I mean really the only solutions are algorithms similar to centralized social media, although I suppose there’s an opportunity for transparency and instance specific or even individual user choice that you don’t get on those platforms. I’ve thought a lot lately about how algorithms could be implemented but made public and even opted in or out of in most cases so that you know how and why you’re seeing what you’re seeing.

You could even change how your own personal algorithm works so you could get more of what you like and less of what you don’t (although that’s putting a lot of trust in individuals to not just stay in comfy little echo chambers). A good example to me would be slightly obfuscating the exact number of votes to prevent people from from precisely quantifying the amount people agree or disagree with them as much, because I think that’s one of the more psychologically damaging aspects of social media. I actually think Reddit was on to something with that particular move, and again, that the main pitfall was just not making their algorithms public. I think you should still be able to get into the guts of the numbers for the sake of transparency, but being able to quantify things to that degree shouldn’t be the default and changing it should maybe even come with a short warning that doing so might cause more harm than good.

I feel like the easiest solution to this specific issue is just to be able to have the option to view / sort by votes from across fedi, or just local to your home instance, the instance of the post, or even just the votes of the individual community (although you could join the community just to downvote vs migrating instances is harder, especially if they have closed or restricted migration.