2y ago

stop asking for a karma system

457 comments

Did people actually change what they'd say based on whether or not they thought they'd get upvotes? I always just said what I wanted and used the karma to determine how popular of an opinion it was, so pretty much exactly how Lemmy works now. I don't think I ever looked at my overall account karma on Reddit.
- Yes. It can also trick you into thinking a reactionary opinion is actually a popular one. For example in my country, ireland, there's been a few incidents were people of different nationalities have done unsavoury things caught on camera. This usually results of the comment section of the ireland sub to have a debate about whether there's too many immigrants in the country. Whichever side gets more upvotes is widely perceived to have "won" and bystanders will in turn adopt that position.
  I don't think I've ever changed an opinion of mine to go along with the hive mind but the karma system has definitely discouraged me from commenting things because I would been downvoted into oblivion. It's not worth getting into arguments when you can clearly see people not siding with you.
  
  How does this system solve that? Comments still have vote counts and reactionary comments still make it to the top of threads, there's just no visible count of total aggregated votes.
  
  I'm fine being downvoted to oblivion by some anti-good astrotufing campaign, but it's getting honest, legitimate opinions slid down and out of discussion that feels risky
  I'm definitely anti right wing, but that doesn't automatically make the left right about everything.
  What is true about both sides is that some people just wanna look for a fight/argument and dehumanize their political 'other'. It's easy dopamine and righteous rage that drives engagement in every human.
  Any good faith comment that points this out in an argument and has credible examples is always worth its salt.
  I actually like finding out I'm wrong or my information is incomplete/outdated. I don't care for unfounded opinions in myself or others regardless of how they make me feel!
  
  It did the opposite for me. I see those threads in r/canada or other posts and I'd comment trying to get downvoted because I hated the circle jerking and manipulation of threads with cliché comment chains intent on being dog whistles. I hated karma and somehow ended up with a stupid amount of it.
  
  100%. I’d even be ok with getting rid voting mechanisms all together. The comment and responses to it should be indicative of it’s quality instead of some vague numerical value which somehow makes it better than the other because more people voted for it based on their own understanding on how a vote works.
  Discussions shouldn’t be about what’s popular. Social media has corrupted our ability to have intelligent discussions because non popular viewpoints aren’t entertained anymore and people with non popular viewpoints don’t want to contribute due to the retaliatory nature of likes/votes.
  It’s eroding our ability to reason and we need to stop it.
  
  I agree
  
  That and the "hivemind" mentality Reddit encoruages often means you get power-tripping mods banning people, not for doing anything wrong, but for "Dissenting with the group"
  The average user is probably banned from a quarter of the site over shit like this.
  
  Interesting. How do you know this? That the bystanders looked at the upvotes and decided their opinion on immigration based on this? Were there polls or something?
- The biggest issue in some places was, even if your opinion is valid, if it didn’t fit the group speak, it would be downvoted regardless.
  It wasn’t really a great indicator if your opinion was popular or not, it was more if it got that groups niche.
  
  wasn’t really a great indicator if your opinion was popular or not, it was more if it got that groups niche.
  ... That's called popular opinion lol.
  Of course it matters where you say something. It's literally no different than IRL.
- Yes, people definitely did. Maybe not a majority but a lot
- That and also many subs wouldn't allow people to participate if they didn't have a high enough karma
  
  That was used as a crude spam filter against bots and new accounts
- Karma did limit where and how frequently you could post
  
  And that makes sense to some degree. I used to mod a large community on re**it and usually rage bait/flaming/troll accounts got filtered out by our automod which was set to 50 karma iirc. Most communities that use a karma filter have it set really low so farming a lot of karma is really unnecessary
  
  Y'all act like that can't happen on Lemmy. The total score is already visible via API. Nothing's stopping a community from running a bot that auto removes anyone below a threshold. It's entirely possible right now to write that code.
- I didn’t. If anything I enjoyed the downvotes sometimes. Your downvotes mean nothing
  
  I always thought it was amusing if I got into an argument with someone and they downvoted each of my comments before replying as if that meant something. Dude, I already get that you don't agree with me. Why are you bothering?
  
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  That Rick quote is like the wojak where he's got the smirking mask but is crying behind it. It always cracked me up when I saw people use it. If the downvotes mean nothing, why mention them at all?
- Did people actually change what they’d say based on whether or not they thought they’d get upvotes?
  I'd argue anyone who did that probably had nothing interesting to say and/or didn't actually care about what they were saying. Same with the people who complained about downvotes.
  
