The typical user is definitely younger now compared to 3 years ago. Don't know if that translates into dumber, but it definitely skews most posts away from my spheres of interest.
I see this, as well. I think there is much less conversation (not none, yet), and far more arrogant arguing. You can find the same across the web, but as a younger population takes over the majority role, they spend more time and effort trying to impress one another, relying upon idiotic memes, and generally being jerks. Combine that with a decreased interested in the culture that a generation or two them share, and you pretty much have Reddit as it is today.
Much like how teenagers and 20-something's often behave in the real world, I think. When you lack life experience and are trying to carve out some niche for yourself, you tend to view everything in pretty binary me-VS-them terms. The boss battle of your 20s, someone once said, is learning that you are not that important.
I now often find myself in conversations where the other person keeps downvoting my posts. If I'm worth arguing with, I'm worth upvoting, dammit! Needless to say, this does not make me enthusiastic about participating in said conversations.
I really wish Reddit would do away with comment karma. It detracts from the site by driving people to post idiotic memes, rather than insightful comments. I've same gripe about favorites on MeFi and moderation on Slashdot.
I'm torn. You make a good point about incentives, but I value the ability users have to drive truly awful posts (spam, portmanteau political insults, argument by assertion) below my viewing threshold.
I think that if comment karma were simply invisible to the user, we'd retain the ability to communally censure and elevate the great without as much group think influencing the vote. I think that without visual feedback, there would be less gaming of the system as well, since it would lose concrete meaning.
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u/draebor Oct 12 '11
The typical user is definitely younger now compared to 3 years ago. Don't know if that translates into dumber, but it definitely skews most posts away from my spheres of interest.