I’ve been thinking about karma as a rough measure of community valuation. It is an expression of relative value, judged by answering questions like these:
Is this post worth the time it takes to read and understand?
Does this post add value to the community as a whole?
Can something interesting be learned from this post?
It also appears on LW that this value can be traded on. I have posted in a way that gained down-votes and criticism, but I was left with a sense of net gain. In this case commenters made excellent points helping me to shift my perspective on my topic and helping me to model the LW audience better. I paid for this education with karma (at least for a time). It was worth it.
I have seen other posters spend karma (perhaps unintentionally), gaining knowledge that would otherwise have required them spending time on reading the sequences.
Karma dynamics seem interesting. Has anyone modeled LW as a hive mind? If so, what are it’s goals and what role does karma play?
I’ve been thinking about karma as a rough measure of community valuation. It is an expression of relative value, judged by answering questions like these:
Is this post worth the time it takes to read and understand?
Does this post add value to the community as a whole?
Can something interesting be learned from this post?
It also appears on LW that this value can be traded on. I have posted in a way that gained down-votes and criticism, but I was left with a sense of net gain. In this case commenters made excellent points helping me to shift my perspective on my topic and helping me to model the LW audience better. I paid for this education with karma (at least for a time). It was worth it.
I have seen other posters spend karma (perhaps unintentionally), gaining knowledge that would otherwise have required them spending time on reading the sequences.