different approaches since those are also niche cases themselves.)

And maybe it's all just because of my instance's Local feed, so that's what I see as a prominent problem on Lemmy.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

But I can’t help but note that the system seems intentionally blind to targeted harassment, which can be a source, if not cause, of bad faith accounts. (And likely those need different approaches since those are also niche cases themselves.)

If you mean using puppet accounts to massively downvote someone, that's also tracked, but with another tool

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

Not necessarily puppet accounts, just brigading in general.

It's the rationale many instances used to defederate hexbear. (Even though iirc hexbear disables downvotes, so they're defederated for users mass posting, usually that hogshit image, instead of mass voting.) It wasn't puppets or bot accounts at any rate.

But then there's repost communities where users share comments (especially in places they or their audience is banned from) or DMs for a group response.

Not to mention the whole 'block and downvote all .ml on sight' mentality. But hopefully that might be something this tool could catch.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There has been many times on lemmy and reddit where that is not the case, just saying what people didn't like was enough. From games to politics people love to dogpile. Making a system that helps do that is asinine.

Blaze you do so much for the fediverse but defending this type of system is very disappointing to me.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I said it above, but I'll rephrase:

a user giving way more downvotes than upvotes than is a sign of toxic behaviour (I insist on "giving", so the user is the only one doing that action, we are not talking about other people's actions)
every time I see a user with warnings, they have both, meaning that they give a lot of downvotes (see previous points), and indeed get downvoted back

The point you are making with people going against the hivemind is related to people receiving a lot of downvotes, but doesn't explain people giving a lot of downvotes.

Blaze you do so much for the fediverse but defending this type of system is very disappointing to me.

I indeed do a lot, and I've seen toxic users going rampant at a few moments. The lemm.ee shutdown due to trolling and toxicity is a sign that we needed a way to identify bad faith trolls and toxic users better to avoid mods and admins burnout.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The point you are making with people going against the hivemind is related to people receiving a lot of downvotes, but doesn't explain people giving a lot of downvotes.

Because it's treated differently in piefed but still an example of how the software is designed to punish those who do not act the way the creator wants.

It just doesn't seem like a way to actually address bad faith trolls or bad actors just make it easier to purge. Especially with instances that love to keep those types around, see world and shit just works.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Because it’s treated differently in piefed but

Then Piefed is fine?

Especially with instances that love to keep those types around, see world and shit just works.

Instances who tolerate bad faith trolls or bad actors are going to do so with or without tools such as Piefed's.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Because it's treated differently in piefed but still an example of how the software is designed to punish those who do not act the way the creator wants.

If the part after the but is ignored sure. But that part is also the issue so 🤷.

The point is the tools of piefed will amply the bad actors by allowing them to do the worst parts of reddit in the fediverse.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 1 points 12 hours ago

Piefed system doesn't punish those who do not act "the way the creator wants".

Downvotes given are only actions from the user, no interaction from the Piefed dev.

Downvotes received is feedback from other users, no interaction from the Piefed dev either.

allowing them to do the worst parts of reddit in the fediverse.

Trolls are already around, as you pointed out in another comment. I would rather have a tool that works 80% of the time to detect trolls than no tools at all.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

While we are talking, example of a user with the two warnings: https://piefed.zip/u/grimreaper@sopuli.xyz

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 17 hours ago

And here's an example of a bigger troll who it surprise surprise doesn't get flagged https://feddit.online/u/FiniteBanjo