Hey! Thanks to the whole Reddit mess, I’ve discovered the fediverse and its increidible wonders and I’m lovin’ it :D

I’ve seen another post about karma, and after reading the comments, I can see there is a strong opinion against it (which I do share). I’d love to hear your opinions, what other method/s would you guys implement? If any ofc

    • GunnarRunnar@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      There are few things Karma system helps with that come to mind.

      For others:

      • Reputation
      • Activity

      For you:

      • That endorphin XP boost when you level up. Makes you more likely do engage after the first hit.
      • Gives you an idea how your comment has been received by others.

      Presumably there are other things as well, these just quickly came to me.

      • mack123@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        That is a good way to think about it. What is the need from the reader’s perspective and from the poster’s.

        One would certainly read a post with low upvotes from a author with high reputation if you are interested in the specific magazine. I wonder if the reputation should not be topic bound and not just general. That would be useful from the reader’s perspective.

        • GunnarRunnar@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Some kind of implementation of what you said would solve Reddit’s problem of mods reposting and deleting content untill it “goes viral”.

          • mack123@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            The exciting thing about this space is that much of it is undefined. It is all about the protocols and the main features at the moment. The 2nd generation tools will be born out of what we discuss now and think about now.

            How do you make sure a user is not trapped in his special interest bubble and still gets to see content that has everyone excited? How will we make use of the underlying data, on both posts and users to suggest and aggregate content.

            I think there will be more than one solution eventually, different flavours of aggregators running on the same underlying data.

            So much possibility. And we control it. If you don’t like the way your lemmy instance or kbin aggregates, choose another site or build your own. The data is there.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, the question strikes me as, “Reddit has this thing. A lot of people don’t like that thing, but how could we still have it without people not liking it?”

      I think we’re good as is.

    • VGarK@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Not a problem at all. I understand that we are ego-driven, but then again, the fediverse is a new working paradigm. We are here because we want to. Genuinely curious what you guys thought!

      • CynAq@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        We want to discuss topics. This is a place to do that.

        Simple need, simple solution.

        You don’t need an extra incentive to make people talk about things if people talking about things is the thing you want. You don’t want to incentivize people who don’t want to talk about things to be active somewhere you want people to talk about things because then those people will start doing the thing your’e incentivizing them for instead of talk about things.

        I personally only want people who want to talk about things here, and don’t want people who don’t want to talk about things.

        • fishos@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Exactly this. You want to incentivize discussion, not the dopamine rush casino/arcade that just leads to low effort, low quality posts. If people want to be here for discussion, then they will either lurk and consume, or participate earnestly. Don’t put systems in place that reward the opposite.

          • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Basically they only want autistic levels of Internet “debate” and don’t want people having low effort fun.

    • TheDeadGuy@kbin.social
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      1 year ago
      1. The first problem is people tend to follow the hive mind. If it’s downvoted, they will also downvote and vice versa. They also will believe a comment with lots of upvotes and won’t fact check.

      2. The second problem is people will abuse a karma system. Bots can increase the reputation of an account to make them seem more trustworthy

      3. The third problem is that the current system let’s you see who is downvoting/upvoting. People take it personally when they are disagreed with and will retaliate since they can see those users and stalk their account


      I don’t think these problems warrants a change in the current system. The transparency is a crucial feature. Seeing the number of downvotes serves as a great red flag to warn readers that a comment might not be true even if it has a larger number of upvotes.

      This does take away the anonymous part of your social media voting experience, but the ability to manipulate the platform is greatly decreased. People that get riled up about disagreement will need to chill and you will need to block those individuals that can’t.

      I think this will allow the development of a more mature community by taking away some of the anonymity

      • GunnarRunnar@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The third problem is that the current system let’s you see who is downvoting/upvoting. People take it personally when they are disagreed with and will retaliate since they can see those users and stalk their account

        I actually really like this. I’ve been downvoted a bunch, my kbin karma sits at negative, but it’s kinda neat to see that I haven’t been downvoted by complete assholes (based on their history) – makes me appreciate that we might just have different view about a thing (or I’ve acted like an asshole to no surprise). Nonverbal communication can be a powerful thing.

        Do I think it’s feasible to leave as it is if this whole thing explodes in popularity in a new magnitude while Reddit sinks? No I don’t think so.

        • TheDeadGuy@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          It’s a definitely an area to watch but I’m a huge believer that transparency makes a community better regardless of size. If you being brigaded or abused it’s visible to everyone and you can block those accounts if you wanted

          The ultimate hope is that social media evolves for the better

          • luna@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            On the one hand yes, but also, this makes it much less incentivizing to downvote instances of abuse, discrimination, far right extremism. A lot of those people are not okay mentally and hiighly committed to harassing anyone who disagrees with them, I constantly hear stories of a single disagreement leading to years of harassment on hundreds of alts.

        • Tashlan@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          You sound like a normal person who doesn’t take shit personally – some people really, really do take negative feedback on social media the way that you might someone keying your car, and I worry about the repercussions of downvoting the 'wrong" person who might seek reprisal. An anonymous downvote button feels like an “oh, fuck off” button, a public one feels like “fuck YOU for real” to me.

          • GunnarRunnar@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Well said there’s probably more of a barrier without the anonymity which in itself can be also unhealthy for the whole system (less user engagement). Though now thinking about it maybe that’s not a bad thing. Less bandwagoning on downvotes etc.

            But truely angering some unhinged lunatic by downvoting who will then dox you, harass you and possibly kill you doesn’t sound great. But that’s a danger you’re susceptible to just by existing on internet.

            • Tashlan@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Oh yes, I once had someone tell me they wanted my family to die in a fire and suffer while doing so because I didn’t think Guardians of the Galaxy was the sort of comic that would make a good movie. I was wrong, but you know, I think I was the only person who ought to suffer for that mistake.

              I do tend to think that this is one of those things that the Fediverse, by not demanding everything be monolithic, is uniquely capable of dealing with because instances could provide per-community options (public up and down, private up and down, maybe an actual “fuck you” button) and people could try and figure out what works best for their unique forum.