  /me watches some dude post hateful contrarian bullshit on a light hearted comic.
  "It's not even funny and this shit comic comic has been done before. Quit self promoting on reddit bitch!
  Edit: Why am I being down voted!? Fuck you know it's true! Mods temp banned me apparently. I don't care I'm never going to block her so I can always down vote!"
  Somehow everyone who commented on his parent comment has every comment in their profile down voted for the last 50 comments...
- I think you are envisioning something a little more intentional/thought out than it is. We do this socially all the time. You gauge the audience and you adjust what you’re going to say to better fit it. Or to upset them if you’re trolling but that tends to be more deliberate.
  I bet if you took your comments from a hobby sub/forum/group/etc. you frequent, and then one from a meme community, you will find your tone and rhetoric are very different. And again this is not a bad thing! You are doing and saying what is appropriate for the context. It is very natural to do. But the point is you probably don’t sit down and calculate your exact wording. We just sort of do it, and our goal is generally to “fit in“ or get some affirmation from the community we are participating in.
- Yep. I remember someone asking on a hiking sub about a backpack. It was a very fashionable and heavy canvas pack. I hike a good bit and have never seen a pack like that being used by others in the trails, so I said that I wouldn't recommend that pack. I think it had like 30-40 down votes. I never gave my opinion on a pack again.
  
  Bro you are welcome to elaborate here I mean what can be so controversial about a fucking backpack
- I think the karma system on reddit had a real effect on behaviour. What you often found it did was cause people to write comments for the audience of voters instead of for the person they're responding to. This eliminates personal interaction between users and turns everything into soapboxing. You stop having real conversations with each other, instead it becomes about pandering to votes.
  This then also causes people to vote based on this as well. "You're not saying what the group wants to hear" downvote is the voting behaviour it creates.
  
  This so frigging much. People are not having conversations, they are posturing.
  It's like going into a debate prepared for discussing ideas, and the other debater is going for discussing emotions.
  Truly fucked up and patently divisive
- The amount of deleted downvoted comments makes me think most people at least change their minds afterwards. Which to me is the real weird part, you hide your opinion so you don't lose useless internet points..
- I certainly never have changed what I said based on popular opinion. If someone convinces me I'm wrong, I'll admit it, but just people downvoting me because they don't like what I have to say? Fine. That's their prerogative.
- Yes, and there's a bit of psychology at play
  Reddit just shows one score on the post, it doesn't show the exact upvote/downvote number. It's easy to just say "Well everyone else voted this up/down, so I guess I will to", it encourages group think, by design it's meant to be an echo chamber.
  Imagine you have a divisive opinion, at the end of an hour you have 9 upvotes and 11 downvotes, so it's at negative one. You're gonna think you're being ignored, and others will think you're unpopular and just downvote you not reading it because it's "What the group is doing"
  Reddit is fucking nightmare
- I agree but when a sincerly comment does not strive how I expected i delete it and take the thought about it to myself.
  Obviously I am wrong, then.
  You are right.

how do people on this site not realize that the points next to your posts affect how your posts are sorted and are literally the exact same system as reddit? am i just so blind that i can actually see the numbers next to my posts or is everyone here just trying to be so anti-reddit they'll make up bullshit that isn't reality?
- They are talking about karma as a thing you could collect, point totals for all posts added together displayed on your profile. Not the voting mechanism itself.
  
  Lemmy also has this and everyone's point totals are visible from the API. If you're not seeing it, that's because your client is hiding it, not because it doesn't exist.
  
  Lemmy also has that bro. Some clients display it and some don’t, but when I click on your name I see that you have 510 total comment score and 0 total post score.
  https://i.imgur.com/NxSyRDg_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=grand
  
  And that system was irrelevant on Reddit just like it is here. You still have a total karma number in the API, every app I have used shows it, even if it is broken right now. Only the default theme on the web page hides the number. The only people who saw value in karma are the people who farmed it and the people who bitch about the people who farmed it. Either way, making posts that get a lot of upvotes specifically to get a lot of upvotes happens here just like I does on Reddit so idk what this OP is trying to say because they're farming karma lol.
- Karma is the total of upvotes and downvotes a user receives over time not just single posts and comments. It leads to discrimantory moderation and users tend to whore themselves out for upvotes to boast.
  Ever heard of gallowboob?
  
  and this site has that exact mechanic in the API.
- Arguably one difference is that on lemmy it's just a straight up sum AFAIK, while on reddit there are some algorithms attached to tweak things so you can't lose vast amounts of karma from a single shit comment and such.
  
  you can only lose 15 points for a comment and 0 for a post. the only thing they do is they jitter the total points to fight botting. its designed to make karma a representation of content given, not necessarily that you have a high hit rate.
- The initial point of the karma system was to push to the top of discussions relevant information while the shitposts were put at the bottom. It works sometimes, sometimes it doesn't.
  I think, honestly, politics is the biggest issue here when it comes to the karma system and it doesn't work well at all within it, but for many other things it's actually a decent system and a good way to find relevant information in a thread without reading through 500 pages on a forum or something
  Just my 2 pennies
- Reddit bad lemmy good, you are not allowed to say otherwise.
  Edit: Bruh people on lemmy don't get sarcasm either 😭
  
  You can on reddit say what you want. If you really care about the number next to your name you're just a victim
- i left reddit to get rid of condescending ass comments like this baby whiney complaining garbage bullshit right here. what the fuck

Literally seen 0 people asking for karma system
- Also karma on Reddit is basically irrelevant. The only place it matters is in automoderation removing posts and comments for users under a certain level of karma.
  
