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?

  • Wurstkiste@lemmy.world
    101·
    1 year ago

    Problem with a karma system, especially as it is handled over on Reddit, is that it will stifle dissent and promote circle jerking. You can vote controversial opinions out of sight even if they are totally valid but simply run contrary to popular opinions. If Lemmy got a karma system, it would have to work differently and allow for a healthy discourse.

    • waterbogan@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      That is a good point. I put a long indepth and very heavily researched post with a heap of links to sources on one of my local subs on there. It was downvoted to oblivion because people didnt like it. You have changed my mind as I was about to say I was in favour of the karma system, but you are right, it does need to work differently

      • Wurstkiste@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I think it still needs some sort of karma system because otherwise it would turn into another unmoderated and uncontrollable 4chan hell hole, full of off-topic spam and shit posts. I’m not sure if that’s what we want. I don’t think, moderators alone can handle that.

        Hah, I mean, we have GPT/LLM. We could use AI to filter off-topic posts and spam, and hand out karma… Just a dystopic thought that popped up in my mind.