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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

That would segment Reddit immediately into at least four communities among the gold/ungold and supports-highlighting/opposes-highlighting axes, and I suspect many members of those communities are going to be violently passionate that only their position is acceptable for True Reddit Supporters and that the heretics must burn.

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Judging from the comment thread[1], it looks like that's already happening.

The top rated comment starts, "As someone who donated..."

And from the second highest comment, 'I will not be "donating" money to a corporation which has shown no real initiative in growing the site.'

That said, I think any drama would just be background noise for the vast majority of users. People go to reddit for entertaining links and funny or interesting comments. Drama doesn't threaten that.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/cotz3/this_wa...

Maybe being able to buy virtual swag might be a better way to go for Reddit, in a similar fashion to Dungeons & Dragons Online.

Tiny [icons] of narwhal tusks, lolcats or rashers of bacon that could appear next to your name could prove quite popular with the community. Similarly, being able to not only upvote, downvote, but also put a 'hex' on a comment I could see as being an amusing pastime. Not to mention, they already have the beginnings of an achievement system in place with the awards panel. I could see them greatly expanding that with quest style achievements; "posted 5 links", say, to earn /reddit/credits.

I'm not sure how it would affect the community, but the revenue possibilities are endless.

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