  Which is honestly freaking dumb. Sure you can do it with a big community but it will speed up the hivemind and alienate new users and frankly did nothing to curb bots because bots just farmed karma elsewhere on a sub where it was open by spamming posts and comments. And then went right back on the "threshold" subs.
- You need Karma, in so many subs. Not only comments karma, also posts karma and all that stupid shit
  
  I once wanted to post a meme on r/memes. My post got removed because I needed a lot more karma (my estimation was that I needed 1k each for both comments and posts but it wouldn’t actually tell me how much I needed). I REALLY hope that doesn’t appear here. It just blocks people from making and sharing content with others.
  
  Why are u getting downvoted?

I mean, upvotes are counted and tracked so how is that different than karma?
- Shhh let them just enjoy it for now
- On reddit, if your karma is too low you're not allowed to participate in most communities.
  
  I mean, it's a super low bar.
  
  There's currently nothing stopping a mod from creating a bot to do the same. Maybe it's already a thing.
- You don't have a score.
  
  https://ibb.co/q98R6sv

I'll dissent. I like the karma system. It gives me a quick read out of who's a troll and who isn't.
I don't care about post karma so much, but the comment karma was an interesting stat.
Edit: An important caveat. We MUST keep downvotes visible. MUST. Having just a positive score breeds absolute insanity.
- Negative karma doesn't necessarily indicate a troll, any unpopular opinion can get down-voted to hell while similar but differently expressed ideas get up-voted in the same thread. I'm not against karma system though, just think it's quite useless in most cases.
- All comment karma tells you is who was first to a thread basically in my experience, and I had over 500k of it lol it's nothing though I could go troll for days before making a dent in the 10k you get from an obvious joke on the new tab and then the thread takes off
  Best way to tell if someone is a troll is just to look at what they say imo 🤷🏻‍♂️
  
  I had my third party app and browser extensions set to automatically hide comments by people with very low karma and very low comment scores. I'd only ever see hateful comments if I clicked to unhide them and I liked that
- Idk I felt like above a certain point karma was just an indication that that person knew how to game the system and play nice with reddit.
  I like how it is on lemmy. I feel like downvotes/upvotes prompt conversations. You're at 47/6 and it doesn't really matter to me, it just shows that people might not totally agree and then I'm hopeful that they have left a comment.
  I think it's also possible that the voting system on reddit was effective at marginalizing people.
- You can only lose about 100karma in one comment thread so if a troll can get one high upvote comment it can counteract literally 100's of negative comments.

Doesnt lemmy have a karma system already? I can see up votes on my posts, and a sum total on my account page.
Or do you mean something else by “karma”?
- ~~some third party clients sum up the upvote count of your posts to make a count~~ turns out the lemmy api does send it to you
  but lemmy itself will never get a proper karma system in the ui as has been said by the main people working behind it multiple times
  
  The apps aren't "summing it up", while the lemmy webUI does not display it, it's perfectly accessible via API.
  
  Wow you’re right. I’ve gotten so used to Memmy and Wefwef that I didn’t realize the main site didn’t have it lol
  
  but you just said lemmy has the exact same karma system reddit has.
  
  Kbin has “reputation” unfortunately. I like Kbin enough to ignore it and I’m hoping others will do the same.
  
  hmm, checked the API documentation of lemmy itself, this seems able to get a person comment/post score data https://join-lemmy.org/api/interfaces/PersonAggregates.html
- Reddit has a karma sum which is used to deny access from posting altogether. Here if you say something unpopular, you don't get the dopamine hit from upvotes, but you're also not silenced, unless the mod explicitly bans you.
  
  While I agree unpopular opinions often get shouted down, i think people often forget that sometimes what they consider an “unpopular opinion” is unpopular because it’s abhorrent or just wrong lol. Not every comment/idea is valid and deserves to be entertained.
  Being anti-vax is unpopular in a lot of circles and I am perfectly happy with seeing those comments downvoted/ removed and the users banned.
  
  I’d argue you still can get that dopamine hit.
  Even if the numbers don’t carry elsewhere in a meaningful way, seeing the high positive number next to your post still means that other people agreed with/liked what you said on that particular post/comment. And that alone can give a mild dopamine hit.
  Less useful for bots trying to farm rep for nefarious reasons, more useful for real people who can feel the joy of a moment.
  
  How are you not silenced exactly like you would be on Reddit? People downvotes posts and comments they don't agree with exactly like reddit, but here if the admins disagree they defederate entire instances over it. Hot page is completely useless compared to reddit, so only the most upvotes posts from the most popular subs are visible, and comments have the exact same issues reddit comments had. Nothing about this system is mechanically different from reddits system, baring how votes get totaled because of federation, (also the hot sort is uses).
- Where does it show the sum total? I don't see that in my profile or yours. Maybe it's instance-dependent?
  Either way, upvotes serve the same purpose here so I think the incentives are the same.
- Lemmy doesn’t but Kbin does.
  
