My thoughts about ‘reputation’ or ‘karma’

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

I stand by what I’ve said about this in prior discussions:

@erlend_sh

Based on the anecdotal evidence of having participated in many such communities, I think reputation systems have a high tendency to create an involuntary “I’m better than you”-effect, similar in nature to the “IT’S OVER 9000!-post count”. Think the /r/thebutton experiment - a self-formed class society of “Greys” and “Reds” - without the “we’ll all laugh about this afterwards” roleplay factor. It’s borderline creepy sometimes, the effect a number (compared constantly to other numbers) can have on someone’s psyche.

Yes, these concepts exist on a forum like Discourse as well; post counts are still there, as are trust levels, but they’re hidden by default. They’re played down, not up, and that makes a big difference. Discourse distinguishes between “Member” and “Regular”, but it doesn’t distinguish between RegularUserX and RegularUserY, which is the point where you may start to value your worth as a community member based on an arbitrary number that’s inflated by behaviour that doesn’t necessarily benefit the community as a whole.

I’ve yet to see a large scale reputation system, on the internet or elsewhere, that successfully incentivises healthy community dynamics – which is probably why they always face ridicule in pop entertainment.

And the very real-life applications of such systems are downright terrifying.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit

Social Credit System

More often than not such systems only help to amplify innate human flaws, such as us/them thinking.

Nautilus | Science Connected

The fact that our badge system could still use some improvements is not a good reason to implement a new system with a very bad track record. I tend to agree with you when it comes to our “First X” badges. I’ve always been of the opinion that Discourse should focus much more on human-awarded badges rather than algorithmic ones.