Who decides what you see on the fediverse? A look at voting patterns
-
Oooo, I can’t complain about 1800 upvotes! I must be doing something right.
I’m more than fine with “ooh I like this” comments from people who have never commented on my stuff before. I just like to see who is checking in really. I browse the lemvotes lists from time to time to see who my regular lurkers are. I still appreciate them, and would of course love them to interact with me, but I’m still happy that they’re here having fun even if it’s just observing. I try to stay positive and encouraging though to show it’s safe to comment with questions or simple and silly things. I started off knowing nothing about the owls, and I’m still no real expert, so I want the community to be as approachable as possible. I try to keep it clear it’s our group, not my group. That said, as you say, there is something to not talking just for the sake of talking. If everything went: i love this owl - i also love this guy’s owl - this! - etc, that would be pretty lame.
I also waited until I was back at my laptop to reply since the response was going to be longer! I have a lot of down time during the day, so that lets me do more in depth responses. I don’t want to short change people on info!
We have a real simplistic voting system, which makes it approachable, but IMO, not the most useful. There are lots of posts I wish I could upvote in a “thanks for sharing” way, but also downvote in a “I hate this thing is happening” way. I feel weird upvoting something that gets me riled up! Similarly, it feels conflicting to upvote a post where I think the bulk of the comments are bad takes. The OP did a good job, but fervent people with different and often what I feel ignorant or incitive views overrun the comments, and I don’t want to steer people to that kind of mess. But at that point the voting would take up as much time as reading the posts if it were so granular.
I did make an effort to upvote more people yesterday, so we’ve had a positive effect on each other! Supporting each other is what makes a small place like the Fediverse work and feel real in an age of mega-sites.
Yeah, the first comment, even if it’s simple, is nice/worthwhile. After that, I would want comments on my posts to have substance.
I agree, a better voting system seems like it should be possible. Even if it just separates subscriber votes vs non-subscribers, I think it would be an improvement.
I already ran out of votes (took me under an hour, upvoting comments makes it go real quick). So, maybe I can come back tomorrow upvote you, to show anyone who may come to this thread later that I thought your comment was worthwhile.
I’m not going to change my voting habits so, maybe I’ll switch back to Lemmy or maybe the Piefed fork the anarchists are working on. I’m going to see if .zip admins will change/remove the limit before I make any decisions.
-
Yeah, the first comment, even if it’s simple, is nice/worthwhile. After that, I would want comments on my posts to have substance.
I agree, a better voting system seems like it should be possible. Even if it just separates subscriber votes vs non-subscribers, I think it would be an improvement.
I already ran out of votes (took me under an hour, upvoting comments makes it go real quick). So, maybe I can come back tomorrow upvote you, to show anyone who may come to this thread later that I thought your comment was worthwhile.
I’m not going to change my voting habits so, maybe I’ll switch back to Lemmy or maybe the Piefed fork the anarchists are working on. I’m going to see if .zip admins will change/remove the limit before I make any decisions.
It does seem strange there’s a cap. I never would have imagined there was one. Maybe a downvote cap, but it’s someone going to get mad at you for being too positive?
-
It does seem strange there’s a cap. I never would have imagined there was one. Maybe a downvote cap, but it’s someone going to get mad at you for being too positive?
Yeah, I’m with you. Don’t know why you would limit a legitimate user’s enthusiasm. A downvote cap would not be the worst, but at the point, I think, just flag the user and have a discussion with them, if they are legitimate and not a bot.
I’m having a discussion with Rimu in another thread about it at the moment. To the data I’m pulling, it looks like the cap severely reduces posts and comments…
-
Yeah, I’m with you. Don’t know why you would limit a legitimate user’s enthusiasm. A downvote cap would not be the worst, but at the point, I think, just flag the user and have a discussion with them, if they are legitimate and not a bot.
