Elitism is the new black? A karma whoring social network idea

[Raphael]

Time and again I read comments here on HN about new features with the catch that they are only open to users of a certain karma threshold, so as to keep a standard of quality. The "gigs" thread comes to mind. Hey that's cool; I think we can all get behind a little elitism, especially when karma points are being thrown around like something really throwable.

So, I'm proposing the Mecca of elitist social networking sites. Any page created can be assigned karma thresholds for viewing, commenting, voting, whatever. To place a widget onto your page, you must meet its karma requirements. Want to view my new page? You must be this karmic to enter. Want to read my latest hack? That will cost you 1 point deposited to my account.

But those were not very good examples; there isn't any point in restricting your audience. But for abilities such as embedding pictures and video that can be abused, the karma requirements would be set very high by the karmic gods themselves (the top 100 users).

[Flemlord]

I'm a Hacker News newbie. What pages are you talking about that require karma thresholds? And what are the thresholds?

[dood → Flemlord]

I presume the poster was referring to the idea, not this site specifically. If there are any they're a well kept secret.

[Raphael → dood]

Downmodding and polling are reserved for those of higher karma.

[aston → Raphael]

Don't forget choosing your own top bar color. And getting your name highlighted in orange.

[Flemlord → Raphael]

Ah! I thought they changed their minds about allowing downmodding. Heh.

[dood → Raphael]

Ah, I was forgetting polling, right you are.

[vegashacker → Flemlord]

The first time I heard about this idea was here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=139461

[PStamatiou]

http://clipgarden.com lets you assign credits (okay, it's not karma as credits can be bought in addition to earned but..) to videos you upload so people have to pay that much to you to view it. pretty neat imo.

[allenbrunson]

this struck me as fairly absurd at first, but the more i think about it, the more i think i'd probably get sucked right in. the designers could busy themselves adding more and more ways for people with high karma to influence the site.

it would depend largely on the first few people admitted into the inner circle, though. pick the wrong people, and you'd end up with a mess more catty than a fourth grade schoolyard.

i don't participate all that much here, but i have to admit that i got an abnormally big rush from a comment i made the other day that got a totally unexpected 15 upvotes. this site makes you worry more about how you're being perceived than any other online hangout i can think of.

[TrevorJ]

A website-as-MMO. Saints preserve us!

[dood → TrevorJ]

Taken far enough it quickly becomes a very strange type of self-modifying or 'nomic' game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic], where those with the karma get to make the rules about how karma is made, transferred, destroyed.

I'm very curious about the limits of this kind of voting determing the content, permissions and abilities of users to a web site, and the point where gamability becomes a fatal problem.

You could take it stupidly far, and have the highest karma users be able to alter the source code of the site or make similar deep structural changes. If I had the time to learn Arc it'd be great fun to hack the HN source to support this kind of tomfoolery.

[kf → dood]

I'd play...

I recommend pure Nomic as a geek drinking game.

[Raphael → dood]

Well, the idea was that functionality would be contained within modular widgets, like facebook apps.

[dood → Raphael]

Sure, I just enjoy stretching ideas to breaking point to see what happens. I really like the idea though, it'd be an interesting project.

[jauco → dood]

Hmmm, in that case wouldn't the elite install rules to keep them elite, and keep all others out?

[jfno67 → jauco]

I think not. The elite derive value from the masses, and they keep the masses interested with the possibility for them to become elite.

[jauco → jfno67]

I wrote a long and elaborate post here about why you where wrong, but then realised that in essence the system already works this way. With y combinator as the elite.

So while I'm stubborn enough to maintain that, of course, theoretically you are totally wrong(democracy vs one party systems and all that) in practice you are absolutely right :-)

[TrevorJ → dood]

it would be the entire 'web in a microcosm. Karma instead of the dollar though.