I see the point Sam's trying to make by doing this, but does Reddit have a contribution problem? Hardly! If millions of people contribute to make a site awesome voluntarily, for no greater reward than the attention of their peers (and a desire to build a great community), introducing a new incentive might very well alter the magic bit that makes Reddit so great.
What about directing this 10% towards philanthropic or political goals instead? So by contributing my time towards making Reddit better, I'd get that attention I want and help make the world a better place.
This could have a dramatic impact on reddit's raison d'être, making it a powerful (and defensible) power for good.
The problem is that once you monetize my time explicitly in any way, it both transforms the class that activity is in (no longer recreational!) and causes me to evaluate how successful that time is at being monetized (worse than mowing my neighbors lawn!)
The reality is that the mere suggestion of reddit doing this has already caused me to start reevaluating my relationship with reddit, because they've made it so obviously commercial.
I think reddit may have seriously blundered in this idea.
Most accusations of "circle jerking" I hear there consist of shock and horror that certain communities seem to have certain beliefs/thoughts/ideas in common and that they were dared to be disagreed with. (I.e, you really should not be all that surprised when you try to float progressive ideas in /r/republican, or vice versa, and find your comments downvoted)
It's to the point where I almost reflexively downvote anyone on Reddit who brings it up, since 99 out of 100 times, it's a complaint that they were disagreed with, rather than anything that adds to the discussion at hand. (Which, IMO, is the explicit purpose of downvotes)
I think there have been some incidents which were dangerous and notorious. In particular, the misidentification of the Boston Bomber was one case that attracted mainstream attention[1].
[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/reddit-regrets-role-in-online-witch...
> The boston bombing error is known and passed down like folklore from old members to new, keeping similar actions on check.
No it's not. The Boston bombing thing was just the most high-profile example in a long line of similar problems. Here's one from before the Boston Bombing:
http://gawker.com/5751581/misguided-internet-vigilantes-atta...
And here's one from after:
http://www.theawl.com/2013/09/i-was-a-hated-hipster-meme-and...
This is possibly the most hated guy on Reddit right now. Not whoever started the whole boston bombing witchhunt. Not someone who actually did anything harmful. Just a guy who got "unfair karma". And unlike with the boston bombing, there is zero self-awareness about how idiotic this whole thing is (and how common it is for anyone remotely popular on that site to manipulate votes in some way). It's a sad display, and I cannot imagine what this would turn into with more concrete monetary incentives.
Voting accomplishes two things - giving/taking meaningless points, and determining where (and if) your posts are ranked on the board.
The problem with Unidan is that he used a botnet to cheat the system. When you're on the new queue or have just commented in a large thread, a single vote or two can be the difference between ending up at the top of the thread (or board) or never being seen at all.
It's not about the points, it's about the fact that the voting system is pretty damned sacred to Reddit. By breaking pretty much one of the only global rules, he cheated people out of a chance to have their own posts/comments seen. We can only speculate as to how long it was going on.
Creating "useful content" is not a valid excuse for usurping community for your own self-aggrandizement. Even HN has a voting ring detector. Why do you think that is?
Which I find strange, since he actually delivered very high quality content and was overall a boon to the community.
It doesn't make the incident any less notorious though (which I guess is why it was remembered so well).
It sure is easy to point out your own flaws when you're in someone else's body.
This was the first thing I thought about.
If you check /r/subredditdrama and /r/karmaconspiracy you can see literally hundreds of exemples where people go absolutely nuts for imaginary internet points: coordinate and downvote other people's content, mods with massive subreddit bans, etc. Can you think about what they will do for cash?
Sure, but this is differs little from cable news, content mills, or many blogs. Fortunately, subreddits make it easy to filter-out the shallow echo chambers.
What if they mean to reward non karma based activities on the site? Moderators for instance.
IANAL
A cryptocurrency backed by shares in reddit would probably be treated as a derivative security, and would almost certainly be regulated by the Securities Exchange Commission.
Additionally--not sure what "former SEC" lawyer they talked to, but unless they structure this offering very carefully, they will run afoul of both state and federal securities registration laws. If they structure the offering to avoid those laws (which is legal, i.e., as a private or in-state offering), then the cryptocurrency would be so limited in its availability that only an extremely tiny handful of users would ever be able to own it unless Reddit goes public.
First it seems like a massive regulatory headache. From Reddit's perspective, are they going to send out 1099s to their users? Will they require them to have real names and addresses on file? From a user perspective, will I need to worry about my Reddit activity when filling out my tax returns.
It is also a gamble for Reddit as there is a psychological principle know as the overjustification effect [1] that is at play here. Once a person is paid for a habit they previously only did for enjoyment, the habit will generally become less enjoyable. Reddit turns from a hobby to a job.
Finally there is the issue of "circle jerking". Reddit is already notorious for its annoying and dangerous group think. Can you imagine if people could actually turn their karma into straight cash? The incentive will be even higher to simply echo back to the group what you think it wants to hear.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect