[simonblack]

Karma scores are really, really irrelevant. To paraphrase an old saying, "90,000 karma and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee."

You know that when you get downvoted 200-300 points and you laugh, you have discarded for good the very idea of karma points having value. I did.

When I left left Reddit at the start of this year, I had something like 50,000 karma. To say it like that means I only remember the value to somewhere within 10,000. So that means my actual karma was somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000. 20,000 karma is quite a big range if karma has any value at all, and yet it is just a meaningless and irrelevant number.

Now repeat after me: "Karma is just a random number that has no meaning at all in real life."

[m11a]

The only issue with this mindset is posting restrictions (e.g. on reddit) if your overall karma score drops too low.

Karma systems work great if everyone used them as intended, for quality of content or thought, but they're more often used for how much you agree with the sentiment of a comment and if it agrees with the philosophy of the person voting, regardless of the merit of the comment.

For that reason, I'm sure there must be a better way to do karma for a site that is made to be productive, and not just an echo chamber.