So I’ve seen quite a few comments from people regarding the lack of karma so far in Lemmy/The Fediverse, and I was just wondering if because of the nature of how it works if karma is even possible? Although I wouldn’t mind too much about it existing, people have made good points about how much it helps moderation and keeps the trolls at bay, so I feel it’s a very nice too to have. Thanks in advance for the responses!

  • Toothpickjim@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Karma was one of the worst things about Reddit imo all the farming and low effort posts, let’s not repeat things again

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      1 year ago

      Exactly. Started as a fun thing, “Oh look how much I contribute” and over time was abused to the point of bot farms selling accounts with high karma. Not to mention trolls trying to get the lowest karma they could.

  • hoodlem@hoodlem.me
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    1 year ago

    This has come up before and my opinion is still the same. I don’t want karma because it lowers the level of discourse. People posting the same running jokes, etc for the karma.

    I also don’t know how this would work on a federated platform. Comments and votes are sometimes in a state of flux as data is synced among instances. Raises the question as to what the “real” totals are.

    • Atiran@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Comments and votes are sometimes in a state of flux as data is synced among instances.

      I think this is true even on Reddit as data is synced across replicas (although maybe not to the same extent as the fediverse). Nonetheless, I agree with you 100%.

    • Ducks@ducks.dev
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      1 year ago

      Reddit fuzzes the karma numbers anyway, so the Lemmy votes are kind of “naturally” fuzzy due to the nature of federation

  • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is one of the primary differences between us and kbin. They have a karma system, we don’t. Otherwise the two systems are pretty fundamentally similar.

    So, people who wish that have their option. Those that do not, come here. As a result of this basic sorting of the market, you will find that most of us Lemmings are not in favor of it.

  • empireOfLove@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Even aside from moderation and being able to tell if a user is “legit” or not, I do like to see how my contributions to the community are being received. I still check my profile frequently to see how my recent comments and posts are being voted on. Numbers go up trigger dopamine release, brrrrrrrr.

    However, I also fully recognize the problems it creates with making karma “hoarding” the end goal and promoting shitposts/content stealing instead of meaningful contributions.

    I would support the idea of a karma/vote total that was visible only to the user it belongs to (and/or admins) while being not displayed publicly. It covers the desire to see one’s “community performance” without turning it into an E-Peen measuring contest. And of course, instances could disable it entirely on a case by case basis. Since it wouldn’t be public, the potential for manipulation by abusing custom instances and such to collect votes is basically pointless.

  • blazarious@mylem.me
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    1 year ago

    Karma can be played and it has been extensively on Reddit. Best not to repeat that mistake!

  • NaN@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    Already exists, just not in the Lemmy web interface. Most of the mobile apps will show total post and comment points on a person’s profile page.

  • kayaven@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    While I think a counter per instance would be possible, it would be way too easy to mess around with a “total” karma spread across all instances. All you’d have to do is set up your own instance, and give yourself a lot of karma there.

    I do agree that a karma counter could be a nice indication of someone’s activity, but I wonder if that’s the best metric we could come up with to keep spammers/bots at bay.

    • tubbadu@lemmy.kde.social
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      1 year ago

      Nah this is good here, it’s about discussing a possible evolution of Lemmy, not asking for support or help of any kind