  Color me confused ...
  I'm on connect for lemmy and also have a total count on my profile page.
  Actually, isn't it up to the client? The dev can decide what to feature in the profile page. The fact is, every user has points for posts and comments. Maybe they are just adding the numbers up? Afaik Reddit had some other maths behind the karma count

Karma was pointless. Nobody cared at all. Upvotes and downvotes are fine and useful to be able to see both. Karma is a worthless system and encourages spamming low-effort garbage memes and endless reposting of the same shit.
- It gave me a pointless feeling of pride and accomplishment. Which was exactly what I did not need.
  Getting downloaded here I can see that their sentiment against my point, but it doesn't really piss me off. On Reddit I get angry and try to defend myself It was a really huge waste of time.
  
  wait, you can get downloaded here?
- The karma also added points from all the awards on reddit. So a troll comment with lots of awards received more karma points than the actual post with real good content.
  
  Near the end I had a bunch of coins, so I would find the most juvenile joke I could and give them gold or something, I enjoyed the thought that it could be their first gilded comment and it was a comment saying poop or something stupid like that.
- NGL for me at least it was a good system to sort out the low effort users by putting a minimum karma points
- Nobody cared at all
  The mods cared. There were many bots used by moderators that relied on karma, the main one being automoderator.

Not one time on reddit did i consider or care about my karma
- I saved up 14 years worth of karma on Reddit and traded it in for…nothing, because that's what it's worth in the real world.
  
  i got about 60K comment karma which meant I could sell my account for about 500 bucks. I didn't because I didn't want that username doing bad stuff, but it was interesting to see it's value isn't quite 0.

I marked your name.
This ain't a shit post.
Once there is a karma system in place I'm gonna vote you down to oblivion.
- deal
  
  Is that like the new “cope”? I can’t keep up with you young wipper snappers and your hip lingo
- https://imgur.com/a/aljrb6B
  Some mighty big words for someone with only 97 karma
- Connect for Lemmy on Android has the karma system in place already
  
  Give me the IP of the provider and i'm make him disappear. Thanks.
- How so? I use connect and wasn't aware of a karma system

I'm against any sort of gamification on social media. Not even achievements/badges or awards. That is the start of dark patterns and addictive design.
- Exactly. It feels rewarding to receive karma but that dopamine rush is actually what Instagram, TikTok and all the other corporate-driven platforms out there are exploiting. We don't need that here.

I agree. The karma system really pushes group think.

I like being able to say what I want without being banned by a power-tripping mod, or downvoted into irrelevance by a circle jerk. We need to be able to point out that the Emperor isn't wearing clothes.
- Does karma change that? We still have upvotes and downvotes, and you can sort comments by how well they do, and mods can still ban people not only from a community, but from a whole instance.
  
  Yes
- Abolitely 100%. This is not R and people should stop talking about R and stop fucking trying to make it more like R was.
  R still exists, anyone who wants that can go back to that shithole.
  This is the weird web. A return to a time before it was taken over by 4 major corporations.
  Fuck R, fly your freak flags, people!
  
  Well except for those who are here because of a bullshit Reddit ban, but my attitude towards that is "You can't fire me I quit"
  We're free of the mundanes, I can say what I want as long as I'm not being toxic af! No auto-moderator is going to flag me for using "Ableist Langauge" because I can't keep with what terms have and haven't been considered "problematic"
  I mean, the word "retard", obviously (God what places on the Corpo Net can you say THAT word nowadays?), that's not cool to say. But seriously I had one auto-mod flag me for saying "crazy" because it was "offensive to the mentally unwell"
  Bitch I'm bi-polar and literally autistic, I AM mentally unwell, I think I have an n-word pass in this instance... Not that I should need one to say "crazy"
  
  Yes. It's like saying you've moved on, while talking about your ex every chance you have.
  Still, IMO, ideas should be considered no matter where they come from. They can just be dismissed.
  I feel like it might be bit close-minded to think there might not be anything good to learn/implement. The core still has some Aaron Swartz in it.
- I like being able to say what I want without being banned by a power-tripping mod
  There's currently nothing stopping a mod from creating a bot that deletes comments below certain threshold or that bans users for commenting on communities they don't approve like they did on Reddit. Only site policies can prevent that.
  
  I hope this doesn't become a bot driven cesspool like reddit
  
  Ugh.. I remember the "Sorry you have been banned from...." messages, it was amusing when I was banned from subreddits I hadn't heard of.
  Thing is Reddit policies are supposed to make it so you can't be banned from one subreddit for your reputation or behavior in another, I actually told a mod this and he just laughed at me.
- r/MegadethFansInTheWild
  
  You are free of that awful place

Did karma ever stop anyone from posting their racist, hateful shit on the other site?
- Nope. Frankly a karma system would be such a terrible idea for Lemmy. We just need more mod tools, which is a downside of Lemmy being a new platform that grew really quickly.
- Never. It only insensitived the other bad behaviors. Karma farming, fake content, and reposting.
  
  Those posting bad stuff often upvoted themselves on other accounts anyway.

Karma system was a horrible feature on reddit.

For the karma whores out there, if you want a karma system so bad, go back to reddit where you belong. - Ex-Karma whore

I always hated those subs that prevented you from posting unless you had a minimum amount of karma.
I used reddit for nearly a decade, but sometimes I wanted to make a throwaway for a specific, non-trolling purpose but was unable to do anything because of stupid, worthless karma.

