Killing Community

Zigabyte@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 13 points –
marginalia.nu

Great writing on the current Reddit saga. The author put down in words a lot of things in my mind I couldn't find the right words.

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Personally, I found that karma led to self-censorship of any idea that remotely deviated from the group consensus.

Can you think of alternatives to voting, though? Sorting always requires some curating system that isn't random but I can't think of any that would be robust to group consensus

I don’t think user voting in of itself is a problem. It’s the consequences of large negative voting that causes the real problems. In Reddit, a single unpopular comment on a popular subreddit could send a casual Redditor into negative karma which effectively shadowbans them from Reddit. As a result, you see people deleting their comments to stop the bleeding. Controversial opinions are punished severely.