this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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Reddit wasn't initially different though is my point -- it wasn't publicly traded, it had trickles of users initially, and didn't have adverts. Hell, it popularized the canary reporting as part of its yearly ethics report.
Some feddit instances are more popular than others, and once they gain traction amongst the masses, might be rife for viral media targeting. Yes, the defederated architecture in theory prevents against that, but if one server swallows up all the users by offering something the others can't, then that somewhat easy balance between instances might get upset
Who knows what the future holds, but we've seen what happened to other sites and it would be epitome of hubris to believe it couldn't happen here
But would restricting the votes of a single user really be, in any way, a remedy to that theoretical problem? Much less restricting them now, when the issue on the Fediverse is largely not enough activity, not excessive artificial activity? And specifically targeting users that are not creating artificial activity, but simply those who are creating 'too much' activity?
Rimu himself said that he didn't think that the top voters he was concerned with were bots or coordinated in any way. He just thought they were voting too much.
I'd argue that activity from a single user to overcome the sleepy shortcomings of other users just sways the fediverse overall towards that single user's preferences and beliefs. This might give a false idea of what the fediverse is actually about, as the silent majority are somewhat out-shouted by a vocal minority.
Yes it's stimulating and interesting, but I wouldn't describe it as balanced. I don't know what Rimu's motives are, but they do seem fairer w.r.t to the more silent users, even if those users may never post
Man, you comment far more than the average user, much less the 'silent majority'. The average user doesn't upvote much; they comment even less. Would it be 'fairer' for your comments to be limited? After all, you're a 'vocal minority' whose activity is swaying the Fediverse. Wouldn't it be 'fairer' if you participated less, regardless of the fact that your participation does not actually consume (meaningfully) limited resources or space?
Personally, I comment far more than I vote and I tend to agree with Rimu that a comment is far more engaging than a vote is. Still, I like receiving as many votes as I can when I do comment or post.
In general, I agree that a comment usually means more than a vote.
But that's not really the question here - the question here is whether restricting voting because some people vote 'too much' is in any way a reasonable point of view for an instance on the Threadiverse. As Rimu himself pointed out, the primary targets of this are ten 'top' voters, who are hardly going to be placing more comments to 'replace' their lost votes.
Assuming, of course, comments aren't next to be limited, since that's also an 'outsized influence' from a 'small minority'.
Yeah, at best you could frame this as an experiment in trying to keep things small. The conflicting reasoning given makes me think there wasn’t a terrible amount of forethought to this decision and perhaps it was guided more by a strong hunch.
There are levels to it, I agree -- and your infamy outbounds my near non-existence, as does mine to those who merely lurk -- but if the level of discourse had an upper cap which easily contains the habits of a semi-active user, then I generally welcome it. I have a feeling that this impacts largely a minority of one.
Edit: Just to say - I greatly value the historical topics you post and the detail you go to in your posts. I feel like the quality of your posts can still happily thrive, even if the quantity is less than what you'd prefer
Again, your commenting far outstrips that of a semi-active user. Perhaps you should be advocating for a comment limit based on the average user as well.
You should probably advocate for a post limit based on the average poster too. Wouldn't want it to be unfair, after all. And posts are MUCH more visible than votes or comments.
It was geared towards the muzzling of ten 'top' users (10, mind you, is some ~2% of the daily users of Piefed.social to begin with), but under the presumption that their votes are evenly spread out, day-by-day.
In reality, most people aren't on the Fediverse every day - they come in, participate in a discussion or three, and then might not be back for a few days. So it's easy to hit the limit, as it is a daily limit, simply by being active in a discussion.
Whilst I sense the sarcasm of your tone, I do largely agree that post and comment caps would likely dampen the effect of overactive subs (filtering out political posts by curating my subscriptions is a chore...)
I do agree that a daily limit might be too much, as activity does seem to be sporadic as you say. A weekly limit could work though.
Anyway, to get to the crux of it: I'd be sad if you leave, but not sad if you posted a little less
... most of those political posts aren't done by the same people. They're 'overactive' because many Fediverse users are heavily political. So limiting the number of individual user posts or comments would do jack shit for that.
Sorry that I want to participate in a community on my own terms. You won't have to worry about that frightening level of autonomy from me on here anymore.
Is your point seriously that the people who aren't active don't influence the the fediverse as much as people who are?
That's really weird, and if you just think about that for a minute you should see why that's weird.
Like, imagine there's an election and the board of elections was suddenly like "welp, according to this chart, a lot of registered voters don't regularly vote, so it's unfair to let some voters who vote in every election have a disproportionate impact on the election results. Therefore, we're canceling voting."
if a minority of 40% can dictate an election outcome over the remaining 60%, some of whom didn't vote - that's not democracy, that's First-Past-The-Post, and I don't need to bring up british politics to explain why that doesn't work.
You don't have to convince me of the flaws in FPTP, or the culpability of non-voters in the final results.
But those are red herrings, because neither one would be solved by limiting the voting rights of everyone including the ones who exercise those rights. That's a flimsy excuse, the kind of scapegoat a braindead right-winger would use. Do better.
Braindead right-wingers consistently vote to deregulate markets and industries they deem to be unfair, just to them, often against their own interests. I'm advocating for regulation for all. Perhaps a sanity check on your own perceived political beliefs might end this discussion
Yes, you're totally right, as long as we restrict everyone's voting rights, then it'll be fair! /s
You're advocating for stupid and unnecessary regulations simply because you think you won't personally be affected by it.
I welcome any invitation to touch grass. I encourage you to do the same, and perhaps look up the definition of equitable
This has nothing to do with equity, you dunce. Voting on the fediverse is not a limited resource. Everyone can do it as much or as little as they want. Until now, when there's an arbitrary limit for no reason.
And if you think the fact that some people don't vote in elections is sufficient justification for taking voting rights away from everyone, then you're frankly an idiot. If that's what you mean by equitable, then that word is functionally meaningless.
The silent majority is made up of more than just the lurkers, and I think you know that despite leaning on it and needless personal attacks to drive your argument
I am curious though now: Attention is a limited resource, you have bots and even some users dominating that resource. How would you go about making it fairer?
"Attention is a limited resource"
What units do you measure that in? Minutes/hours? Everyone has the same amount of it each day, and everyone rations their own attention however they see fit. One person spending hours on the fediverse and upvoting hundreds of posts isn't taking anything away from someone who spends minutes on it and upvotes a dozen.
Whatever you mean by "silent majority", it doesn't matter. You're missing the point that nothing is being taken away from them when someone else votes more than they do.
Let's go with minutes per session, and let's go with majority of users interacting with their front page which is their first point of entry and is set to "Hot". You're certain that one person spending hours upvoting hundreds of posts won't skew what other users see in their browsing period? You're sure that their attention isn't now being diverted elsewhere?
Yes, because that user can still only vote on each post one time. It doesn't skew anything. Either way, for a post to get 100+ upvotes, it requires 100+ users to upvote it, so nothing is going to reach the all feed unless a significant number of users vote on it, and no one single user has a disproportionate impact on that even if they vote on hundreds or thousands of posts.
It's like voting down the ballot when some people only vote for president and governor. It's perfectly fair; they had the same opportunity you did and chose to only vote on two spots. You didn't get an extra vote to cast on any given seat.