Imagine being so addicted to social media you let a number change his you act. Absolutely sad.
- How alternatively: imagine being so addicted to social media, that you want a system to get a high score.
- I agree with you, but it's an addiction to approval. It's similar to cracking a joke and everyone laughing at it. It is sad but it's also pretty human.
- Verry sad. Its also not entirely their fault, reddit is there to take advantage and amplify their worst traits.
  my post
  another's post

Not to mention the karma system on Reddit created some of its most annoying users. Would be terrible to bring it here.

Saying what you mean can be impossible when every sub demands "respect" or "civility" instead of honesty, accuracy, and appropriate behavior.
Sometimes telling someone to go fuck themselves is entirely appropriate.
Sometimes explaining to someone why they're being a moron is entirely appropriate.
Yes, you can navigate those situations with G-rated kum-by-yah language, and you can eat yogurt with a fork. But demanding anyone do that is aggravating fucking nonsense.
Intense moderation can create a forum where there's never reason to poke someone over what an asshole they're being - but that's not what anyone's doing, here. They're mostly protecting trolls, by refusing to comprehend what trolling is. It's not when you say dumb shit you don't mean and people get mad at you, like some playground argument with one smirking child in a shouting match about the make-believe. It's people spreading disinformation with textbook fallacy. It's emotional abuse with "do you still beat your wife?" level manipulation. It's not deep. It's neither hard to spot nor hard to call out.
But what's currently forbidden is calling it out.
Insisting people take it in good faith is failure. That's exactly what trolls demand. It is the only way trolling accomplishes anything, ever. If they just said dumb shit nobody believed, there'd be no problem. But the appearance of a sane argument, and the trappings of "debate" around their infuriating horseshit lies, create false legitimacy. It helps abusive dishonesty spread. It is actively ensuring that whatever "free marketplace of ideas" is supposed to filter out total garbage, can't.
And anyone who falls for them going 'punishing me would only make me stronger!' is incapable of dealing with a smirking child. They're just fucking lying. It's not deep, or hard to spot. Call their bluff and see what happens. The answer will apparently blow your mind.
- I just fucking say it and tbh, I ended net positive most the time. Wasn't even a concern of mine but I can see how it might have influenced others.
  
  Easiest way to collect negative downvotes is originality or making fun of what passes for German humor.
  
  Same but net neg on most of my comments.

I wish lemmy does not implement it ! I am here all day now !!
- I'm right there with you panCat! Leave Karma totals out of Lemmy UI and major apps! It just encourages karmaw-horing behaviour.

The irony is that is seems like some parts of Lemmy has more of a hivemind than Reddit ever did. That is exasperated by the fact that there are so few of us here compared to Reddit that one or two votes weigh more than they would elsewhere.
- Oh no, a few downvotes and you get buried in the tens and tens of other comments!
- This is why I feel it's best to sort by New Comments. If discussion is the thing you're looking for, this will push anything newly posted or with a new reply to the top without taking into account votes, so only the actual threads with people talking about stuff are up there. The comments can also be sorted in ways that the votes don't mean jack.
- the lgbtq instances
  
  Are the LGBTQIA+ subs really that bad though? They seem fine to me
  
  Daily reminder: Discussions are fine, bad opinions are fine
  What isn't fine is personal attacks, harmful or derogatory language and deliberate misinformation. Be respectful when discussing hot topics. If it devolves further then the post might be locked.

But isn't there a karma system? At least I'm seeing points on posts and comments and that's what karma is/was on Reddit right?
- Karma on reddit is the sum of upvotes an account has received on all it's posts and comments combined. Lemmy only has the voting per individual post and comment, but doesn't accumulate this as a sidewide score.
  
  Oh ok I never realised people cared about that I thought it was only about getting rewards and like high scores on your posts.
  How have I been using Reddit for 10+ years without knowing this? XD
  
  Lemmy only has the voting per individual post and comment, but doesn’t accumulate this as a sidewide score.
  Lemmy does have a karma system. Here's yours.

The Karma system was never a great system, I thought. Due to group think on Reddit, at times people get downvoted for no good reason. I think it's good to have a little diversity and not just have a model. I like Lemmy so far a lot and I think it is getting better and better. This is exactly how red it should have been, but they ruined it, of course.
- I would go one further and say that there shouldn't be downvotes. That way, "good" posts and comments still rise to the top, but you don't have somebody's comment sitting at -60 because they pissed off the hive.
  
  But what's the actual problem with the ability for posts to have negative scores? Are we trying to prevent people from feeling the unpleasant sensation associated with THE DISAPPROVAL OF OTHERS!?
  
  I like that
- Reddit used it to brigade not just shitposts but anyone who went against the groupthink. The great leader says you must not express counter-revolutionary thought.

