YSK: Lemmy DOES have a karma system

There’s some misinformation floating around regarding Lemmy not having a karma system. While many have discovered otherwise, this is for those who may not have.

While it’s not exposed in the Lemmy default user interface, Lemmy does have a fully functional karma system and it is visible in third party clients such as WefWef and Memmy.

Do with that what you will.

join-lemmy.org/api/…/PersonAggregates.html

FartsWithAnAccent,
@FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

I think I will do nothing with that information.

Speculater,

You have over 2000 points! Nice work bean!

FartsWithAnAccent,
@FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

Holy shit, we can get beans for this?

Speculater,

1 point = 2 beans, you will be a beautiful instrument of flatulence!

FartsWithAnAccent,
@FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

I already am.

Shortbus,
@Shortbus@lemmy.world avatar

Upbeans and downbeans…

70ms,

Upvoted for visibility! 🤪

loudWaterEnjoyer,

You gained so much karma with that statement

FartsWithAnAccent,
@FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

Can’t wait to spend it on food and other essential goods!

muddybulldog,

Fantastic!

Surreal,

Karma farm again?

AbouBenAdhem,

What Lemmy does with that score is ultimately instance-specific. Over time I expect we’ll see more differentiation between instances in terms of how they treat things like that.

GustavoM,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar
subash,

good

PissinSelfNdriveway,

Fuck the fake internet points. All it does is bring tons of bots and douchebags.

Schooner,

Pretty sure this is just the apps adding up all the upvotes/downvotes you receive and not an actual Lemmy feature.

muddybulldog,

It’s right in the API: join-lemmy.org/api/…/PersonAggregates.html

Returns: comment_count, comment_score, id, person_id, post_count, post_score

0Xero0,
@0Xero0@lemmy.world avatar

as an ex-Redditor and used to be a karma whore myself, I find this disgusting. If you want a karma system, go back to Reddit.

ogg42,

Let’s not make Lemmy Reddit, or at least can we label this feature Anti-Karma?

gnarly,
@gnarly@lemmy.world avatar

I know my comic praising lemmy for no karma added to the confusion on this but I do appreciate that lemmy.world does not feature the server karma on profiles for reasons already said in the comments. Thanks for clarifying.

FizzlePopBerryTwist,

Do these apps have desktop plugin equivalents?

Source,

Honestly should be removed

Atemu,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

I don’t think there is a way to remove that. “Karma” is just the sum of upvotes on all of a users’ posts/comments and that info is always accessible.

We could make the decision to not show that value in the front-ends of course but you’ll likely have very different opinions on that and some front-ends will inevitably show karma.

balder1991,

But if it wasn’t available in the API then apps would have to do a fetch of all the users posts to calculate it, possibly discouraging it.

shotgun_crab,

Oh no. Anyway, karma wasn’t the worst thing about reddit so it should be fine, I hope…

Boozilla,
@Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks, I hate it. Promotes gamesmanship and super douches like Gallowboob.

Space_Racer,
@Space_Racer@lemm.ee avatar

At the same time it’s shows who you should block. I don’t always remember usernames but I had the top posters like that blocked. Made reddit so much better to use.

I_Fart_Glitter,

Yeah, I blocked gallowboob years ago, I was just wondering if he left during the reddit exodus or if he’s still there, posting 80% of the front page content. Not gonna go check though…

Stan,

Was he the bird guy?

chas,

That was Unidan. Gallowboob was just a repost karma farmer.

UFO64,

Have an upvote, so as to better game the system stranger.

hardypart,

But it also encourages people to generate content. It’s a slippery slope.

Rozauhtuno,
@Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

What kind of content though? I’d rather have a few good posts a day than all that karma-whoring.

Xer0,

What is karma removed?

hardypart,

All kinds of content. There’s a difference between generating content and karma whoring.

SyJ,

Yeah if people start going for Karma we’ll be plagued by “this” and stupid puns. Yesterday I saw a reddit post where the guy misspelled WiFi as Wife when explaining his problem, and then the top 10 comments were “omg dude you can’t just get a new wife” or “I wouldn’t come to Reddit for a problem with my wife”

The actual solutions to the problem were rubbish too

Boozilla,
@Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

Yup, there’s a lot of hurrrr hurrrr hurrr stuff on reddit. Which isn’t inherently bad…but they often just keep pushing it ad nauseum. There’s no such concept as “OK, enough already” on there.

