For me, accumulated karma is mostly an indicator of how long someone’s been here and how much they’ve participated. Common use seems to be mostly upvote; downvotes aren’t rare, but a pretty neutral comment is likely to get 2-10 karma, and only a pretty bad one gets into the negative range. And posters who routinely get downvoted (for whatever reasons) likely either change or leave, so there’s a strong selection toward an expectation of more upvotes than downvotes.
I find karma changes for a comment I make is somewhat useful—mostly it indicates how popular is the post I’m commenting on, but secondarily it gives me a sense of whether I’m commenting on the points that most readers find salient in the post.
I’ll admit that votes carry more emotional weight than I want them to—I know they’re meaningless internet points, and a rather noisy signal of popularity, but it still feels nice when something gets more upvotes than normal, and hurts a bit when I’m downvoted.
You make a good point I forgot to add: the function karma on an article or comment serves in providing info to other users, as opposed to just the submitting user. That’s something people should keep in mind.
For me, accumulated karma is mostly an indicator of how long someone’s been here and how much they’ve participated. Common use seems to be mostly upvote; downvotes aren’t rare, but a pretty neutral comment is likely to get 2-10 karma, and only a pretty bad one gets into the negative range. And posters who routinely get downvoted (for whatever reasons) likely either change or leave, so there’s a strong selection toward an expectation of more upvotes than downvotes.
I find karma changes for a comment I make is somewhat useful—mostly it indicates how popular is the post I’m commenting on, but secondarily it gives me a sense of whether I’m commenting on the points that most readers find salient in the post.
I’ll admit that votes carry more emotional weight than I want them to—I know they’re meaningless internet points, and a rather noisy signal of popularity, but it still feels nice when something gets more upvotes than normal, and hurts a bit when I’m downvoted.
You make a good point I forgot to add: the function karma on an article or comment serves in providing info to other users, as opposed to just the submitting user. That’s something people should keep in mind.