Fediverse

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This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.

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How does the fediverse handle upvotes on different instances? Does each instance have its own count or are upvotes summed up across multiple instances if the upvotes system (upvotes/boosts/likes) is s (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In the latter case, I think it might be feasible to prevent upvotes from being counted multiple times if the username is identical on different instances, since upvotes are public. Is there already a mechanism to do this?

Also, isn't it much more common in the Fediverse than on central platforms for the same user to have multiple accounts with different usernames? This seems likely to me, if only because popular usernames may already be taken on a given instance. In this case it seems to me hardly possible to prevent double counting. I suppose this would only be possible if the different instances would log IP addresses and share this information with other instances. That doesn't seem desirable to me at all, and probably wouldn't be legal, at least in Europe, because of the GDPR. Are there other possibilities? Cookies?

Please excuse the maybe stupid questions - I'm new here and not very good at finding info on my own yet...

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

In the latter case, I think it might be feasible to prevent upvotes from being counted multiple times if the username is identical on different instances, since upvotes are public. Is there already a mechanism to do this?

If @[email protected] upvotes and @[email protected] downvotes, how do we decide which is the canonical vote? How can we say for sure they're even run by the same user?

Also, isn’t it much more common in the Fediverse than on central platforms for the same user to have multiple accounts with different usernames?

This was the norm on Reddit too.

I suppose this would only be possible if the different instances would log IP addresses and share this information with other instances. That doesn’t seem desirable to me at all, and probably wouldn’t be legal, at least in Europe, because of the GDPR. Are there other possibilities? Cookies?

Let's not inundate the fediverse with tracking cookies and privacy invasion.

I get where you're coming from, but I just think that the solutions to these problems aren't actually solutions, and they're a case where the cure is worse than the ailment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Simple solution, let us see who upvotes a post. Kind of like how Facebook lets you see you liked your post. It wouldn’t prevent posts from getting brigaded with bot votes, but it would let us see that it is happening. Oh 1k votes on this post? But half of them are from [email protected]? Probably bot manipulation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

On the user profile you can see which posts a user has upvoted. But if you could see it directly on a particular post, it would be pretty helpful, I guess.

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