This is my understanding of how karma maps to social prestige:
People with existing social prestige will be given more karma for a post or a comment than if it was written by someone unknown to the community.
Posts with more karma tend to be more interesting, which helps boost the author’s prestige because more people will click on a post with higher karma.
Comments with high karma are viewed as more important.
Comments with higher karma than other comments in the same thread are viewed as the correct opinion.
Virtually nobody looks at how much karma you’ve got to figure out how seriously to take your opinions. This is probably because by the time you have accumulated enough for it to mean something, regulars will already associate your username with good content.
I’m not surprised to learn that is the case.
This is my understanding of how karma maps to social prestige:
People with existing social prestige will be given more karma for a post or a comment than if it was written by someone unknown to the community.
Posts with more karma tend to be more interesting, which helps boost the author’s prestige because more people will click on a post with higher karma.
Comments with high karma are viewed as more important.
Comments with higher karma than other comments in the same thread are viewed as the correct opinion.
Virtually nobody looks at how much karma you’ve got to figure out how seriously to take your opinions. This is probably because by the time you have accumulated enough for it to mean something, regulars will already associate your username with good content.