Currently, almost anyone in the Fediverse can see Lemmys votes. Lemmy admins can see votes, as well as mods. Only regular Lemmy users can’t. Should the Lemmy devs create a way to make the votes anonymous?
There is a discussion going on right now considering “making the Lemmy votes public” but I think that premisse is just wrong. The votes are public already, they’re just hidden from Lemmy users. Anyone from a kbin/mbin/fedia instance can check out the votes if they are so inclined.
The users right now may fall into a false sense of privacy when voting because the votes are hidden from Lemmy users. If you want to vote something and not show up on the vote list, please create another account to support that type of content and don’t tell anyone.
I just got insulted & falsely accused of downvoting someone yesterday. I
hadchose to give them a second downvote to prove that the first one didn’t come from my account. I admit, I have always been curious about the specific sources of votes but If I’m being completely honest, I don’t think actually knowing would leave me better off. I think people already read too much into these votes in the first place and it gives the ego-maniacs too much to obsess over.