My incentive for writing thoughtful comments goes way down. A lingering thought appears: “shouldn’t I rather be spending this effort on writing a post?” This may be an intended outcome, though.
Maybe you should probe your hunger for Karma points and find out what it is that you expect to get out of the accumulation of these points. Is it a Hansonian quest for status? Something else maybe? Would you really be commenting less, or not writing thoughtful comments, if this website dropped the karma system entirely?
Yes, it’s a quest for status. I deliberately set out to be on the “top contributors” list and was thrilled when I made it. I spent days researching, drafting and rewriting my best posts. When I noticed how many upvotes Yvain gathers with his long thoughtful comments, I consciously tried to imitate that style. Not sure if such motivation is typical for this community, but I believe some other top users (e.g. Alicorn) share it.
I am motivated by karma, yes; I’ve mentioned this a few places. (And with the new weighting it looks like I am in third place if only the dratted list would update.)
You’re actually using an excellent karma-whore strategy—posting links to good, unfamiliar stuff. Links may not get promoted but they still get karma, and they’re easy to write. You just need something good enough to link to.
My incentive for writing thoughtful comments goes way down. A lingering thought appears: “shouldn’t I rather be spending this effort on writing a post?” This may be an intended outcome, though.
Maybe you should probe your hunger for Karma points and find out what it is that you expect to get out of the accumulation of these points. Is it a Hansonian quest for status? Something else maybe? Would you really be commenting less, or not writing thoughtful comments, if this website dropped the karma system entirely?
Yes, it’s a quest for status. I deliberately set out to be on the “top contributors” list and was thrilled when I made it. I spent days researching, drafting and rewriting my best posts. When I noticed how many upvotes Yvain gathers with his long thoughtful comments, I consciously tried to imitate that style. Not sure if such motivation is typical for this community, but I believe some other top users (e.g. Alicorn) share it.
I am motivated by karma, yes; I’ve mentioned this a few places. (And with the new weighting it looks like I am in third place if only the dratted list would update.)
You’re actually using an excellent karma-whore strategy—posting links to good, unfamiliar stuff. Links may not get promoted but they still get karma, and they’re easy to write. You just need something good enough to link to.