https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/hmdwxs/karma_experiment/
created by venkman01 on 06/07/2020 at 19:02 UTC
232 upvotes, 87 top-level comments (showing 25)
Karma has been at the core of Reddit since its inception and has served well to recognize posts and comments. During that time, we have also come across new ideas to make karma available to those who bring value to communities with their participation. Today, we are testing one of these ideas with an experiment that lets redditors earn karma when they receive and give awards.
First, a bit on our goals with this change. We want to recognize awarding as a key part of the Reddit community and to drive more of it, while ensuring that existing systems like automod continue to run as before. Awarding is an important part of our direct-to-consumer revenue; it complements advertising revenue and gives us a strong footing to pursue our mission into the future. By giving awards, users not only recognize others but also help Reddit in its mission to bring more community and belonging to the world.
Next, we want to share how award receivers and award givers will get karma.
Receiving an award is a signal of recognition from another redditor. Therefore, receiving *any* award should earn a nominal amount of karma. Further, the recipient should get more karma when the award costs more. These two factors make up the experiment’s “awardee karma” calculation.
Award givers encourage others to create great content and they show their acumen when they recognize quality content early. Therefore, the experiment’s “awarder karma” calculation depends on 1) the coins used to give the award, and 2) how early the award was given relative to others.
We also want to call out a couple of salient points:
1. Award karma (for both awarders and awardees) is not given at a 1:1 ratio, as is the case with existing karma. Instead, we incorporated some fuzziness into the award karma calculations.
2. The experiment will be starting later today.
3. Users in the experiment will see their total karma include post, comment, awardee, and awarder karma. For users who are not in the experiment - rest assured that if this experiment becomes a permanent feature, everybody will get retroactive credit for award karma.
If you notice any issues and bugs, please check out the known ones at the end of this post.
We are excited to see how you all will use awarding and karma together to enhance participation and community on Reddit.
PS: If you’re a moderator wondering how this will affect your tools, check out our post from earlier today[1].
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/hmd17x/karma_experiment/
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2020 at 19:39 UTC
165 upvotes, 7 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2020 at 19:27 UTC
84 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I have a couple of questions:
Aside from the topic, thank you all so much for always bringing new updates and refreshing the site as a whole!
Comment by eaglebtc at 06/07/2020 at 21:10 UTC
41 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Many people in Moderator News voiced concerns that this will lead to increased karma-farming.
What is the value-add of this feature?
Visual change: For the length of the experiment, award karma will be added to the total karma and shown as a separate category in the user profile.
I am concerned that older iterations of the Reddit comment API will begin reporting the elevated karma count and only a newer API will show the breakdown.
Comment by douko at 06/07/2020 at 19:52 UTC
50 upvotes, 5 direct replies
How do you see this **not** leading to buying high karma via awards?
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2020 at 19:41 UTC
42 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by UnholyDemigod at 06/07/2020 at 19:46 UTC
89 upvotes, 4 direct replies
We want to recognize awarding as a key part of the Reddit community
Oh, horseshit. You want people to be able to buy karma. Don't insult our intelligence.
and to drive more of it
That's the reason you want it done. That's the only reason.
Comment by lazydictionary at 07/07/2020 at 03:26 UTC
10 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I cannot properly articulate how much I dislike this and think it is the antithesis of the site I loved for the past 11+years.
Comment by schizoHD at 06/07/2020 at 20:02 UTC
27 upvotes, 1 direct replies
We want to recognize awarding as a key part of the Reddit community and to drive more of it, ...
Comment by Daxidol at 07/07/2020 at 08:54 UTC
9 upvotes, 1 direct replies
P2W Reddit now.. lol.
That's enough, I'm out. Been fun.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2020 at 22:33 UTC
16 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Groundbreaking-Log95 at 07/07/2020 at 11:52 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Sounds like you just made an official way to buy karma.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2020 at 19:55 UTC
19 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by shabutaru118 at 06/07/2020 at 22:14 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
direct-to-consumer revenue
Direct *from* consumer...
Comment by xynix_ie at 06/07/2020 at 21:38 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is complex. I'm in the software world and I know how users work.
99.9% are wonderful and enjoy our experience.
.1% are going to muck it all up for everyone else.
Just keep that in mind.
Lay the traps early on to prevent Random from creating dual accounts and filling it with coins awarding Random's B's account to fluff it up. Also Random can just dump coins and award every comment Random sees. Both of Random's accounts will be fluffed with zero credibility and zero real effort into this platform.
So I hope you guys already did the back end work to prevent such loop holes, which will absolutely happen, from happening. I hope you're planning for the .1%.
Comment by lilbigmouth at 06/07/2020 at 19:43 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Would this affect the posts being awarded's karma as well? Generally awarded posts have a large number of upvotes anyway, but that is not always the case.
Comment by Kno010 at 06/07/2020 at 22:50 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Does this mean that posts/comments with awards will appear to have more upvotes? Or does it only affect the karma on user profiles?
Doesn’t this make it possible to buy karma? Pay to win?
Comment by Cowsgomoo414 at 07/07/2020 at 01:29 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This actually sounds like an interesting implementation... I feel like it will be a cool encouragement to actually use my coins I’ve been hoarding for so long.
Will this replace the gliding trophies that come from giving gold to a certain amount of people?
Comment by TotesMessenger at 07/07/2020 at 09:37 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^(Info[2] ^/ ^Contact[3])*
3: /message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger
Comment by FireMaker125 at 07/07/2020 at 10:51 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is gonna end really badly lol
Comment by The_314_Guy at 07/07/2020 at 17:52 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Reminder that awards in AskReddit[1] alone have paid for server hosting for the next century and a half. You are not contributing to the well-being of Reddit by gilding posts; you are only contributing to its greed.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/gilded/
Comment by Infinityand1089 at 07/07/2020 at 19:08 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Awesome, now the minimum karma to post feature is useless. I understand wanting to increase revenue, but you just made reddit P2W...
Comment by YannisALT at 09/07/2020 at 13:32 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
u/venkman01, This is awesome I have purchased coins on two of my accounts to give to users in my subs. Please sign me up.
*everybody will get retroactive credit for award karma.*
What about if the coins were purchased and given months ago? How retroactive is the retroactive?
Comment by throwaway69764 at 07/07/2020 at 08:51 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Lol reddit is now officially pay2win lmao
What a joke this site has become
Comment by jmxd at 06/07/2020 at 19:56 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
lame
Comment by TitansXterminator at 07/07/2020 at 05:04 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
if this feature comes out, will people who received awards earlier get karma?or just people who get awards after the feature comes out?i think you should give karma to people who've gotten awards in the past as-well