Each of your comments detracted from the conversation
Clever, but not true. The sarcastic ones did, I agree. But the second one started a thread of sum karma ~100. That's the opposite of detracting ;)
Clever, but not true. The sarcastic ones did, I agree. But the second one started a thread of sum karma ~100. That's the opposite of detracting ;)
1 - This makes the witty comeback a lesser strategy for obtaining karma.
2 - People who are aware of this will stop responding to trolls. Even if they publish a well-reasoned response to a troll, they will be giving them karma points. Since this is not a common feature of internet forums, this might be worth spelling out above an active comment form.
3 - The best strategy for karma is to advance the discussion somehow. Even if your point ends up exposing the point of view of people on the other side.
That sounds like a surefire way to encourage provocation (a.k.a trolling). If you make a deliberately provocative and clueless statement and n people take the time to exhaustively tell you why you're wrong (for which they get karma), I don't think you deserve any of the karma given to the comments you provoked.
Presumably at some point that ceases to be true for a sufficiently complicated and good system, but my guess is that we're up into AI-complete territory there.
I upmodded some of the answers you were given because they were informative and calmed the conversation down. That is the opposite of detracting.