I'm not understanding how lemmy doesn't have karma when there's still the upvote/downvote function and profiles still mark how many votes you got for comments and posts.
Edit: Someone asked what app I'm using but I can't find the comment. I'm using Connect for Lemmy
- The upvote/downvote system by itself is really just a human powered sorting algorithm that uses consensus to move the most relevant comments up where they can be seen, and to hide unproductive comments at the bottom.
  So if all you have is an upvote/downvote system, that's all it is. Note that it doesn't matter that much, with a simple up/down system, if you got a bunch of downvotes. Your comment got buried, but that's kind of the end of it.
  Karma is a score attached to individual users that probably sounded like a good idea at the time, but it tallies whether you have more upvotes than downvotes, and probably some other mess under the hood. It was supposed to be a measure of how often a given user provides relevant and helpful feedback to others. In practice, it's a social credit score like the one being developed by the Chinese government.
  Even worse, karma got used as a metric to aim for, and it's what you used to make sure that your accounts were marketable to buyers, who wanted lots of positive comment karma on accounts, so they could post where they liked once they bought them.
  When Reddit was born it was even techy-er than it is, now. So there was a lot of discussion about programming, and programming problems, similar to what happens on Stack Overflow these days.
  Imagine I've asked Reddit a programming question of some sort, and soon, some comments reply.
  User A, first on the scene: Idunno, man this looks like a tough one (doesn't answer the question, not really relevant)
  User B, who showed up later: Ah yes, that's a bitch [proceeds to answer the question in detail, very helpful to OP and everyone else].
  So, as a user, even a spectator, you were supposed to upvote User B, and maybe downvote A. Upvoting B was more important than downvoting A, since the upvotes would bring B's answer up to the top, anyway, while A's answer would fall down without anyone downvoting them on purpose. You were supposed to be hesitant to downvote, because of this. The poor answer essentially downvotes itself, no need to dogpile on User A.
  Without a karma system, that's the end of it. User A's poor answer has no bearing on their treatment anywhere, their performance is not recorded and shown to the public at all, and User B may develop a reputation as a helpful person by name alone, but there's no karma, there, either. The whole thing stayed within the context of that post. User B's helpful post floats to the very top of the thread on a wave of upvotes, the end.
  With a karma system comes a new dimension.
  User B, who provided the great answer, would begin to accumulate positive comment karma, and in theory this would help you to judge B's answers in the future, just like you check the reviews on an Amazon listing. Remember that B might be answering a question on which you were ignorant, so you depend on karma to see if this person gives good answers, usually, or if he's just troll noise.
  Reddit was born in the era of people asking a computer question and getting, "oh, yeah, just delete system32" as an answer. For the record, that is a very important Windows system process you must never delete, so that's just troll shit, trying to fuck an ignorant person over for lulz.
  Reddit was trying to thwart that with the karma system, they needed people to be able to ask questions and get good faith answers. If a user provided lots of troll answers and lies, that should mean lots of downvotes from other users, negative karma. People know not to trust this person's answers, at least not easily. If they have tons of positive karma, shit man, that might be The Woz answering you for all you knew, a good sign.
  It was entirely up to you, the user, to be very high-minded about this. So, even if User Z said something that you didn't like, but it added important information to the conversation, you would still upvote that comment. That kinda sorta worked, but then the Great Digg Migration happened, and a flood of normies came on board.
  Normies all used the downvote button for what it was obviously for, it's a fuck you go away I don't like you button. It was pretty naive to think it would be anything else, but the founders had high hopes.
  Now you can start accumulating negative comment karma from saying or doing things other people don't like, it doesn't take much, and automated moderation systems will start doing things like blocking you from joining communities because you have too much negative comment karma. It is assumed that you would have better karma if you weren't a shitty person. However, it's easy to abuse. If a bunch of fashy people downvote the everloving shit out of somebody for saying something like "black lives matter" now the wrong damn person ended up with lots of negative comment karma.
  The fash can also open lots of extra accounts and upvote the hell out of each other and themselves, so they have lots of positive comment karma while being literal practicing Nazis at the same time. It's pretty easy to game the karma system and not very useful anymore. In practice, your karma score just records how often you comment things that the Reddit hive mind agrees with. The highest karma points probably belong to bots.
  It's problematic, to say the least.
  So it's possible to ditch the karma system entirely while still using upvote/downvote, they're actually two separate things. Since we are no longer all that worried about a solution to programming questions, and since the idea of karma got corrupted and stepped on pretty bad, it would be nice to leave it the hell behind with Reddit, where it belongs.
  That is what OP is arguing for. Perhaps on the Fediverse we can forge ahead with new approaches, and let this Reddit-like situation be a springboard to something better in the future, something more unique to Lemmy itself.
  
  This is a much better write up than I expected from this comment section.... you deserve at least hotdog for this effort.
- Having Karma gives users a high score to achieve, which incentives posting things that you know gets upvotes over something helpful or your genuine opinion.
  
  How is lemmy different when we can still see these points. I'm just not understanding, I'm sorry.
- One problem I foresee is that it would be too easy to game any karma system in a federated space. One could conceivably create their own instance and use bots to give "unearned" upvotes.
- Several apps already show total user comment and post upvotes.
  Here is your profile from Memmy
- I think I saw somewhere that there is still karma but it isn't viewable.
- Does it? I don't think it records how many upvotes you've received.
  