I’m having a discussion with Rimu in another thread about it at the moment. To the data I’m pulling, it looks like the cap severely reduces posts and comments…
Good! I hope Rimu is able to be helpful. I haven’t had too much interaction with them, but I like that they’re open and communicative about development and issues when I do see posts from them.
-
Good! I hope Rimu is able to be helpful. I haven’t had too much interaction with them, but I like that they’re open and communicative about development and issues when I do see posts from them.
I used to sing Rimu’s praises in the past. After some more recent events in the threadiverse, I’ve become much more tepid about him.
The discussion seems like it’s ended with, to me, him not actually engaging with what I’m saying and the data I’m showing him. He’s repeating roughly the same thing over and over. I explain that that’s not accurate and why, then we repeat…
Sadly, it’s pretty much what I expected from following along with his previous controversial moves.
I think if the anarchists ever get a proper piefed fork working, it may help temper Rimu’s actions and help him be more receptive and collaborative.
-
I used to sing Rimu’s praises in the past. After some more recent events in the threadiverse, I’ve become much more tepid about him.
The discussion seems like it’s ended with, to me, him not actually engaging with what I’m saying and the data I’m showing him. He’s repeating roughly the same thing over and over. I explain that that’s not accurate and why, then we repeat…
Sadly, it’s pretty much what I expected from following along with his previous controversial moves.
I think if the anarchists ever get a proper piefed fork working, it may help temper Rimu’s actions and help him be more receptive and collaborative.
That is a shame. I remember some drama going on between the anarchists and Rimu, but I don’t remember what exactly about. It feels like that was a couple months ago, so I’d have hoped it had calmed down, but I can see how that would make him a bit tougher to work with.
I feel like I recall the political discourse being much more civil 3 years ago, but it could just be rose colored glasses by now. I have no idea what I am politically anymore, so I seem to get along pretty well with all sides, but they also greatly drive me insane with what I feel are bad takes at the same time. I just stick to talking about animals and maybe books and TV anymore.
-
That is a shame. I remember some drama going on between the anarchists and Rimu, but I don’t remember what exactly about. It feels like that was a couple months ago, so I’d have hoped it had calmed down, but I can see how that would make him a bit tougher to work with.
I feel like I recall the political discourse being much more civil 3 years ago, but it could just be rose colored glasses by now. I have no idea what I am politically anymore, so I seem to get along pretty well with all sides, but they also greatly drive me insane with what I feel are bad takes at the same time. I just stick to talking about animals and maybe books and TV anymore.
The exact specifics escape me too, but I recall implementating a specific rule about bias-ing data in my fedilytics community specifically because of something Rimu posted.
Yeah, I hoped after that stuff happened a few months back and Rimu said he was going to step back and not be so active as an admin, things would get better. Maybe those events made him more ridgid, but either way, he doesn’t seem to be open to potentially being wrong about something. Tough to work/collaborate with people like that.
Hmm, not sure. I think you’re right and it was calmer then, but the world was in a significantly different place then too (people are very stressed now, often rightfully so).
I get you, I generally stay away from the politics (large block list), but after listening to the “Revolutions” podcast by Mike Duncan, with the season he did on the Russian revolution (season 10), I can’t take any marx-Leninist (ml) or Stalinist seriously. They were so ridiculously incompetent and corrupt, and they only took power because people were exhausted and thought they were a joke (so didn’t push them out when they could have).
Side note, if you like History, the “Revolutions” podcast is amazing. Real hits its stride in season 3 (French revolution). The earlier (English and American) revolutions don’t have the depth of the other seasons (starting at season 3). Mike talks about how he had an idea for the podcast and it just wasn’t working for season 1 and 2 so he changed things up and it works great.
Haha. I get you, half my post upvotes go to animal pictures.
-
Out of the 37,000 people who voted for posts or comments in the last month, the 10 most prolific voters (0.02% of us) cast as many votes as the bottom 59%. Here’s how that looks, visually:
As you can see, a lot of people didn’t cast many votes. Someone cast 23k votes, with a group of 13 each casting at least 10k votes.
