Incorrect. This is what we were told about Reddit as we watched it become basically unusable as a platform. Voting alone isn’t a proper way to guarantee quality discussion (the opposite actually.)
True, but whatever mechanism takes its place must contend with the fact that users vary in the extent they: 1) actively think of the larger community vs. themselves as a member; and 2) derive individual esteem from it.
As an example, the karma system at Reddit looks fine on paper relative to #1, but #2 is what created the phenomenon of meandering threads full of single phrase bad puns. The users are converging on a local maximum gain of esteem via upvotes, per unit of effort as measured by post length.
Reddit is essentially the only platform left, which makes it a difficult example of an unusable one. I think it's actually gotten so big that its old problems (every reply being the same joke) were solved by having new users voting that don't all like the same jokes.
As an example, the karma system at Reddit looks fine on paper relative to #1, but #2 is what created the phenomenon of meandering threads full of single phrase bad puns. The users are converging on a local maximum gain of esteem via upvotes, per unit of effort as measured by post length.