I think we don’t need to go very far. We could take inspiration from other Fediverse software. At some point we want to be able to properly connect to Mastodon (like MBin) anyway, and other software where you’d follow people, Pixelfed… So why not use the concept of “Boosts” the right way? Those are meant to funnel content into your follower’s timeline (aka visibility). No misunderstanding like here on Lemmy where people sometimes forget whether an upvote means “I agree” or “I want to recommend this to other people”. Also does away with the unloved downvotes.

And then there are Misskey etc which have Emoji Reactions. That’s already using ActivityPub. And it adds nuance to the reactions. Maybe that could even be extended into the “Slashdot” style, if we enhance the emojis a bit. And we don’t even need to invent anything new.

As is, I’m not in love with Lemmy’s voting system. It’s a simplistic popularity contest. Very much social media with all the issues that come with social media. People upvote memes and popular stuff. In the comments, it’s regularly simpler “truths” which get upvoted, not so much the nuanced take which takes some time to read and understand. Also urban myths and so on… Most of the times it’s okay-ish. But I don’t get much use out of it. I’m not interested in memes and mainstream. And the interesting (to me) stuff doesn’t have a lot of upvotes. So I sort by “new” and make use of subscriptions and feeds. The votes don’t mean a lot to me, I could live without them and I’d prefer an old-school Linux forum with it’s atmosphere and some emoji reactions and a trophy or award here and there for excellent content.

I don’t use private voting. I think the entire concept is a bit impossible to implement on a distributed network. It’s either moderation, or private votes. I’d be all for keeping them private, if that came without issues. But it doesn’t. And I’m not sure what would be a good compromise here. I don’t think there is one.

Edit: On the flipside I also need something to show there is some activity and engagement with the posts and comments. It always feels like a ghost town unless there are some. Especially with posts that are just links to news articles. Or my own comments and I want to know if I waste my time here, or whether someone reads them. And I need downvotes for my own mental well-being. I use them sparingly, but I couldn’t live without.

So summarized: I’m not satisfied with the current voting system. I think we should try some major changes.