Another Reddit refugee here,

I think we’re all familiar with the Karma system on Reddit. Do you think Lemmy should have something similar? Because I can see cases for and against it.

For: a way to tracking quality contributions by a user, quantifying reputation. Useful to keep new accounts from spamming communities.

Against: Often not a useful metric, can be botted or otherwise unearned (see u/spez), maybe we should have something else?

What do you all think?

  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    We absolutely need a trust system. I don’t know if it should be a Karma system.

    Spam-bots are taking up hundreds-of-thousands of usernames across the federation. It is clear that they cannot be trusted.

    ChatGPT and GPT4 has made it easier for bots to automatically write comments as well, a few groups with money can make realistic-looking accounts with different posting patterns / writing styles automatically.

    The problem of spam and automated-comments will only get harder moving forward. I don’t know if Karma is a good enough system for us, but its better than nothing.

    • naoseiquemsou@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      What’s preventing GPT-based bots to earn karma by writing real-looking comments?

      The future of the internet really seems like a dark one…

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        But programs are tasked by their creators, and if their long-term goal is spam, then we know what their tactics are.

        A GPT-bot designed to have good discussions with the community would get upvotes and karma (at least, to the best extent that these programs can do). A GPT-bot designed to spam the community with links or shill a product would probably get downvotes.

        So distinguishing between good-bots and bad-bots is still karma / reputation management.