The article outlines only one major reason for karma-based systems.
People can get addicted to their rating, creating "karma whores" and the like. This is nothing that probably hasn't been discussed here and on other communities.
Its a balance between the web-site operators wanting people to come back (what is my karma now after that awesome comment?), and pissing people off due to the problems karma systems introduce along with a general decline in community quality (Reddit anyone?).
Is it too much to ask for people to just have online conversations for the sake of getting involved? The only real CLEAN motivation is intrinsic, but that says a lot more about human nature than online rating systems.
People can get addicted to their rating, creating "karma whores" and the like.
A counterpoint to this: If a karma system reliably rewards beneficial behavior, "karma whores" can potentially create a lot of real value for more casual members of the community (at the cost of possibly some irritation from active but not addicted members). This may not be possible in all communities, of course, but here's at least one example: http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-skeet
you've just reinvented the invisible hand concept.
for the record I agree completely. checks and balances on negative behaviors is stupid and has never worked. what you need to do is set up the incentives so that everyone's goals are complementary anyway. then the users police themselves because everyone is benefiting. you've turned a zero-sum game (status) into positive sum.
The problem is that "karma whores" gravitate towards actions that are merely structurally beneficial without regard to actual value. It's cargo-cult commenting.
I agree, which is why I support downplaying the egoistic elements of online communities. Hiding usernames where possible, hiding raw karma scores or post ratings, etc. The less systemic/administrative information plastered all over the place, the more the users will (hopefully) focus on content.
On the other hand, I think the HN karma system has worked well to maintain focus in the site; lame attempts at humor get smacked hard, as do "+1" posts, coarse language, ad hominem arguments, etc. If the post rating were hidden, you wouldn't know if a down-voted post was due to one person disagreeing with you or a major breach of etiquette.
(Of course, in several ways, karma is a poor motivator for behavior that is valuable to the community.)
Yes, I'd say Hacker News has done an unbelievably good job of keeping things good around here. I am your typical Digg->Reddit->Hacker News migrator (I stayed on Reddit WAY too long...).
If anything, I say that here at HN we use "karma" as more of an indicator of RELEVANCY. Upmod comments that are relevant to the discussion, and leave it alone otherwise (very similar to the conclusion of the linked article).
I agree. I think one would have to have some sort of automatic moderation in place. Something like the Robot 9000 built for the xkcd IRC channel that moderates on the basis of originality (such that duplicate noise comments get chatters a temporary muting). Perhaps one-liners below a certain length could be posted at a score of 0 instead of 1. Other automatic wordfilters could also aid in downplaying the user-as-judge-and-jury aspect of moderation.
People can get addicted to their rating, creating "karma whores" and the like. This is nothing that probably hasn't been discussed here and on other communities.
Its a balance between the web-site operators wanting people to come back (what is my karma now after that awesome comment?), and pissing people off due to the problems karma systems introduce along with a general decline in community quality (Reddit anyone?).
Is it too much to ask for people to just have online conversations for the sake of getting involved? The only real CLEAN motivation is intrinsic, but that says a lot more about human nature than online rating systems.