I realized I interacted / posted / commented less and less on reddit these last couple of years. Couldn’t even tell you why exactly. Now I’ve been here for a week and, I don’t know, I just like interacting again… Hope it stays like this for a while :)
The karma system also gamifies trying to find a variation on the same thing as always. You’re not trying to be clever or unique, or bring new perspectives to the conversation, you’re trying to be the first person to say the thing you think everyone else is going to think of
Wouldn’t the reputation system serve the exact same function here then?
I did enjoy seeing my individual comments and posts upvoted, seeing that others liked my idea or dumb joke. But I really really cannot imagine many people being “karmawhores” or particularly interested in karma any more than I was, let alone enough to justify the amount of times people tossed around “you’re a karmawhore” accusations to genuine-seeming posts on Reddit.
This might just be me being unable to fathom people being any different than me, though. I certainly like to see shiny numbers go up in video games, I guess maybe some people liked it on Reddit and went a bit too far to gain karma instead of approval of random people for a thought or stupid joke.