What other less-toxic system could work instead of karma?
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
Any shortcut method of mimicking reputation can be and thus will be abused, so they're all toxic.
The only sure way to do it is the good old-fashioned way - by name recognition - actual, earned "reputation."
The way it used to work on all forums and still does on some smaller ones is that people just read posts and write their own posts and over time they come to recognize each other's names and associate them with some impression of each individual's value as a poster.
And yes - that's not very effective in gigantic forums, and it's not accessible to newcomers. You need a relatively small group of posters and new people have to pay attention in order to figure out who are the better or worse posters. That's just the way it is, and is one of the problems with gigantic forums.
I'm not a fan of this because the main thing I liked about Reddit over all the other various "social media" was that I didn't have to try to recognize names. Names didn't matter, it was all about the conversation and the subject matter. If a post or comment was good I liked it, if it was bad I disliked it, and I moved on.
RES kept track of my personal like/dislike sum for each individual, perhaps since upvotes/downvotes aren't anonymous here in the Fediverse it'd be more straightforward to do that and show that to each user.
Yeah, I've seen people do that on Reddit too. It's not really my thing, I'm fine with people recognizing me if they want to. If someone just can't stand me then I encourage them to block me. Though preferably not after firing off a final "gotcha" comment at me and then blocking me so I can't respond (that's the most annoying thing about Reddit's blocking system, I don't know how the Fediverse handles that sort of thing yet).
It's not like karma worked well as a reputation system, anyway. In a large forum, all it points to is that you were lucky or entertaining. It says nothing a out whether you're actually a positive influence on a space.
Post the same post as 36 other people, but because if random chance yours gets chosen to float to the top? Co gratulations, you have a severe positive karma score for life for doing nothing different from those who got nothing.
Dunk on people in a way that others think is entertaining or deserved? Bam, you're swimming in positive reputation for being an asshole.
It doesn't create healthy space. It doesn't denote that you're a net benefit to a communal space. It's not even proportionate to how well you're known.