“But of course most people aren’t really engaged, most of those 37k people are just NPCs who don’t really matter” you say, “Rimu you’re just including them to make it seem worse than it is”, you might say. Ok, cool, let’s pretend the bottom 85% of us don’t matter and just look at the top 5000 voters. Here’s how the distribution looks among them:
Still super unbalanced. Let’s analyze this a bit.
Among those 5000, the top 147 (2.94%) cast as many votes as all the others (4853 people) combined. Among those 5000, the average number of votes cast in a month is 1142. Among the top 147, the average number of votes cast in a month is 6868.
How do you feel about a tiny group having this much influence over what news you receive?
My take is this: If there’s a political or demographic correlation uniting the biggest voters, that would be a problem. That would mean a specific group controls all the content. I see three possible connections between high voters:
- Unemployed people. Not really worried about this as a political force.
- People who believe in the threadiverse. I actually think this is good. I want people who believe to have more power.
- A group of friends. This is actually the worrying one. If the high voters are all friends, then Rimu’s claim that a special clique controls what you see on Piefed is true.
So I’ll worry about this distribution if there’s any evidence that the people who do most of the voting are friends with each other.
-
The exact specifics escape me too, but I recall implementating a specific rule about bias-ing data in my fedilytics community specifically because of something Rimu posted.
Yeah, I hoped after that stuff happened a few months back and Rimu said he was going to step back and not be so active as an admin, things would get better. Maybe those events made him more ridgid, but either way, he doesn’t seem to be open to potentially being wrong about something. Tough to work/collaborate with people like that.
Hmm, not sure. I think you’re right and it was calmer then, but the world was in a significantly different place then too (people are very stressed now, often rightfully so).
I get you, I generally stay away from the politics (large block list), but after listening to the “Revolutions” podcast by Mike Duncan, with the season he did on the Russian revolution (season 10), I can’t take any marx-Leninist (ml) or Stalinist seriously. They were so ridiculously incompetent and corrupt, and they only took power because people were exhausted and thought they were a joke (so didn’t push them out when they could have).
Side note, if you like History, the “Revolutions” podcast is amazing. Real hits its stride in season 3 (French revolution). The earlier (English and American) revolutions don’t have the depth of the other seasons (starting at season 3). Mike talks about how he had an idea for the podcast and it just wasn’t working for season 1 and 2 so he changed things up and it works great.
Haha. I get you, half my post upvotes go to animal pictures.
I don’t mind people’s political opinions, even if I heavily disagree, as long as they aren’t being combative about it.
Someone posted this article about a study of US conservatives, but the thread must have derailed because it was deleted by the time I got to read the actual study and was ready to comment. Much of my family and my wife’s are conservatives, while we aren’t. It’s so strange in trying to understand where that disconnect is between how people treat their in-group vs those they don’t know. What they are willing to do to help people who are questionable of their own group can be amazing, but yet they have a hard time giving that forgiveness or benefit of the doubt to someone they don’t know baffles me. Like they have adopted black family members, severely mentally and physically disabled family members, lesbian family members, and super intellectual science people, and while they are either very cool to most of them or at least find them a little strange but not offensively so, they can’t find any of that sympathy or compassion for others in those same scenarios.
I was reading the study and I had the same initial feelings of understanding where these people are coming from and why they are upset, but then they just go off the deep end on finding some crazy reason why it’s the Left’s fault, or because people don’t believe in God enough or whatever. Like, I was on your side, and then you just lose it. But if I’d try to explain things, that switch turns off and they won’t hear it.
