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.
User choice would be best indeed. The problem is that currently the votes are public but hidden from Lemmy regular users. Anonymize votes seems to be such a big problem the devs don’t even want to consider it.
I hear you, but problem or not, the devs shouldn’t be making major decisions for the user base after the fact. Anonymous voting might be a problem at first, but so will people who are broadsided by the decision. Not to mention the users who will use an open voting system to bully users they disagree with. You have to foresee problems will come with any decision, and a percentage of users will flee for each bad, meaning the safest choice is user base safety over forced decisions. Ultimately sad truth is, leaving things as they are is a much easier call for devs.