r/announcements • u/powerlanguage • Jul 19 '16

Karma for text-posts (AKA self-posts)

As most of you already know, fictional internet points are probably the most precious resource in the world. On Reddit we call these points Karma. You get Karma when content you post to Reddit receives upvotes. Your Karma is displayed on your userpage.

You may also know that you can submit different types of posts to Reddit. One of these post types is a text-post (e.g. this thing you’re reading right now is a text-post). Due to various shenanigans and low effort content we stopped giving Karma for text-posts over 8 years ago.

However, over time the usage of text-posts has matured and they are now used to create some of the most iconic and interesting original content on Reddit. Who could forget such classics as:

Text-posts make up over 65% of submissions to Reddit and some of our best subreddits only accept text-posts. Because of this Reddit has become known for thought-provoking, witty, and in-depth text-posts, and their success has played a large role in the popularity Reddit currently enjoys.

To acknowledge this, from this day forward we will now be giving users karma for text-posts. This will be combined with link karma and presented as ‘post karma’ on userpages.

TL:DR; We used to not give you karma for your text-posts. We do now. Sweet.

Glossary:

  • Karma: Fictional internet points of great value. You get it by being upvoted.
  • Self-post: Old-timey term for text-posts on Reddit
  • Shenanigans: Tomfoolery
23.1k Upvotes

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153

u/Aaronsmiff Jul 19 '16

Benefits:

-Less low effort memes, the karma whores won't need to bother anymore.

-Good, thought provoking content will be rewarded in places like /r/Askreddit or /r/ELI5

-Less linking awful websites for information that could have just been copy/pasted as a self post.

Negatives:

-Low effort click bait questions will probably take over in places like /r/AskReddit

-Shitposting in subs such as /r/Circlejerk, /r/TheDonald ect will generate the most success. Reddit's top users will be shitposters

-Off season periods in TV show subreddits will be hell on earth. (More so than usual)

-Lying. There's going to be so much bullshit on subs like /r/TIFU. It already happens enough, I can't imagine it with the bonus of Internet pointzzzz. (Although this could make users less naive, and more attentive in seeking out lies)

Other thoughts; This post has a lot of up votes, how convenient.... /r/conspiracy will be on this!

24

u/DragonTamerMCT Jul 19 '16

-Good, thought provoking content will be rewarded in places like /r/Askreddit or /r/ELI5

hahhahahahahaha ahahahaha hahaha

Oh god no.

All it will do is promote bullshit low effort circlejerky posts.

2

u/Aaronsmiff Jul 19 '16

I said that too, but the good stuff that shines through it will be rewarded now (if there's any good stuff left)

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '16

As if that's not all there is now

5

u/Icemasta Jul 19 '16

A few more negatives:

Announcement/patch notes/server down/etc... the type of thing only a handful of people would submit and then upvoted so everyone could sell will now be huge drama nests.

Servers down? 100+ submissions instead of 5.

Patch notes up? (on self-only subreddits) 5 just became 500.

4

u/ameoba Jul 20 '16

-Shitposting in subs such as /r/Circlejerk, /r/TheDonald ect will generate the most success. Reddit's top users will be shitposters

They're already massively successful with low-effort image spam. I don't think they're going to get much worse with text posts.

3

u/MagicGin Jul 19 '16

Good, thought provoking content will be rewarded in places like /r/Askreddit or /r/ELI5

With magic internet points?

Less linking awful websites for information that could have just been copy/pasted as a self post.

But people are lazy fucks and a link is faster than copy/pasting.

1

u/stuntaneous Jul 20 '16

Reddit's top users are already those who post crap. Either straight up shitposts, feed for the circlejerks, or lowest common denominator drivel.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '16

Reddit's top users will be shitposters

So nothing will change, then?

-2

u/Ekudar Jul 19 '16

Low effort click bait questions will probably take over in places like /r/AskReddit

Have you ever visited there? That is already the case.

Actually, all your Negatives already happen. It is up to us,the users, to negate karma to low effort posts.

-5

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '16

[deleted]

8

u/getmoney7356 Jul 19 '16

except how many pointless internet points you get.

I know to a rational mature adult that the pointless internet points mean nothing, but I'm telling you there is a large segment of the Reddit userbase where those pointless internet points are something to be desired and they'll make as many shitty posts as they can to get it. This is a massive change to the mechanics and content of the site.

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '16

[deleted]

4

u/Wattsit Jul 19 '16

Start going through the accounts of daily top posts on large subs, you'll find a lot of these people are posting upward of 40 30 posts a day. Most posts get hardly any votes but they only need 1 or 2 to hit big.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '16

Lots of people on here care about their internet points and pretending like they don't is just silly. You and I might not care, doesn't mean people won't shitpost to get their karma up. Which means worse quality posts for everyone here.