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(commenting from my high-karma account, to avoid the green-user stigma) I see no good reason to incentivize intelligent thoughtful conversation, no one ac

(commenting from my high-karma account, to avoid the green-user stigma) I see no good reason to incentivize intelligent thoughtful conversation, no one actually does it for karma. I comment to grind karma points. There's a fairly linear relationship between comment length and score, my best comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3705599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3705599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3218642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3218642) are essentially small blog posts, requiring research, links, several drafts and extensive revision. If it wasn't for karma, I wouldn't go to the effort.

EwanG 14y ago
So what do you fell that karma "earns you" that makes it worth the effort? Is it something intrinsic to karma, or something about what you think karma says about you to others? If the latter, then do you think karma is the best way to deliver that value?
- sbierwagen 14y ago
  Brand new accounts can't flag posts (~200 karma) or downvote comments. (~2000 karma) Once I hit those thresholds, the urge to grind goes away.
  - lukejduncan 14y ago
    Downvoting seems to be enabled around the 500 mark. At least for me. Also, I just noticed the flag option for the first time. Thanks for pointing that out.
    - roryokane 14y ago
      Yes, downvoting was enabled for me, too, after I passed 500 karma points (reached 501 points) on 2012-06-09, a month and a half ago.
  - roryokane 14y ago
    I still have the urge to grind karma, though I've passed the limit for downvoting. The reason is that I remember when the downvote karma threshold was raised from 250 to 500 karma, a year or two ago. I'm worried that in a year or three, PG will raise the limit again, and I'll be unable to downvote again. So karma remains an effective motivator - though I kind of resent that I don't know whether my further karma generation will ever pay off. I would feel better if PG had an official formula or schedule for the inflation of downvote thresholds, or if he said that the threshold will stay the same for the foreseeable future.

EwanG 14y ago

So what do you fell that karma "earns you" that makes it worth the effort? Is it something intrinsic to karma, or something about what you think karma says about you to others? If the latter, then do you think karma is the best way to deliver that value?

sbierwagen 14y ago
Brand new accounts can't flag posts (~200 karma) or downvote comments. (~2000 karma) Once I hit those thresholds, the urge to grind goes away.
- lukejduncan 14y ago
  Downvoting seems to be enabled around the 500 mark. At least for me. Also, I just noticed the flag option for the first time. Thanks for pointing that out.
  - roryokane 14y ago
    Yes, downvoting was enabled for me, too, after I passed 500 karma points (reached 501 points) on 2012-06-09, a month and a half ago.
- roryokane 14y ago
  I still have the urge to grind karma, though I've passed the limit for downvoting. The reason is that I remember when the downvote karma threshold was raised from 250 to 500 karma, a year or two ago. I'm worried that in a year or three, PG will raise the limit again, and I'll be unable to downvote again. So karma remains an effective motivator - though I kind of resent that I don't know whether my further karma generation will ever pay off. I would feel better if PG had an official formula or schedule for the inflation of downvote thresholds, or if he said that the threshold will stay the same for the foreseeable future.