I feel the same way here with a lot of people. There are a number of things I could get behind with the anarchists and the communists both, but they just seem to lose me at the execution of these ideas. I feel their end goal is kinda the same of having consensus and cooperation of the majority of people running things, but every time I try to listen to them, the communists are fine with uses threats of force to make people try to function together, which I’m not cool with, and as much as I see the anarchists fight among themselves, they can’t build a consensus when everyone is already presorted into a group of claimed anarchists, so what are you going to do when you need to incorporate a ton of non-anarchists into society should a place suddenly become an anarchist state. I just don’t see how it would ever scale, at least not without also becoming authoritarian.
So I don’t really know what I am or could pick a “team” I’m really happy with. If I were forced, I’d probably say Social Democrat, as it at least seems practical in the US. It’s still a capitalist position, which doesn’t thrill me, but it’s the system we live in and can be reformed should we so desire, and it wouldn’t require a violent revolution to achieve. I’d rather have something more bottom up than top down, but we seem a long way away from that. If wealth inequality and the expanded unchecked power of the federal government could be even out, it wouldn’t be so bad. We just let money dictate way too much instead of the voices of the people and workers creating that wealth.
I’d gladly listen to what some of these people have to say though, especially if they keep it calm and more educational than like they’re picking a fight. Cowbee is always my example. I don’t really agree with much of what they say, but they generally stay calm, are more than willing to talk, they have legit FAQs about their beliefs prepared with a huge load of sources provided… I really feel they are taking much the same approach I do teaching people about owls and animal rehab things, but with their ML beliefs. I enjoyed reading the other day when they responded to an AskLemmy about why support Russia when it isn’t really communist or something like that, and it basically sounded like the reason many US left people basically side with Democrats: it’s far from what we want, but it’s easier to reform this thing that has a bit of what we support than to start from scratch. Do I agree? Questionable, but it at least makes some sense and would be a decent place to start talking should I be interested. And it was stated calmly and with some discussion about differences between the USSR, modern Russia, and some of China/Korea. The way they conduct themselves always has me on their side, at least in a “I may not agree with what you say, but I support your right to say it” type of way. I don’t know if I’ve really seen that from the anarchists here. I used to listen to a lot of the anarchist people on the It Could Happen Here podcasts, but there was just too much depressing stuff with corruption and hurting immigrants I stopped checking in and have been listening to Discworld audiobooks instead. I’ve been much, much happier with the Disc’s politics.
But if you want to check out the conservative study, you may enjoy it. I thought it was very well written and thought provoking. Here’s a link. Some people make better points than others, and others turn to blaming demons, so it’s a wild ride even if you hate everyone in the interviews.
-
So… You’re saying you want me to wear more flair?
-
I signalled to the posters and commenters that I like what they shared and hopefully encouraged them to continue contributing to this place.
You can do that much more effectively by writing a comment. Even just “Cool, thanks for sharing!” would have more emotional impact on the author than receiving 100 upvotes.
According to you and your paradigm, and how you see the world working.
The comment you’re responding to shows this.
-
I don’t mind people’s political opinions, even if I heavily disagree, as long as they aren’t being combative about it.
Someone posted this article about a study of US conservatives, but the thread must have derailed because it was deleted by the time I got to read the actual study and was ready to comment. Much of my family and my wife’s are conservatives, while we aren’t. It’s so strange in trying to understand where that disconnect is between how people treat their in-group vs those they don’t know. What they are willing to do to help people who are questionable of their own group can be amazing, but yet they have a hard time giving that forgiveness or benefit of the doubt to someone they don’t know baffles me. Like they have adopted black family members, severely mentally and physically disabled family members, lesbian family members, and super intellectual science people, and while they are either very cool to most of them or at least find them a little strange but not offensively so, they can’t find any of that sympathy or compassion for others in those same scenarios.
I was reading the study and I had the same initial feelings of understanding where these people are coming from and why they are upset, but then they just go off the deep end on finding some crazy reason why it’s the Left’s fault, or because people don’t believe in God enough or whatever. Like, I was on your side, and then you just lose it. But if I’d try to explain things, that switch turns off and they won’t hear it.
