Protesting the removal of user scores from the API (Re: 3393) · Issue #4215 · LemmyNet/lemmy
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Is your proposal related to a problem?

User score aggregates were removed from the API in 0.19.0 in PR 4089. The justification was that it was psychologically harmful.

I am officially protesting this removal and asking for it to be reconsidered.

Describe the solution you’d like.

Re-enable it at the API level and continue hiding it in Lemmy-UI if that is your personal stance on the matter. Or, make it an option admins/users can disable at the instance/user level (there’s already an option to hide scores, so maybe expand on that?).

Other UIs do utilize scores, and it is a useful metric for moderation.

e.g. If I load a user’s profile to determine an appropriate mod action, and I see it is a 2 day old account with a combined comment/post score in the deep negative, I really only need to review a couple of submissions to confirm it is a troll account. Not only does that save me precious time, it is also good for my psychological health to not read through all that garbage.

e.g. #2: If someone posts a particularly toxic comment but their score to post/comment count ratio is high, I’m more likely to read through their history and conclude they’re having a bad day or something. Without the score, I will not read through and likely just ban them and move on.

Describe alternatives you’ve considered.

Compile it back in for myself and anyone else who wants it, I guess? 😔

Additional context

Considering how easy it is to spin up troll accounts or amass multiple troll accounts across multiple instances, removing a useful metric for identifying them at a glance is, IMO, irresponsible.

If you don’t want people to “game” it or don’t like the idea of user scores, then make it optional and disable it on your instance, but don’t remove it and impose your preferences on instance admins who want to utilize it.

  • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
    31·
    11 months ago

    I’m a nobody, but I’m officially supporting this decision of the devs to remove karma (user score aggregates) from the API. Because karma brings on a plethora of problems¹:

    • It is gamification of the system. As hinted by their PR, this is not healthy.
    • It leads to less varied and less interesting content, due to the fluff principle.
    • It feeds echo chambers, by giving people yet another reason to not confront them, even when moral and sensible to do so.
    • It shifts the focus from the content to the people, detracting from the experience of what boils down to a bunch of forums.
    • It is yet another reason for people to congregate in oversized and unruly communities, instead of splitting into smaller ones.

    Re-enable it at the API level and continue hiding it in Lemmy-UI if that is your personal stance on the matter.

    A lot of those issues will affect negatively your user experience, regardless of you using the karma feature or not. Simply because other people use it.

    And it’s also the sort of "lead acetate"² feature that makes clueless users annoy the shit out of interface developers, until they add it. “I dun unrurrstand, y u not enable karma? Y u’re app defective lol l mao” style. With app devs eventually caving in.

    As such, “leave it optional” is probably a bad approach.

    Considering how easy it is to spin up troll accounts or amass multiple troll accounts across multiple instances, removing a useful metric for identifying them at a glance is, IMO, irresponsible.

    This is a poor argument. It has some merit in Reddit³, but not in Lemmy.

    You aren’t identifying trolls by karma. You’re assuming that someone is a troll, based on a bad correlation. Plenty users get low karma for unrelated reasons (false positive - e.g. newbie user unknowingly violating some “unspoken rule” of the local echo chamber), and plenty trolls get past your arbitrary karma wall³ (false negative).

    So relying on karma to decide who’s a troll is not as effective as it looks like, and it’s specially unfair to newcomers, thus discouraging the renovation of the community. IMO it’s a damn shitty moderator practice.

    Since trolling is mostly an issue when you get the same obnoxious troll[s] coming back over and over and over, under new accounts, to post gaping anuses again, and mods have no way to detect if the troll came back, mods should be upstreaming this issue to the admins of the instance of their comm - because the admins likely have access to your IP⁴, and can prevent the user from creating a new trolling account every 15 days.

    And, if for some reason the admins are uncaring or uncooperative, the mods should be migrating the comm to another instance.

