My highest upvoted comment this month was for an article I didn't read because it was behind a paywall. So yes, I think there is a problem. The karma system rew

My highest upvoted comment this month was for an article I didn't read because it was behind a paywall. So yes, I think there is a problem. The karma system rewards you for being on time more than it rewards you for being correct. It also seem to reward snark a lot. For example, some time ago there was an article about why dynamic linking was worse than static linking along supported with a set of benchmarks. Many people posted highly upvoted, snarky, derisive comments about how the author was wrong and questioned his benchmarks. No one tried to reproduce his benchmark figures (had they tried to they would have found some bugs in them). I'm confident that if someone were to post an article about why static linking is worse than dynamic linking it would be met with the same kind of snark. So it's not the subject.