[nsenifty]

It's a cool idea.

However, I personally like not glancing over user karma just to avoid bias. On Slashdot, for instance, I subconsciously assigned higher credibility to posts made by smaller (numeric) ids. The new reddit has it too.

[arminiusreturns]

I tend to agree. I know you are referring to karma but it also applies to comments. A few times I've found myself doing the same and then chastise myself for it. I think making comment histories private might be a potential solution, some are moving for reddit to do this.

I am honestly torn, as I progress in my career and life, as a sort of contrarian type, I get more and more worried some background check algo is going to find my presence on platforms, troll my history, and find some random comment from 5 years ago that might be controversial and blackball me for it, unbeknownst to me. On the other hand, I hate the idea that we increasingly self censor as we all become more aware of this.

This is why I still think anonymity is important on the internet, and lean towards burning accounts every couple of years on commenting platforms. This is also why I still value what others might call cesspools that are the chans, and of course onion sites et al.

I tend to always think about this Eben Moglen talk (listen from timestamp for 4 or 5 mins) : https://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY?t=427

[NilsIRL]

Karma is also generally a bad idea because it causes people to comment/submit just to increase it and causes them to say stuff that will give them more karma.

If karma has to be present, it's best if it is a subtle as possible.