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[–]GoValidateYourselfuseful lesbian 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Dayuuum...that is an interesting read.

Unrelated q: what exactly do we do w/ karma? Can we buy things w/ it?

[–]mvmlego 5 insightful - 6 fun5 insightful - 5 fun6 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

On Saidit, I'm pretty sure that the Karma system has no inherent uses. It's an indicator of seniority and popularity, and it provides a cheap psychological incentive for users to participate in productive ways. Those are still pretty insignificant teleologies, though, so I think the primary reason that the system was implemented on Saidit was to make the website feel as similar to Reddit as possible.

On Reddit, it used to serve a more concrete purpose. Certain actions were restricted to users above a certain Karma threshold--and the potential to be restricted was actually pretty significant, since there's a downvote option that allows users to take a net loss on Karma from bad posts and comments (or ones that were perceived as bad, anyhow). (Sorry if this paragraph felt patronizing. IDK whether you were a Reddit user before joining Saidit.)

[–]GoValidateYourselfuseful lesbian 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the information, and don't worry it didn't read patronizing at all. I was on Reddit for a short time, 2 years ago and didn't know wtf karma was or what it did back then either, LOL.