Not sure if this is a showerthought, but it popped into my head randomly due to anothe member’s comment that “karma farming isn’t a thing here.” It kinda is…just not as blatant and open as Reddit. If the instances grow in size and number it could become a real thing, we’d have the same issues as Reddit with huge numbers of bots, shills, and karma whoring users.
What if every year we zero out Lemmy points but replace them with a [insert thing here: colored bars?] that maybe qualitatively show positive post and comment levels and sort of show “years of service”?
Get rid of the incentive for points accumulation, but denote consistent positive contribution?
Edit: or leave the comment/post points as the are, but make them only tally a rolling 365 day count and participation in the last 30/60/90 or similar. Continued participation would be obvious, but no substantial amount could ever be collected.
If the points aren’t worth anything, then why would it matter if they change or go away?
E2: welp. People think it isn’t a problem, and they say it will not be. Can’t argue with a position that demands Lemmy/fediverse remain static in its present form. Discussion closed, I guess.
Yet that’s all karma is. And I tap on a member’s name and I can see their “score” here.
Believe it or not, some do place value on quantity, and some do so without checking quality.
Are you talking about looking at a user profile and seeing the number of posts and comments they made?
Yep.
But you don’t see those numbers when you’re looking at a post or comment, so it isn’t like Reddit karma.
That is true. You do have to tap/click through to see it. But those numbers are there.
But why do the numbers you can see on Lemmy matter?
Karma is the ratio of upvotes vs downvotes you get. It has nothing to do with the number of posts or comments you make.