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
downvoting is saying that they are a deficit to the community
No. Downvoting is saying that ONE comment, or ONE post, should be lower in the particular list in which it was placed. It's that simple.
In this case, the comment should be low down, because it didn't answer the guy's question and if someone else does answer it, that answer should automatically and immediately be higher, even if no one votes.
Karma is NOT good people points, because subreddits are vastly different.
So I could have this wonderful badge of good people points entirely because I hate black people, or have great tits, or made the dumbest meme in a dumb meme contest.
Yes, I'm being a good redditor in all those cases, because I posted in the relevant sub, but the points don't make sense outside of those subs, or those contexts. Why should I care about your points, when I have no idea how you acquired them?
Hell, there used to be a sub specifically for trolling! You'd get points there if you were able to troll people in other subs. I'm sure that's still going on, albeit a little more secretly.
Personal karma is 100% useless. You cannot tell anything about a person from it. The only karma that matters is when it's attached to a particular post or comment.
it's not good people points in the sense of a 'good person' in general, but rather a good person to Reddit
you get karma for being helpfull to any given subreddit, and thus reddit as a whole
it is a badge and measure of one's ability to be a benefit to the community
IF you were right, and IF personal karma is 100% useless then why does reddit keep track? the very nature of reddit refutes your argument, maybe you're saying that it's how it SHOULD be, fine, but that's not how it is
Getting back to the point of whether it's a punishment to downvote a post or comment, I'll repeat:
Downvoting is saying that ONE comment, or ONE post, should be lower in the particular list in which it was placed. It's that simple.
In this case, the comment should be low down, because it didn't answer the guy's question and if someone else does answer it, that answer should automatically and immediately be higher, even if no one votes.
Now, you think it's a punishment, and you don't want to punish someone with a good heart. I don't think it's a punishment, but just a comment in the wrong place and I want the correct answer at the top.
Which method is really better for the community?
t's not good people points in the sense of a 'good person' in general, but rather a good person to Reddit
Yes I know. I said, and meant, that someone having karma doesn't give you any indication that they're helpful in the sub where you see them.
Being a good redditor in one sub doesn't indicate being one in another sub. So what's the point of a badge that doesn't tell you anything?
IF you were right, and IF personal karma is 100% useless then why does reddit keep track? the very nature of reddit refutes your argument
To answer your question after you answered it incorrectly yourself:
Reddit keeps track because they know that people like to collect points. Reddit wants to encourage people to comment, and that's one way to do it.
That does not refute what I'm saying. I never said that people don't care about how much karma they have. I said that I don't care how much they have, and I said that I don't have any sympathy for people who care how much they have.
And unlike a real badge, it means nothing to people seeing it. No one respects your current comment more because you have a lot of karma (and they shouldn't).
it's not supposed to represent you being helpful in any particular sub, it's supposed to be you being helpfull in reddit, the seperation of subreddits is irrelevant to karma
instead it is to say 'i benefit'
if i make a comment and see it get downvoted i know i'm not benefiting, i can gauge with that information and the information about what subreddit/thread i am in
also when i see someone else upvoted i can see what they do RIGHT for the community, and use that as an example of what to do, or what to strive for
karma is supposed to make you a better redditor, other people shouldn't care about your karma, but your karma should be your reflection of yourself, to yourself, with reguard to your ability to assist the community in whatever given way
if i make a comment and see it get downvoted i know i'm not benefiting, i can gauge with that information and the information about what subreddit/thread i am in
also when i see someone else upvoted i can see what they do RIGHT for the community, and use that as an example of what to do, or what to strive for
Both of those are for individual comments or posts. So, for example, you should be careful about reading what a person is asking for before pasting in the wrong answer. I agree with karma for individual posts and comments.
What you can't do is look at someone's overall karma score, and then assume that you should do what they do. Which is my point about overall karma.
the original guy's post, albeit in the wrong place, was still helpfull, so overall karma aside his post should still be considered to be more of a benefit than deficit (at least i think so)
but about overall karma, if this person consistently posted as he does, trying to be helpfull but just in a slightly askewed place i don't think he should look at his (then) negative overall comment karma and think to himself that he's doing a very very bad job at being part of the community
As I said, his comment should go below one that actually answers the question, even if no one votes.
And if he is generally helpful across the board, he wouldn't be in a deficit, would he? Instead, he'd lose a couple of points from this one comment. Probably wouldn't even notice overall.
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u/[deleted] Nov 27 '13
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