4 ms·
So it's clever and quirky. Yeah, it's not a scientific poll. I used to get pretty annoyed with that because your gut reaction is, "hey! I didn't know that would
by aroman 13y ago
So it's clever and quirky. Yeah, it's not a scientific poll. I used to get pretty annoyed with that because your gut reaction is, "hey! I didn't know that would happen! I didn't give your consent to count my vote!". But really, when you take a step back, you realize that internet karma means absolutely, positively, nothing.
It's really all meaningless Internet points. The auto-voting karma button reminds me of that, and I now appreciate the digital "up yours!" every once in a while ;)
- wahnfrieden 13y agoI think we're trained to feel anxious about it because of services like Facebook where clicking an upvote button not only delivers a point but puts your name behind it and potentially broadcasts that to your friends and followers.
- sliverstorm 13y agoNah. Humans have been susceptible to meaningless points since the dawn of time.
- wahnfrieden 13y agoI'm not addressing proclivity, only the anxiety expressed by the OP.
- md224 13y agoI think calling it meaningless, while helpfully putting it in context (first world problems, etc.) is still a bit inaccurate. Sure, the kudos number on a Svbtle blog is basically meaningless, but more generally, karma points on a post can serve two important purposes: 1) Social signaling. Others approve of the post, which factors into your own judgment heuristics when encountering it. 2) Upvotes and downvotes are the basis of vote-ranked message board systems like HN and Reddit, and they result in very interesting dynamics (whether or not these dynamics are optimal is another question altogether). So no, I'd say internet karma points aren't exactly meaningless in certain contexts.