Ask HN: A Karma API?
Anyone else think it would be interesting to carry your YC karma with you to other websites and have it synch?
The internet allows some respite from that. We can simply create an account and go on our merry way. Screw up? Start over!
Yes, it allows trolls to troll, but it also removes the anxiety of failure and dossiers. It's (one reason) why OpenID hasn't caught on - most people would rather NOT authenticate beyond reasonable doubt that they are who they say they are on the internet across sites. They don't want everything they've said to be traceable to them.
If this is an opt-in system built around a number of sites where you can share karma OpenID-style, you'll find people creating their own shell sites to boost their karma. Good for nothing. If it's a mandatory system in a few sites, you'll find users rebel. We choose our communities because we want to be there and we recognize that when we go to another community, we need to work to gain a reputation there.
1. I don't think the existence of reputation causes a great deal of anxiety in our society. In fact, until the advent of the Internet, this was largely how society functioned: you were known for what you had accomplished or failed to accomplish, for your associations, for your character or lack thereof. This is still largely the way things are, and I don't think most people think about it very much at all.
2. Drawing a corollary between anxiety over damage to your reputation due to poor performance at a previous job and anxiety because too many people down-voted you on Hacker News and now your karma score is distributed is...well...ridiculous. Hacker News isn't real life, and that little number by your username means pretty much nothing.
3. The proposed idea would not stop people from creating new accounts, fake accounts, etc. In no way would this inhibit anonymity, which seems to be what you're suggesting.
4. I doubt if most people would resist the idea that if they build a reputation in one community, it would be transferable to another community. People are lazy, and generally do not resist anything that makes life easier or more convenient for them.
Incidentally, I strongly doubt that any of the top 10 reasons why OpenID hasn't taken off are what you stated; people will give up just about anything for convenience sake. OpenID hasn't taken off because most people just don't care enough to try and understand it.
Again, just my .02 :-)
On OpenID, I think the main reason it hasn't taken off is because it's confusing, actually makes a sign-in process take longer and isn't supported widely enough to be anything but a deviation in the normal UI experience to date.
I think you're spot on with your points. Have another $0.02.
A "karma is hard - let's go shopping" comment would get a high rating on reddit and a negative rating here.
So your karma is tied to the site, and tells very little about how "popular" you would be elsewhere on the net.
I'd love to be able to slide surplus karma from dumb-but-popular things I've said to the underappreciated, more controversial comments I'm more proud of. :)
I'm not sure if that's what I mean -- but some posts seem to get more points just because they already have a lot of points.
When people mindlessly downmod some controversial but valid comment, some people who stand for free speech and connect with the validity of the comment might want to upmod it more than +1 and show their support. In such cases, the extra upmods should be in the form of karma transfer. It's analogous of throwing your reputation on the line and standing up for someone.
Call it with its real name: Democratic Dictatorship.
universally