Not sure if this is a showerthought, but it popped into my head randomly due to anothe member’s comment that “karma farming isn’t a thing here.” It kinda is…just not as blatant and open as Reddit. If the instances grow in size and number it could become a real thing, we’d have the same issues as Reddit with huge numbers of bots, shills, and karma whoring users.

What if every year we zero out Lemmy points but replace them with a [insert thing here: colored bars?] that maybe qualitatively show positive post and comment levels and sort of show “years of service”?

Get rid of the incentive for points accumulation, but denote consistent positive contribution?

Edit: or leave the comment/post points as the are, but make them only tally a rolling 365 day count and participation in the last 30/60/90 or similar. Continued participation would be obvious, but no substantial amount could ever be collected.

If the points aren’t worth anything, then why would it matter if they change or go away?

E2: welp. People think it isn’t a problem, and they say it will not be. Can’t argue with a position that demands Lemmy/fediverse remain static in its present form. Discussion closed, I guess.

  • @RememberTheApollo_OP
    1•20 days ago

    Pretty much what I was trying to get at. Everyone’s fixated on “but it isn’t karma…” while rejecting out of hand that people can place value on post/comment count, and at some point the idea of point “totalizer” could become a thing.

    The fediverse isn’t static, and if it grows it will only require someone to desire that change and the knowledge implement it.

    I simply thought of cutting it off before it could ever go that way with and that it might be worth considering. A mechanic that would offer a cake day yearly cumulative “badge” that showed sort of service to the communities and longevity without any avenue to amass points - other than a rolling 1-year trend to show post/comment contributions as individual numeric values. Make it community controlled? If you participate in a Linux community your badges show up as a bunch of Linux Tux penguins with “thumbs up” or some such.