this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Reddit Was Fun
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Memorial to "rif is fun for Reddit" Android app, aka "reddit is fun", shut down after June 30, 2023
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Karma is an inherently destructive thing for many reasons. For people, it is a representation of other people's approval of you, so they'll do anything to boost that number as highly as possible, even going so far as to make fake karma farming accounts, create botnets to upvote themselves and downvote opponents in arguments, and post garbage content instead of engaging in meaningful conversation with other people. For corporations, it's a marketing tool they can exploit to manipulate public opinion, by creating or buying high-karma accounts to convince people to buy shit, or to mass downvote people who point out flaws in their arguments or products, or figure out what they're planning and try to call them on it. They can use karma to discredit opponents, astroturf, and even sway elections indirectly. It's one of the reasons why civil and political discourse have completely collapsed in the USA.
That list is not exhaustive
A big part of the problem that led to bot spam and karma farming wasn't the existence of karma but the fact that most of Reddit treated karma as a proxy for legitimacy, so it was often used for Reddit accounts that were going to be sold off for astroturfing purposes.
I've always followed the old reddiquette: if the comment is contributing to the discussion, upvote it. Even if you disagree with it. Reddiquette used to be a big part of reddit, but stopped maybe 10 years ago
But I like my meowmeowbeans!
I don't think karma was ever really that big of an issue, the problem was the belief that karma meant something. Mods and admins treated karma like it meant legitimacy, like a sybil test, and it's not. Also the upvote/downvote system got so destroyed by misuse and a complete disregard for reddiquette, and often gets combined with karma, but that's a seperate issue.
The points never really mattered until people decided they did.
Thanks for the reply. I'd never really cared about my Karma so it is interesting to hear about the issues it can cause. I think your right, Lemmy would probably be a better place without it.
Thanks for the reply. I'd never really cared about my Karma so it is interesting to hear about the issues it can cause. I think your right, Lemmy would probably be a better place without it.
Thanks for the reply. I'd never really cared about my Karma so it is interesting to hear about the issues it can cause. I think your right, Lemmy would probably be a better place without it.
Thanks for the reply. I'd never really cared about my Karma so it is interesting to hear about the issues it can cause. I think your right, Lemmy would probably be a better place without it.