I feel the same way here with a lot of people. There are a number of things I could get behind with the anarchists and the communists both, but they just seem to lose me at the execution of these ideas. I feel their end goal is kinda the same of having consensus and cooperation of the majority of people running things, but every time I try to listen to them, the communists are fine with uses threats of force to make people try to function together, which I’m not cool with, and as much as I see the anarchists fight among themselves, they can’t build a consensus when everyone is already presorted into a group of claimed anarchists, so what are you going to do when you need to incorporate a ton of non-anarchists into society should a place suddenly become an anarchist state. I just don’t see how it would ever scale, at least not without also becoming authoritarian.
So I don’t really know what I am or could pick a “team” I’m really happy with. If I were forced, I’d probably say Social Democrat, as it at least seems practical in the US. It’s still a capitalist position, which doesn’t thrill me, but it’s the system we live in and can be reformed should we so desire, and it wouldn’t require a violent revolution to achieve. I’d rather have something more bottom up than top down, but we seem a long way away from that. If wealth inequality and the expanded unchecked power of the federal government could be even out, it wouldn’t be so bad. We just let money dictate way too much instead of the voices of the people and workers creating that wealth.
I’d gladly listen to what some of these people have to say though, especially if they keep it calm and more educational than like they’re picking a fight. Cowbee is always my example. I don’t really agree with much of what they say, but they generally stay calm, are more than willing to talk, they have legit FAQs about their beliefs prepared with a huge load of sources provided… I really feel they are taking much the same approach I do teaching people about owls and animal rehab things, but with their ML beliefs. I enjoyed reading the other day when they responded to an AskLemmy about why support Russia when it isn’t really communist or something like that, and it basically sounded like the reason many US left people basically side with Democrats: it’s far from what we want, but it’s easier to reform this thing that has a bit of what we support than to start from scratch. Do I agree? Questionable, but it at least makes some sense and would be a decent place to start talking should I be interested. And it was stated calmly and with some discussion about differences between the USSR, modern Russia, and some of China/Korea. The way they conduct themselves always has me on their side, at least in a “I may not agree with what you say, but I support your right to say it” type of way. I don’t know if I’ve really seen that from the anarchists here. I used to listen to a lot of the anarchist people on the It Could Happen Here podcasts, but there was just too much depressing stuff with corruption and hurting immigrants I stopped checking in and have been listening to Discworld audiobooks instead. I’ve been much, much happier with the Disc’s politics.
But if you want to check out the conservative study, you may enjoy it. I thought it was very well written and thought provoking. Here’s a link. Some people make better points than others, and others turn to blaming demons, so it’s a wild ride even if you hate everyone in the interviews.
I agree, I don’t really mind people expressing their point of view. I often find it interesting to understanding how other people see the same event under a different world view.
I’m traveling, so that study took me a while to read all the way through. Thanks for linking it. It had quite a bit of interesting stuff in it. Many things in it made me think conservatives are potential future leftists (distrust of mainstream media, want safety/security/health for their community, etc.). In my view/experience, they realize things aren’t working/are broken, they just have been given a bad solution(s).
Haha. Yeah, I get you. It’s tough to discuss anything with someone who can just declare “god decided it should be this way” and that’s basically the end of the discussion.
I have had some good experiences/responses of discussing things with conservatives by ‘abstracting’ the discussion. As in I don’t discuss current policy or people, but abstract group A interacting with group/person, and also make sure they feel no pressure in the discussion and can end the talk at any time with no issues. I find it helps them not just “regurgitate” things they’ve heard for their information sources.
With you on the execution of the communist/anarchist ideas. Anarchism has an “evolutionary” branch that presupposes that anarchism can be brought around by nonviolence and policy changes. That’s a version I can potentially get behind and might be worth looking at, if you have interest.
Yeah, when someone asks me my political orientation, I say “I’m at least for social democracy”. Not sure where exact I land after that.
