Fact is, the Lemmy ecosystem needs money to handle the growing server reqirements as more people migrate as well as the development cost of new features (I know Lemmy is OSS but the devs should still get some compensation for their effort).

Seeing how much some reddit users love awards so much that they cant stop giving money to Reddit to award posts protesting the api change, this could be a great way for users to voluntary support the ecosystem. It can be easily ignored by users not caring about them (clients could even add an option to hide them), but users liking the feature can go wild and this time the money goes to volunteers keeping this alive instead of greedy admins, power mods and investors.

Though there would be some big organization questions attached: attached:

  • Which server handles the payment? A centralized one, the one where the post was made or the one where the user giving the award account was created.
  • How will the money be shared between the Devs and the individual instances in a way that is fair but cant be abused easily.
  • justhach@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    2 years ago

    Can we leave the karma system and awards with Reddit? Allowing voting in comment sections for pseudo-moderation by the users is good, but when it turns into a scoring system the conversation devolves into a competition to see who can craft the most palatable opinion to get the most imaginary internet points.

    Despite all my thoughtful and helpful comments I made in my 11 years on reddit, you know what my top comment was?

    • Comes in
    • Kills the Queen
    • Tanks the economy
    • Leaves

    What a legacy.

    47k updoots, and 27 awards.

    • ttmrichter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      This right here.

      I used to (a very, very, very long time ago) contribute on StackOverflow. How much? I haven’t even logged in for over 7 years (and didn’t contribute a good two years before that) and my account is still in the top 0.71% overall.

      Let me tell you how I racked up that score.

      I monitored the site in off-hours (easy to do with my time zone). I found new questions for the most popular programming language on the site (back then this being Java). I then did what the asker should have done: I Googled. I then wrote an answer (a correct answer: this is important) and got first-responder points.

      And here’s the funny thing: I don’t program in Java. I hate the language. I know enough Java programming to be dangerous. VERY dangerous. But 18% of my points came from answering Java questions. A further 15% came from answering C++ questions which is at least a language I know … but also despise and won’t work with any longer.

      This is how easy it is to game fantasy Internet points: whether “karma” or “gold” or whatever you like. And if you start providing these fantasy Internet points you’re going to start attracting people for whom high numbers of them are important and they will do what I did to the detriment of the ecosystem. (I mean at least in my case my answers were right. Disingenuous that I of all people answered them, but at least correct. This is not the case for all points whores.)

  • nxfsi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    332·
    2 years ago

    I don’t want the comments section to look like the inner cabinet of the North Korean army

  • murphys_lawyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    343·
    2 years ago

    Could we like, not immediately talk about monetisation 1 month after leaving reddit? If you want to support your instance host, you can ask for a way to donate.

    • lesnake@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      98·
      2 years ago

      The hard truth is that long term, we likely need another way besides donations to keep the ecosystem alive.

  • Tigerfishy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 years ago

    I’m really not looking for a Reddit replica. And um, being rewarded for a good comment isn’t really something I need. Or anyone needs. I think getting a cookie for a good comment can be left behind

    Edit to add - I should have read the rest of the post more carefully, but I stand by my initial sentiment. Money needs to be funneled into those working hard on this, but I don’t know, I don’t want more and more Reddit features coming out

  • sma3in@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    2 years ago

    please no!! reddit looked like las vegas with that award system. terrible idea!

  • Marxine@lemmy.mlEnglish
    12·
    2 years ago

    I pass. Gamifying social interactions leads to abuse and lowers the quality of posts, comments, reports, etc. It’s a streamlined path to enshittification.

    Only user-provided 🏅🐭 awards here, at most.

    • oxf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      2 years ago

      Even “user-provided awards” should be kept out. It provides nothing substantial to the conversation.

      It’s like saying “This 👆”, “I agree”, or “Take my upvote!”, all of which can be expressed by simply voting on the comment, which actually has an impact.

      • Marxine@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Fully agreed. That’s why I said “at most” because that’s the worst I’d tolerate, but I still think upvoting is already enough.

  • Nima@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    2 years ago

    Please no rewards. This is not reddit. I think a donation system would be much better way to go about it.

    Let the content and conversations just happen. It’s more organic that way.

  • jacktherippah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    2 years ago

    I don’t want to see award speeches here on Lemmy. For example: OMG! THANK YOU FOR THE GOLD KIND STRANGER!!!1111

  • Alula@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 years ago

    I don’t believe that awards should exist on comments or posts, but i do want the devs to gain some money off of this.

    The best choice would probably be for them to set up ways to donate to them in my opinion .

    • warmaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      2 years ago

      The thing is, nobody donates. But they love their lucky charms. It’s just a dark pattern.

      • Alula@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Who knows what’ll happen if they actually do implement something like it

    • IDatedSuccubi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      I used them a couple of times, I like them; I use them when the post I REALLY like doesn’t have much upvotes. Like when I see post with 24 upvotes that deserves 400+ I give it gold, so the user will still feel happy.

      Disclaimer though, I received all my points from winning a big sub contest, I didn’t ever pay for them.

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    I don’t love the awards from Reddit, but I would like to see something like this (unpopular opinion, I know). Instances need funding.

    I don’t care about what the awards are themselves, I care about the way the funding works. I would love to see the funds split in a two tiered system.

    Here is a general example of my idea. When a award is purchased it gets split into two pots. One pot is a general pot that gets disbursed to those running the instances based on whatever metrics and intervals agreed upon. The other part gets assigned to the reward itself. So in this example let’s say an award costs one dollar. 90 cents would go to the pool to be split, the other 10 cents would be tied to the award. So if you award a post on an instance it goes specifically to that instance itself. Instances could even set a percent split with community moderators of the 10 cents. That way you could fund moderators (if that ever becomes needed)

    You could even split part of the award reward with the commentor assigned to it… but that puts a weird feeling in my gut and I feel like it is a bad idea to monetize the content itself.

    There is a lot you could do with this and a lot more would need to be fleshed out, so I am just thinking out loud.