Ask Lemmy

Ooooh! We're doing alternatives! Oh boy!

Okokokok: so, you get one vote point every week for every comment or post that has a net positive of upvotes by other subscribed users in the community. Every net negative post or comment loses a point. You can use those votes either for an up or down, in any community, but you have a balance reflected by your positive contributions as determined by your peers.

This is a horrible idea in many ways, but also a great idea in some ways:

Positives:

• New accounts have very little voting power. Established users have voting power proportional to their positive contribution to their communities, as determined by their peers.
• It would stop the practice of creating a throw-away accounts only for the purpose of harassing via voting. It would require an extra step of creating a post or comment that at least one other user upvotes. If a user used one of their other accounts just to upvote a comment by another of their accounts, it's a zero-sum game: they've spent a vote just to get a vote.
• Established, positive commenters and posters would have proportionate voting power.
• It would encourage constructive, positive engagement.
• It's entirely relative to the community, and would encourage content relevant to and popular with that community.

Negatives:

• Established, positive commenters and posters would have proportionate voting power. This would in theory be encouraging an oligarchy, although since voting is post-scarcity, and since voting is one-time per account, it can't really be translated into exercise-able "power."
• It would encourage constructive, positive engagement. In other words, it'd discourage dissent or unpopular opinions, reinforcing the echo chamber.
• It's entirely relative to the community, and would encourage content relevant to and popular with that community. Same as above: it encourages pandering.
• Someone could still have bot accounts that only have to post or comment such that they have a net positive "income," and then can just sit there and accrue voting points over time, accumulating enough points to still perform voting harassment.
• It's biased against lurkers; some people aren't social, and shouldn't be punished for it. This would take away their voices.

I think some of the negatives could be addressed; e.g., vote accrual only happens for comments or posts that are under a month old: you can only accrue a max of 4 points per post or comment. This would address the first and fourth negative. However, I don't think anything could resolve the echo chamber, or the other negatives. Anyway, there's my bad idea.