  Maybe it depends on the app/instance? I can click on your profile and see you have 500+ points, for example. So I'm still confused on the whole lemmy doesn't have karma thing when I see basically lemmy karma.
- Reddit weighed things according to total amount of karma the poster had. afaik Lemmy doesn't have that feature
- Some instances hide it, iirc

Can I ask for a Korma system? I'm hungry.
- I'd rather a shawarma system. Looks tasty.
- Gimme a spagbol system instead. I want something more tomatoey.

If Lemmy's karma system can stay as it is, without adopting the Reddit way of how it handles it, I guess it's fine. Personally, I'd like to at least have some place to go to, that doesn't have likes, doesn't have karma points or anything. Because it just encourages people to groom themselves to say things, that'll garner the most attention. It invalidates your way of thinking and makes you check back on scores to feel validated.
I hate that I can't go almost anywhere anymore, without seeing some stupid form of a karma points system. It serves no purpose. Reddit's is worse because they tie your account to it. Don't have enough? Welp, too bad, can't post here. Got downvoted to oblivion? Welp, too bad, gotta wait some 10 minutes and fill a stupid captcha check.
If Lemmy can avoid that, then fine, I guess.
- I spent a fair amount of time on reddit over something around 15 years (I think) and not once did I happen upon someone with -100 karma that didn't earn it by being a troll. I found it very useful to be able to weed out people who weren't actually commenting to further the conversation, but derail it. Is that the type of thing you're talking about not wanting?
  
  People are confusing (probably due to intentional prompting by those trolls trying to have bystanders fight their battles for them) the very real problem on Reddit that if you chase karma there were benefits to be had in terms of credibility and reach of your messaging and so whatever entities might benefit from such would tend to fill the space over in Reddit with content like that. Realistically that doesn't change the most common content much as it really comes down to the sort of thing people will upvote but it did make it a bit worse. That's being confused with some notion that somehow anyone who wasn't chasing karma was entirely ignored. That just isn't true. You might not be the absolute center of attention unless you've either post or said something especially worthwhile but so what?
  
  Frequently though people with -1 to -10 karma on a comment were just saying something that went against the hive or even dared to question it.
  As an experiment sometimes I'd say something slightly against the tide, nothing even provocative. It would get downvoted into the basement and I'd see it start slowly then it would get pigpiled on. Then I'd post the same comment, say, a few hours later and it would be strongly upvoted. The same pattern of slowly getting upvoted and then rapidly increasing.
- A point system does help to bring popular topics to the top. If someone gives good advice and it gets enough upvotes then it rises to get more views by the larger audience. I think if there was a way to eliminate the point system and still give good stuff a louder voice then I would say that's the system we need.
- Uh...go to Discord then. It seems like a free for all.
- You could basically always skip the first 3-5 comments on every post because their only purpose was to gain as much karma as possible. There were way too many generic comments that you would see over and over

Anyone who demands a karma system on Lemmy should honestly stay tf out of here.
- Lemmy already has a karma system
- I agree, but there already is a karma system.

But I LOVE fake internet points, how else am I supposed to know if people like me or not??
- Upvotes and downvotes maybe?
- They don't. Stop thinking otherwise.
  
  Man, sarcasm on Lemmy doesn't read at all, does it

Karma sucked ass on Reddit. Essentially people could ban you from participating because you pissed too many people off even though you didn't break any rules.
Karma count is an ass kissing metric, high karma shows that you kiss people's asses for upvotes, low or negative karma shows that people dislike what you say which is absolutely ok. People having different opinions vs going with the group is the difference between a healthy platform and an echo chamber.
By the way Trolls and malicious actors who that system is targeting should be dealt with directly. If someone's posting hateful transphobia instead of downvoting their acount they should just be BANNED from the community or the platform as a whole, keep bad people out of the community.

But a Karma system doesn't impact your ability to post? Or 99% of other poster's opinions of you...
(Disclaimer: Don't care either way, never considered someone's "karma" at all, ever.)
- If you have less than x amount of karma on a good portion of subReddits you can't post at all.
  
  That is usually to avoid bots. Any normal person can easily get a couple hundred karma by just posting a bit or commenting a few times, but any bot doing the same is gonna undergo scrutiny.
  