SyJ,

A bit of humour is fine, but when it drowns out the actual information it’s frustrating.

wren,
@wren@lemmy.ml avatar

How accurate is it? I use Memmy and after an update I went from 50ish points for comments to 3. I just checked on Wefwef and it shows that same score as well, so I’m unsure what happened. I didn’t delete or change anything

I don’t really care about karma, I actually would prefer if neither of them had it visible, but I’m interested to know what happened

Badass_panda,

I know I’m in the minority here, but I think the karma system has value and I’d like to see us keep it. I did time as a moderator on a fairly busy subreddit, and requiring accounts to be >30 days old and have >100 or so karma saved us a lot of work. E.g., it made ban evasion a little harder to do, and reduced brigading.

It also helped to keep folks fairly civil and promoted considering perspective when posting, which I think is valuable.

With that said, I’d LOVE to allow communities to disable down votes… it’s a missing feature in reddit, and if you are trying to promote discussion of a divisive topic, or to actively suppress an echo chamber, I think down votes are counter productive.

entropicshart,
@entropicshart@lemmy.world avatar

Requiring accounts with X days or X karma lead to subs where people would literally post just to get upvotes and the creation of bot accounts.

Sharkwellington,

requiring accounts to be >30 days old and have >100 or so karma saved us a lot of work. E.g., it made ban evasion a little harder to do, and reduced brigading.

Counter-point: Requirements such as these were the reason repost/copy-paste bots were getting so rampant on Reddit.

Badass_panda,

Kinda, but not really… if you are a user who has had your account for more than 5 minutes and you’re not a troll, odds are you never run into those rules.

The repost / copy paste bots were mostly to build a believable strawman that could be sold for astroturfing / “viral marketing”, etc.

Kurroth,

So no free and open discussion then? Only approved group think will be allowed?

I understand the benifits of what you are asking, but those are the very things that lead Reddit to what it is now.

Chathtiu,

Requiring basic levels of karma or age is not “group think.”

Kurroth,

requiring basic levels of karma most certainly is. You have to say the right things first to get the group approval before you can contribute.

Chathtiu,

requiring basic levels of karma most certainly is. You have to say the right things first to get the group approval before you can contribute.

Again, I disagree. You can say the “right things,” certainly, or you can say “neutral things.” Really anything short of overt hostility would be acceptable.

Kurroth,

I think that is too idealistic. It could very easily go into a downward spiral that a community could never get out of. It happens already on several subreddits already. You may not have experienced it, but I can say it for certain happens. There have even been scifi series written about it that have taken the concept to the extreme.

Chathtiu,

I think that is too idealistic. It could very easily go into a downward spiral that a community could never get out of. It happens already on several subreddits already. You may not have experienced it, but I can say it for certain happens. There have even been scifi series written about it that have taken the concept to the extreme.

I’m familiar with some of the subreddits, but I believe you’re taking the spiral too steeply and too quickly.

The “don’t be a dick” philosophy will get you more than enough karma to comment on whatever subreddit you want to participate in, outside of some super niche ones.

ProfezzorDarke,

If you have controversial opinions just post them on controversial subs as well. A large part of “the right things” depends on the “right community”

Chathtiu,

If you have controversial opinions just post them on controversial subs as well. A large part of “the right things” depends on the “right community”

That is entirely correct.

Kurroth,

But not ‘being a dick’ is far too subjective in a global village… The world does not beat to one drum.

I have to stand on eggshells with my language around USamericans as an example.

Chathtiu,

But not ‘being a dick’ is far too subjective in a global village… The world does not beat to one drum.

While I hear what you’re saying, it’s really not as complicated as you’re making it out to be.

Kurroth, (edited )

I really don’t think you do, you are being incredibly closed minded and sticking your head in the sand. Because it has no* effect on you (yet).

Chathtiu,

I really don’t think you do, you are being incredibly closed minded and sticking your head in the sand. Because it has no* effect on you (yet).

