[reactordev]

I remember a time when Reddit didn’t exist. When phpBB and vBulletin were the hottest ways to build a community around a theme. I remember when they would get so large that you would need volunteers to help moderate.

Now, karma and all that came from a way of making it so that the admins of this site have to do less moderation and let the best participants of this site have that power. It’s ultimate democracy.

[direwolf20]

Democracy is extremely vulnerable to manipulation, especially if you don't verify identity.

[reactordev]

Except karma is tracked by your user…? I fail to see where you’re going with this. I’m not talking about political elections.

[direwolf20]

How much does it cost to create a user?

[reactordev]

In the case of online voting, you can’t buy one. In order to create one, one would tie it to the existing identification systems they have (for example, ssa.gov).

Then your argument will be “what’s stopping someone from using someone else’s identity?” in which case we have laws for that. I don’t have all the answers but we can definitely do better.