Can’t say I’ve every talked with cowbee (name sounds familiar), but that’s good they aren’t combative and explains their views. Also, didn’t know they had a FAQ (knew about the anarchist FAQ), might have to look for the communist version.
I can kind of see cowbee’s point, but that’s so far from how I see the situation and how they could get to what they want, its tough to understand.
Haha. I think I tried the discworld books, but they didn’t grab me
If you want to check out some potential policies that could be implemented in the US, you might want to check out the community I created (PoliciesForAll). I tried to come up with policies that could be enacted locally that would reduce authoritarianism and improve people’s lives. The polices are supposed to be “boring” so that no one would really object to enacting them.
-
I agree, I don’t really mind people expressing their point of view. I often find it interesting to understanding how other people see the same event under a different world view.
I’m traveling, so that study took me a while to read all the way through. Thanks for linking it. It had quite a bit of interesting stuff in it. Many things in it made me think conservatives are potential future leftists (distrust of mainstream media, want safety/security/health for their community, etc.). In my view/experience, they realize things aren’t working/are broken, they just have been given a bad solution(s).
Haha. Yeah, I get you. It’s tough to discuss anything with someone who can just declare “god decided it should be this way” and that’s basically the end of the discussion.
I have had some good experiences/responses of discussing things with conservatives by ‘abstracting’ the discussion. As in I don’t discuss current policy or people, but abstract group A interacting with group/person, and also make sure they feel no pressure in the discussion and can end the talk at any time with no issues. I find it helps them not just “regurgitate” things they’ve heard for their information sources.
With you on the execution of the communist/anarchist ideas. Anarchism has an “evolutionary” branch that presupposes that anarchism can be brought around by nonviolence and policy changes. That’s a version I can potentially get behind and might be worth looking at, if you have interest.
Yeah, when someone asks me my political orientation, I say “I’m at least for social democracy”. Not sure where exact I land after that.
Can’t say I’ve every talked with cowbee (name sounds familiar), but that’s good they aren’t combative and explains their views. Also, didn’t know they had a FAQ (knew about the anarchist FAQ), might have to look for the communist version.
I can kind of see cowbee’s point, but that’s so far from how I see the situation and how they could get to what they want, its tough to understand.
Haha. I think I tried the discworld books, but they didn’t grab me
If you want to check out some potential policies that could be implemented in the US, you might want to check out the community I created (PoliciesForAll). I tried to come up with policies that could be enacted locally that would reduce authoritarianism and improve people’s lives. The polices are supposed to be “boring” so that no one would really object to enacting them.
I’m glad you were able to read that study! I took much the understanding you did, how we basically want the same things. We seem to come off just as crazy to them, but we’ve got to communicate effectively with each other if we ever want to deradicalize some people.
I don’t talk politics with my dad other than when I have to tell him he’s drifting into racism.
My brother likes to tease him by leading him to see the benefit of some bit of Dem proposed legislation and as soon as he agrees he says “well than vote for some Democrats because that’s what you actually believe in!” Then he gets all pissy and doesn’t want to talk stupid political takes for a while.Here’s a good example of a cowbee information post. It has the like to the suggested reading list, which is nicely formatted, a long comparison of social democracy vs communism, and an infographic. Again, no implied support for anything they say, but impeccable presentation.
I gave you a sub for PoliciesForAll. I’ll have to read through your posts. I skimmed through the library one a bit and it seemed like good stuff. Things like that that give everyone a baseline access to necessities I think is crucial to having a fair, just, thriving society.
-
I signalled to the posters and commenters that I like what they shared and hopefully encouraged them to continue contributing to this place.
You can do that much more effectively by writing a comment. Even just “Cool, thanks for sharing!” would have more emotional impact on the author than receiving 100 upvotes.
so instead of 100 upvotes you get 100 notifications to sift through for actual replies sprinkled in between "cool, thanks for sharing"s?
