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rimu@piefed.social

What PieFed's "social credit system" actually does (join.piefed.social)

submitted 2 weeks ago by rimu@piefed.social to c/piefed_meta@piefed.social

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Just like Reddit, PieFed keeps track of how many upvotes and downvotes your posts receive and the net value of all the votes received is called your “reputation” (Reddit calls it “karma”). This is not shown in the UI anywhere (except to administrators), to dissuade the karma-farming behavior common on Reddit. Reputation is not a game or status symbol, it is a mechanic for enhancing trust and safety on PieFed.

Some people have criticized PieFed for this, calling it a “social credit system” similar to the one in China so I thought it’d be good to explain exactly what it does so people don’t need to guess or rely on hearsay.

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[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Maybe the issue is the name? "Low Quality" makes it sound like you'd rather not have the community at all, but reading the description it sounds like the appropriate targets are Meme communities. "OkBuddy***" "***Circlejerk," etc.

It's not likely you'd often see productive or interesting conversations there, where rep would matter. They're mostly ha ha funny image posts. It doesn't make them useless, it just means they're disposable.

[–] Vicinus@piefed.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I don't particularly care for memes and as a general rule I would agree with you, but, for example, history memes with pugjesus had some good and informative posts, comments, discussions.

My potential issue is related to dictating what is considered "worthwhile" as an absolute, from a single unalterable source. If every admin can make/alter/delete list(s) and the list(s) is transparent, I don't see an issue with it.

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh yeah fair point, PugJesus is pretty chill. It's a blurry line to draw where memes end and srs bsns begins.

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

"It's a fine line between stupid and clever." -Spinal Tap

[–] Kierunkowy74@piefed.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

(...)history memes with pugjesus had some good and informative posts, comments, discussions.

At least PieFed has thought already about it: (from OP's blogpost)

In some communities, which the instance admin designates as ‘low quality’, upvotes on posts do not increase reputation (upvotes on comments on those posts still do, though).

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 1 points 2 weeks ago

Oh I missed the bolded part, my bad.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 weeks ago

had some good and informative posts, comments, discussions

It was also heavily curated and controlled. You likely didn't see any of the comments pointing out omissions and inaccuracies since they'd be hidden and the users shadowbanned.

Which is part of the reason keywords on an instance level can be a poor way to control and curate content. It's just going to miss those who know how to game and bypass these systems and use it as a weapon as part of some kind of moderation arms race.

[–] Kierunkowy74@piefed.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Call them "Shitpost" communities and call it a day.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

I was about to type basically the same thing. There has to be a more professional word than "shitpost" though, surely.