    What Lemmy needs is not to enable shitty moderation practices. It needs better mod tools to enable good moderation practices:

    • the context of the content being reported should be immediately obvious, no clicks needed
    • there should be a quick way to check all submissions/comments of a user to your community
    • there should be a way to keep notes about users, and share them with the rest of the mod team
    • some automod functionality. Such as automatically reporting (not removing!) content or replying to the user based on a few criteria defined by the mods.

    e.g. #2: If someone posts a particularly toxic comment but their score is high, I’m more likely to read through their history and conclude they’re having a bad day or something. Without the score, I will not read through and likely just ban them and move on.

    IMO this is also a shitty moderation practice. Should I go further on that? [Serious/non-rhetorical question.]

    NOTES:
    1. Since this is already a huge wall of text I didn’t go deep on each of those claims, but I can do so if desired/requested.
    2. It’s sweet but poisonous.
    3. Because in Reddit you can’t “migrate your sub to another Reddit instance”, and the only instance there happens to be administered by arsehats who give no fucks about you or your sub. It’s a dirtier situation that warrants dirtier solutions.
    4. Anecdote exemplifying this claim: from 2020~22 I had multiple trolling accounts in Reddit, to shitpost in cooking subs (for some puzzling reason they’re cesspools). Guess how many times this sort of “you need more karma to post here” barrier locked me out? Zero. It’s simply too easy to comment some shitty one-line in a big community (I used r/askreddit for that) and amass 500, sometimes 2k karma points in a single go.
    5. If instance admins do not have access to the IPs of the users engaging with their instances, regardless of where they registered in, that should be fixed.
    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Then join an instance where scores are disabled if you don’t like them. :shurg: Choosing an instance where downvotes are disabled is already a preference, so making the score aggregates optional is completely in line with that.

      You’re already on .ml, so they’d have them disabled given it’s run by the devs who have removed the data from the API, so nothing would change for you.

      The whole shtick of Lemmy is run your instance the way you want to run it. The removal of the scores from the API seems heavy-handed and feels like the devs are forcing their preferences/values on others.

      • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
        3·
        11 months ago

        Then join an instance where scores are disabled if you don’t like them. :shurg:

        Already addressed - a lot of those issues will still affect you, even if you don’t use the karma system.

        Let’s say that instances A (karma disabled) and B (karma enabled) federate. A users won’t get the karma system itself, but they’ll still get: less varied and less interesting content, stronger echo chambers, and higher concentration of users in oversized and unruly comms. Because they use the same comms as the B users and thus the behaviour of B users affect A.

        Choosing an instance where downvotes are disabled is already a preference, so making the score aggregates optional is completely in line with that.

        Downvotes are a mixed feature, with pros and cons.
        Karma looks good from a distance, but upon closer inspection it’s only cons. (Including enabling shitty=assumptive mod practices.)

        You’re already on .ml, so…

        I am clearly not talking about my individual usage here. I’m talking about users in general and the Lemmyverse as a whole.

        The whole shtick of Lemmy is run your instance the way you want to run it.

        I’m not sure on what’s supposed to be the [ipsis digitis] “whole shtick of Lemmy”, and I’m not assuming it.

        The removal of the scores from the API seems [for me] heavy-handed and feels [for me] like the devs are forcing their preferences/values on others.

        For me it looks like a sensible decision that takes into account its impact into users and the Lemmyverse.

        EDIT: I’ll go further. Dunno if the devs agree with this or not, but I believe that “user aggregate score” = karma also attracts and retains users with the wrong mindset - who are not here to share, contribute or be part of something social and collective; but instead to farm virtual e-peen points for the sake of their individual egos. And I believe that this “it’s all about MEEE! ME! ME!” mindset is part of what makes Reddit such a dumpster fire.

          • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
            1·
            11 months ago

            Translation: “I got my way and I’m going to impose it on everyone across the universe.”

            If you genuinely believe that this is an accurate “translation” of what I wrote, then I can’t help but heavily question your basic reading comprehension and your ability to reason (given the blatant assumption).

            In other words. Could you be a dead weight elsewhere? Shoo.