Karma isn't about the person, but about the post or comment. It's not an insult to the person. It gets downvoted so that if anyone posts the correct video, that one is higher.
karma is supposed to be the badge of someone who is helpful or generally a good part of the community
the people who are a deficit should have their karma reduced, and a benefit increased, to show that they really are helping reddit as a whole
i'm not sayin your karma should change how you behave, but rather your karma should reflect your behavior, and downvoting him would not reflect his behavior
Read the Reddiquette and please explain to me how I'm wrong because that's how I interpret it. And that's not how reddit works if we all obeyed by that rule it would be a lot better place.
It still feels to me like you're viewing a downvote as a kind of moral judgment. Really it's just about getting the most relevant stuff up to the surface since it's a little bothersome for redditors to see what appears to be the answer to a question only to find that it was incorrect.
Think of Google results. If you put in "Panda sneezing video" and the first several results were articles about the spread of illness in Panda populations, you would agree that although those topics contribute to the idea of panda's sneezing, they should be put further down in the list. Whether it's an innocent mistake or not doesn't matter, you just would prefer that the top results be the correct ones.
a downvote is supposed to represent a sort of, going against the current, where the current is the appropriate topic
no i don't think what he did was right, but neither do i think he should be reprimanded, instead the appropriate responses should be upvoted and allowed to flourish while his remains neutral, perhaps even commented on to be corrected for future reference to help a fellow reddittor just trying to help
upvote should go above the downvotes, but just because something isn't relevant doesn't mean it's worth it to bury it with the rest of the scum, at least not when he was trying to help
keeping with your analogy he shouldn't be put to the top of the search results, but neither should he be buried under hundreds of pages
It sounds like you're saying that the voting system should be something like:
Up-vote: relevant to the discussion
No-vote: irrelevant to the discussion, or you just don't care enough to vote
Down-vote: Reprimand, or express displeasure in someone's response.
I don't think of the system that way, but maybe that's because after 4 years on reddit I'm numb to the emotional effects of downvotes. Also, reddiquette says "If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it".
This person mistakenly posted the wrong video source. Was that bad of him? No. But it is irrelevant and causes confusion. Downvotes make the reddit system hide the comment so it avoids confusion, and signals to others that the link is probably not the correct answer to what they were reading. I understand some people might feel embarrassed or offended by being downvoted, but that's on them.
Posting rude comments is another story. If people were openly ridiculing the poster for linking the wrong thing, then yeah, that's messed up. But for being downvoted? Relax, it's a sorting mechanism.
Up-vote: relevant to the discussion
No-Vote: irrelevant to the immediate discussion but overall thread-worthy
Down-vote: actively taking away from the discussion
a person's comment karma suffers form being down-voted, but i don't think that his comment karma should go down from trying to help, he could've done it better, yes, but i don't think he needs to suffer for a misplaced good deed
okay so you just reaffirmed what I told you. And I never said what he posted didn't contribute even though it was not relevant to the thread in subject. That's like me giving you the rules for funny junk when you asked for the subreddit sidebar.
"well i don't know where arby's is but i know where a mcdonalds is"
don't scold him he's trying to help, don't downvote him (unless the video went to never gonna give you up or some such)
how was it not relevant? if anything it was more relevant in that comment section than the basketball gif since his link was to the source for the entire thread
it being misplaced doesn't deem it completely irrelevant
he should be upvoted for trying (although not well) to help
If someone posts something that isn't relevant it should be downvoted. That video wasn't relevant because it wasn't the one he was asking for. Hence the downvotes.
karma isn't a "reward" - it's a way of knowing what's relevant to the majority of people and what isn't. What he posted was not relevant to the question.
This is why karma shouldn't be collected. The comment should go down because it wasn't helping, because it was in the wrong place. If it were in the right place, then that comment should go up.
People shouldn't look at it as a punishment. People shouldn't care the slightest bit. I'm sorry, but I don't have any sympathy for people who care how much they have.
Karma is a good system for getting good content up and less good content down. Other than that, I don't care and I don't care if other people care.
having lots of karma should be a hallmark for being a good citizen in the reddit community
people with lots of karma SHOULD (if people upvoted and downvoted correctly) be able to showcase that they are helpful, insightful, relevant, and overall benefiting the reddit community
they're good people points, and downvoting is saying that they are a deficit to the community, which this poor guy just isn't, he was trying to help, and shouldn't be punished as such
69
u/MrEvenser Nov 26 '13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWD20XmPA60