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Regarding karma, this is one place where I think HN's implementation gets it right (or at least more right than others). You can see your own karma, and the vot
by biesnecker 14y ago
Regarding karma, this is one place where I think HN's implementation gets it right (or at least more right than others). You can see your own karma, and the votes of things that you've submitted (I'm talking about comments not stories here), but you have to go look to see anyone else's, and you can't see the karma they've gotten from their comments (except as a relative number versus your own comment at the same level within a thread).
There are surely still karma whores (I'll admit to liking seeing the little number next to my name go up) but it's not quite as in-your-face as somewhere like Reddit.
- onemorepassword 14y agoPersonally, I'm not such a fan of the lack of transparency on HN, because it makes the manipulations of the moderators very opaque and shady. My previous account got slowbanned despite the karma accumulated over years. If you're going to run a place like that, overrule the community and keep them in the dark, you might as well ditch karma altogether (or make it 100% invisible and just use it as an internal aid). Otherwise you're just encouraging behavior you clearly don't want. I'm not arguing the right or wrong about the way HN is run, I just don't see the point in having karma at all here.
- nwzpaperman 14y agoTransparency is key and the structural goal of a news platform should be building trust corporately and incentivizing individuals to build TRUST...not karma.
- genwin 14y agoAgreed with onemorepassword. The influence of the "persuasive centrists" the OP notes means that comments that aren't largely predictable will often be downvoted, discouraging different points of view and forming a boring hivemind. (Here come the downvotes.)
- eru 14y ago> (Here come the downvotes.) The hivemind doesn't mind if you argue against it in the abstract.