Hiding karma would be specially relevant for people with low karma, who are new to the forum?
At the time we wrote the feature, we wanted to experiment with it for only some posts, and generally we often roll(ed) out features to power users first. Rather than having someone new to the site who just happened to discover it but wouldnāt be able to model the costs/ābenefits of turning on the feature.
I assume it can be disabled later one (in the post editor moderation options)?
No, actually. On the basis that karma does actually contribute a lot to the way people interact with comments, we wanted to avoid changing the system midway through a thread.
(TBC this really was a long time ago and I donāt necessarily endorse the decisions that past!me made here.)
If you do this, consider reaching out to us to ensure it isnāt completely broken.
I have published a post without karma visibility in the comments, and everything seems to be working fine. I thought the karma would only become invisible to me, but I see now it becomes invisible for everyone, so I can see why you implemented the feature such that one could not turn the visibility back on.
To clarify, my suggestion was about making karma invisible to the person activating the feature, in the same way that one can currently activate a feature to hide the names of users. In this case, I think it would make sense to make the karma invisible in all posts (not just in the ones published by the user activating the feature), and for it to be possible to turn on/āoff the feature whenever.
Again without defending past!meās decision, we deliberate thought it would be a bad idea to have some of the participants able to see karma and some unable to. Karma is an important part of the social landscape that some people would be missing.
Fair. I was not clear above, but, by āin the same way that one can currently activate a feature to hide the names of usersā, I meant that karma could be invisible by defaul if the feature is activated, but then show up once one hovers over the karma placeholder.
A thought I want to leave for posterity and because I just linked this conversation to someone: I really would like the comment hiding to also hide agree/ādisagree votes. Iām nervous about people feeling more pressure to disagree-vote in this world.
Also while Iām at it I should note that, as evidence of the feature being under-baked: someone reported it to me as a bug š
At the time we wrote the feature, we wanted to experiment with it for only some posts, and generally we often roll(ed) out features to power users first. Rather than having someone new to the site who just happened to discover it but wouldnāt be able to model the costs/ābenefits of turning on the feature.
No, actually. On the basis that karma does actually contribute a lot to the way people interact with comments, we wanted to avoid changing the system midway through a thread.
(TBC this really was a long time ago and I donāt necessarily endorse the decisions that past!me made here.)
I have published a post without karma visibility in the comments, and everything seems to be working fine. I thought the karma would only become invisible to me, but I see now it becomes invisible for everyone, so I can see why you implemented the feature such that one could not turn the visibility back on.
To clarify, my suggestion was about making karma invisible to the person activating the feature, in the same way that one can currently activate a feature to hide the names of users. In this case, I think it would make sense to make the karma invisible in all posts (not just in the ones published by the user activating the feature), and for it to be possible to turn on/āoff the feature whenever.
Again without defending past!meās decision, we deliberate thought it would be a bad idea to have some of the participants able to see karma and some unable to. Karma is an important part of the social landscape that some people would be missing.
I see, although I think one can argue it should not be possible to hide usersā names based on the same argument.
If I were defending my past decision, Iād say that youād probably hover over the usernames after reading and before you reply.
Fair. I was not clear above, but, by āin the same way that one can currently activate a feature to hide the names of usersā, I meant that karma could be invisible by defaul if the feature is activated, but then show up once one hovers over the karma placeholder.
Ah, I see. I donāt hate that at all.
A thought I want to leave for posterity and because I just linked this conversation to someone: I really would like the comment hiding to also hide agree/ādisagree votes. Iām nervous about people feeling more pressure to disagree-vote in this world.
Also while Iām at it I should note that, as evidence of the feature being under-baked: someone reported it to me as a bug š