Look at it this way: it is folly to evaluate the known in terms of the unknown, while it’s necessary to evaluate the unknown in terms of the known.
It’s much, much easier to decide the value of a comment or comment history than to judge the value of how people vote for it. How many people read a comment, but don’t vote? How many positive and negative votes are there? What do we know about how insightful and wise the voting community is as a whole, and how do we determine how well the voters manifest those qualities in individual cases?
The quality of the comments is clearer—more known—than the quality of the votes. It follows that the karma system doesn’t provide us with a way to judge the comments, but a way to judge the community. Not a great way by any means, admittedly, but a method.
Look at it this way: it is folly to evaluate the known in terms of the unknown, while it’s necessary to evaluate the unknown in terms of the known.
It’s much, much easier to decide the value of a comment or comment history than to judge the value of how people vote for it. How many people read a comment, but don’t vote? How many positive and negative votes are there? What do we know about how insightful and wise the voting community is as a whole, and how do we determine how well the voters manifest those qualities in individual cases?
The quality of the comments is clearer—more known—than the quality of the votes. It follows that the karma system doesn’t provide us with a way to judge the comments, but a way to judge the community. Not a great way by any means, admittedly, but a method.