Like most other people here, I originally came here from reddit. Ive been having a blast so far, and I much prefer the forum-style of this. After about a week of using Lemmy I realized there was something intrinsic to reddit that Lemmy doesnt have. And I wont miss it. Too many people on reddit were way too horny. I was really annoying, but Lemmy seems way more chill. Plus its refreshing knowing that the people on here arent all bots.
“Karma” and the gamification of it make it worthwhile to do whatever gets you those upvotes. I like that Lemmy votes stay attached to the specific post or comment without it giving an overall score for the user. I also really like that the scores can be hidden by the user entirely.
I think there is potentially less reason to do the low effort stuff here.
Is “karma” system completely bad? If someone has bad reputation (based on karma) it can be used to quickly figure out if they are troll account for example.
Potentially. It also might just mean they post, or posted one time, things that go against the commonly held groupthink.
I don’t think a reputation system is bad necessarily, however I think Reddit is well aware that the one they created results in many users chasing that carrot, and people take the scores very seriously. You see evidence all the time with “downvotes, really?” or “of course my most upvoted comment is”. The dopamine hit and avoidance of downvotes (or ability to punish wrong-thinkers with them) help create some of the echo chamber.
A reputation system could easily be based on a global ratio and labels for example, but it would be less addictive. I am on an instance that doesn’t even have downvotes, and I like that, and I still hide scores, so my concern for identifying trolls through a points system versus the things they say isn’t all that high.
That’s a good point, it is a flawed system in that sense, but it definitely incentivizes people to interact and post more, which is in turn a good for the platform getting more content, I guess.
I’m excited to see how Lemmy’s system is going to work out, and/or if it evolves, and what kind of community will it end up “creating”.