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.
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.