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
Honestly, I find the entire system annoying and counter to fostering real discussions.
If you go to a party, it’s not like people in the room have tags over their heads which say “trustworthy,” “troll,” “crazy,” or whatever else. You have to make up your own mind based on your interactions and (hopefully) use of critical thinking to decide if someone you are talking with is worth your time.
If I don’t want to take the time to read anything which might offend me, put me off, make me uncomfortable, challenge me, or just in some way be contrary to my world view then frankly, online forums would not be the spaces in which I would be reading things.
I believe that everyone has a point of view that can have value in some way, if only to illustrate that “negative” or “contrary to me” view and people exist around me. They have voices to contribute. Deciding if their contributions are valuable enough to award them a positive or negative “Reputation” is not an abstract thing. A true reputation takes time to build in the real world. It is earned for better or for worse, by actions people take over time not by some arbitrary number farmed by a bot posting cat memes 24/7 or whatever, or posting viewpoints sure to garner upvotes because like minded people are the only ones replying.
This tends to assume that each individual is a sincere member of a conversation, but real parties also don’t have swarms of robots and clones wearing disguises coming in to try to destroy your house. User reducing visibility is a strong first-line defense against bad actors that doesn’t require 24/7 moderators. If you poke through big, popular Facebook pages, like the NYT, and look through their comment sections, you’ll often find a ton of copy-pasted spam, scams, etc. (“this psychic saved my marriage! this accountant made me a bitcoin millionaire!”) I don’t believe the up/down system can be the only way to preserve the ability for people to have conversations, but we shouldn’t forget what problems these systems were created to solve.