Another Reddit refugee here,

I think we’re all familiar with the Karma system on Reddit. Do you think Lemmy should have something similar? Because I can see cases for and against it.

For: a way to tracking quality contributions by a user, quantifying reputation. Useful to keep new accounts from spamming communities.

Against: Often not a useful metric, can be botted or otherwise unearned (see u/spez), maybe we should have something else?

What do you all think?

  • xptiger
    0•1 year ago

    The only instance I can think of Karma being beneficial is in highly specific forums where user reputation could be an important metric for new users, or those seeking info. Very limited.

    A very good function for a real credible user particularly accrediting real professions/experts in such knowledge/education (still it does not guarantee an infallible and reliable info ahead, so still requiring thorough fact-checking, critical thinking and crystal clear pondering. At least, it will ease enough for naive users to identify who are admirable and who are sus. Think of Youtube channel counts of subscribers, likes and total views into a positive outcome.)

    But also, for cons, it’s not good as a policy to gatekeep low-count (innocent😭) users from freely posting on busy and crowded communities (mods [cause they’re humans and volunteers] have preferred that so they’ll ease filtering “thousands” of comments of “hundred-thousands” of post, just aiming baneful and deceiving trolls away from communities, but not so efficiently after all.)