That is a bold assumption to make. I’ve absolutely been affected by it on Reddit, and I’ve been banned from subreddits from saying the “wrong” things. Hell, I’m a lesbian who was banned from r/ActualLesbians because I said lesbians are attracted to women and not non-men.

I’m not sticking my head in the sand.

Kurroth,

That sounds nothing like what we are talking about at all. Weird knee-jerk reaction. I feel like you are being a dick about this.

Chathtiu,

I feel like you are being a dick about this.

Funny, I could say the same about you.

Kurroth,

Are you seeing my point now?

Chathtiu,

Are you seeing my point now?

Have you seen anyone downvoting you? Even when you’re acting like a stubborn fool, your karma for this conversation hasn’t been negatively impacted.

Kurroth,

Someone has been downvoting me every time I get a response from you on each comment.

Chathtiu,

Someone has been downvoting me every time I get a response from you on each comment.

That’s interesting. That’s not what I can see on my end, but then again Memmy has been pretty glitchy the last few days.

clgoh,
@clgoh@lemmy.world avatar

How does requiring a minimum account age cause group think?

Kurroth,

It was more of a response to the minimum account karma.

Account age is reasonable enough, after the service has grown a bit more.

However, if people start getting banned for the wrong reasons and have to create new accounts to be able to have discussion. It does create a barrier for that discussion to take place.

Badass_panda,

It is seriously difficult to have negative account karma on reddit unless you are an outright troll.

clgoh,
@clgoh@lemmy.world avatar

if people start getting banned for the wrong reasons

What would be good or bad reasons?

Badass_panda,

Sorry, what? That’s the opposite of my point. I think most subs benefit from outright trolling and off topic nonsense being prohibited, but my issue is that downvotes promote group think, and on a discussion sub, you should be able to limit or remove them.

Blamemeta,

Voat had a system where you only had ten downvotes a day. Kept people in check

Atemu,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

Voat

Kept people in check

I don’t think so dude.

Spider89,

You had my approval until: I’d LOVE to allow communities to disable down votes…

No… Just No…

notenoughbutter,

yeah, like if we pick a certain flair, down votes will be disabled to prevent echo chamber for a certain conversation

emptyother,
@emptyother@lemmy.world avatar

Should probably be a per-server karma system. Or else anyone could create their own instance and auto-give themselves enough karma to be “trustworthy” and set their account date.

Badass_panda,

Definitely seems like that would end with defederating that server

ryannathans,

Good luck detecting it

MrAegis,
@MrAegis@lemmy.ml avatar

This is already possible on a per-server basis. Beehaw already does this.

It would be interesting to make it a per-community feature though.

TimeIntegrated,

Min account age / min karma are horrible for the new user experience though.

You sign up to say something only to find out you can’t.

Kurroth,

Yer, great way to kill momentum of a new community that is built around discussion.

zikk_transport2,

I’d LOVE to allow communities to disable down votes…

Upvote-only system is bullshit and you also know it. How else would you motivate user to post a quality content? Karma should also exist for this exact reason.

I don’t want yet-another-facebook-or-youtube here. 🤷

thehatfox,
@thehatfox@lemmy.world avatar

People that post quality content don’t tend to care about internet points. People that care about internet points won’t bother to collect them via posting quality content.

Downvote systems can also discourage open discussion, as too many people can’t help themselves from downvoting dissenting views. Communities end up one sided hiveminds.

Maybe there is a middle ground, perhaps downvotes could be rationed instead of outright disabled.

Badass_panda,

I think downvote rationing could work, possibly. It is only an issue for subs that are focused on discussion of divisive topics… downvotes work fine for most communities

BraBraBra,

Being left on one would be the equivalent of being downvoted. What’s the difference? Downvotws often just serves as a fuck you, and makes people feel like they’re being attacked.

Badass_panda,

Not every sub is for “quality content”, some subs are intended for debate / dialogue between people that disagree with each other, and use the downvote button to mean “disagree” … which means if you are coming for a quality dialogue, you tend to only see a quality monologue unless the user base is split 50/50 on the topic, which is rare.

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