this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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Exactly - Reddit specifically and intentionally uses dark patterns to reinforce the importance of karma at every turn. The first interaction that someone has with Reddit is usually "you don't have enough karma to post/comment/vote in this subreddit." There are secret communities and public awards for high karma earners. There is a frontpage dedicated to rapid karma-earning posts. There is no disincentive for karma farming reposts, and subreddits are actually punished for reducing reposts. Karma is commoditized.
Here the votes still matter, but the algorithm is public and users can and do sort in a variety of ways to discover new and relevant content. There is no single "front-page"
Unfortunately, on reddit - when subreddits restrict new posters or low karma commenters, they're just trying to mitigate the impact of trolls and bots and people making new accounts. It's not about being elitist.
What's the difference? They shouldn't be doing it.
They will do it so long as not doing it greatly increases the amount of busywork, spam moderation and troll moderation.
Then they are unfit to be moderators because they are subtracting value from free discussions. I would much rather have to little moderation than lazy heavy handed moderation.
In this case, its automation. It's also a partial response to Reddits ineffectual moderator system. No-one is gunna spend all day monitoring comments from trolls and spammers on basic communities usually flooded with comments. I can't see anyone especially truly engaged to do so in (for example, and I have no idea if these communities do this) in r/aww or r/pics or r/jokes or r/videos, which are just pretty basic subreddits that aren't really hobbyist.
Whereas say, r/AskHistorians or some video game community or a music subgenre community likely will by their hobbyist nature attract more engaged moderators.
Yeah because reddit (and Lemmy) are different to what a lot of people are used to. Users coming from things like tiktok or Facebook need to lurk a bit before posting so they get a feel for the culture.
It is gatekeepy but its nessesary in my opinion. However I can see how the karma restrictions are super jarring for new users since it takes a while to get especially if your comments are always buried.
There used to be a saying on early image boards that have helped me more times than I can remember. "Lurk moar", it has served me well. Even getting used to office culture. It helps to not make any faux pas that would make it harder to get along.
At some point so much right in the actual social guide to using the internet
The karma restrictions seems at first a good idea but can be bypassed very easily. The bots steal older popular posts or pictures and repost them.
Sure, but it offers at least some protection.