  True. But then you got 1 karma for every comment you made anywhere on the site and often the requirement was like 50 karma.
  Restricting posts to users who have managed to make a maximum of 50 comments that didn't overwhelmingly piss everyone off isn't actually very restrictive.
  I really don't buy into any of this "oh, you had to only say what people wanted you to say!" handwringing. I never once saw a user with negative karma who wasn't just there to actively cause trouble. I'm quite certain this notion that you had to subscribe to some sort of groupthink to make it through the karma system originates from a very tiny number of people who perceive not being actively anti-social in a social space as oppressive persecution of their "totally valid" "alternative opinions". By all means, show me accounts that were actually participating in good faith that were pushed out of the conversation by the karma system and I'll loudly complain with you on their behalf.
  But you can't do that. Because they're always some flavour of racist nazi troll dickhead.
  I said whatever the hell I wanted and was frequently confrontational or contrarian and still had some embarrassingly high amount of karma simply because I participated a lot and wasn't actively there to fuck things up by intentionally being a toxic edge-lord troll.
- Yes it does. Some filtering is done by reddit and some by the mods. Also your votes don't count if you don't have certain amount of karma accumulated on the sub you are voting.
- People are saying it does, "automod"
- It impacts what you post as people game the system or even just refrain from opening a new dialouge or saying somthing controvertial.
  That number needs to be sold to you with hype, reddit did that because it drove traffic and addicted people. People putting a short 2 word answer just to farm karma, relizing it or not.
  Trolls love and others don relize how reddit hilighting the golden number makes people have a varry weak mind. to me, you and others, its a mild static electric shock. To the artifitially grown man babies, its an electricution

I've been using Connect for Lemmy, and it lists all your points on your profile. I didn't even realize that wasn't included on the website until right now.
- What does that mean
  
  Connect for Lemmy is an android app. Based on Sync for Reddit which shutdown unfortunately. Both 3rd party apps for the websites.
  Sync for Lemmy is on its way though, which is the original creator u/jdawson and should also have the karma system.
  All these people talking about not having a karma system look a little foolish since I'm literally down voting them as I read it.
  
  The fediverse has karma, it's just not written on the website in your face

Yep,this way we have less bs/repetitive posts just trying to farm karma.

Agreed :/

Obligatory xkcd;
https://xkcd.com/1911/
- gem (Gem) research.

In a way I agree. In my experience with Reddit, the closest you'll get to posting somewhere with zero downvote risk is in r/CasualConversation, and even there, there have been times I've had fate handed to me because of some form of bad influence. There was one question where I basically got called a narcissist for, of all things, asking for advice on what makes an apology good, and ended up getting the short end of the karma stick.
- I got banned from a subreddit for disagreeing with a mod's comment. Asked him what rule I broke and he ignored me. lol
- Sometimes things get weird with upvotes and downvotes. I've been downvoted for pointing out that RCV still has spoilers, which is just a mathematical fact, but people don't like bad news.

In my experience with having Karma as a mod. If the person had negative karma they were a troll or a really bad person. Giving us the ability to make a community feel welcoming.

What....what is the number under the post I'm making right this second? What is the overall number when I click on my profile?
- On Lemmy.World the only numbers I see tracked in my profile are the total posts and comments I've made.
  IIRC, someone mentioned Kbin actually shows a total updoot count on your profile. Lemmy does track it, but it's up to the instance/app you're using whether it's displayed anywhere.
  
  I have a number on my profile now that I look? I never really paid that much attention to it? I don't know if it's weekly or what? It's 74. I've had single comments almost reach that. I don't know what I'm looking at lol

I said what I wanted anyway, the karma system didn't affect your ability to say what you want. But yes, the karma system wasn't perfect, nooo way.
- It did if your karma was low enough. It also affected whether your votes were counted or not.

I never liked reddit Mods ,they had too much power.
- I agree. One clear example is banning someone for participating on a community the mod doesn't like. Admins should learn from reddit's mistakes and limit what mods can and can't do.
- And zero accountability.
  
  True ,you can't even complain about them to reddit.
- Please elaborate a little, I really want to know how its relivant to the conversation of karma. The answer is likely going to be interesting
  
  Then you will be disappointed, because from my pov getting Karma is very easy ,I was talking about how the mods can take you at the verge of perma ban just by banning you from their subreddit,you can't even access to that site and you will be Permanently banned from both accounts. mods Removed what ever they wanted to which did not matched their opinion even if the comment was in right subreddit and right thread.

What do you mean, no karma system? There is a karma system.

You are in for a hell of a ride when you figure out that folks STILL downvote randoms for self-validation purposes, even if theres no "punishment" for the other user.

No idea why we'd want it...
Even on Reddit, it didn't do much.
- Lol ok

Do people really consider karma to mean the sum of your comments' and posts' points and not the points themselves?
- Yes? I don't think I've ever heard the vote totals on individual posts and comments referred to as "Karma", just upvotes and downvotes. In my experience Karma is exclusively used to describe the total on peoples profiles. "Karma farming" is increasing that number by posting lots of different low effort posts, not when someone posts something because they think that one post will get many upvotes, as an example.
  
  It's a genuine question, because I still check my comments and their scores. Big numbers make me feel good, small numbers make me feel bad. (Not losing any sleep over it or anything.) So I could still see people who make posts they know will get a lot of points being referred to as "farming karma." The same way you might accuse someone of "fishing for compliments" on social media. If that makes sense.

What's karma, i was on reddit for 12 years and never looked into it.
- It's a system of points where if you make enough ad revenue for reddit u/Spez sends you a dick pic as a sign of appreciation.
  
  Oh man. I would have Karmawhored harder if I had known that was a reward tier.
  
  I earned 7 dicks!

This post really narwhals my bacon
- It rally speaks to the new system and community that this comment landed at the bottom of this thread. No offense to your comment. It’s just a case in point haha.