I initially upvoted this comment, rather than leave a redundant one... except comment karma isn't visible now, so it can't be used as a straw poll.
Since I made this comment, I guess I better answer the actual question: Mmmmmm-kinda.
We spent a lot of time on this issue when Lesswrong was starting out, and didn't come to any real conclusions. Visible comment karma induces some pretty big cognitive biases, and 1-dimensional karma definitely encourages groupthink, but hiding it is just so damn annoying. I've been having a hard time distinguishing the factors of my annoyance from the "boo hiss UI change", "oh geez a feature I used to use is gone", from what annoyance that might be there from an actual poor design decision.
I'm definitely for experimentation, and weakly positive about hiding comment karma; but it's odd that such minor UI changes can so badly annoy users.
Comments
Yes, you're not alone. This is one of those short term effects (i.e. withdrawal), although I agree that it has been annoying.
I initially upvoted this comment, rather than leave a redundant one... except comment karma isn't visible now, so it can't be used as a straw poll.
Since I made this comment, I guess I better answer the actual question: Mmmmmm-kinda.
We spent a lot of time on this issue when Lesswrong was starting out, and didn't come to any real conclusions. Visible comment karma induces some pretty big cognitive biases, and 1-dimensional karma definitely encourages groupthink, but hiding it is just so damn annoying. I've been having a hard time distinguishing the factors of my annoyance from the "boo hiss UI change", "oh geez a feature I used to use is gone", from what annoyance that might be there from an actual poor design decision.
I'm definitely for experimentation, and weakly positive about hiding comment karma; but it's odd that such minor UI changes can so badly annoy users.
I'm in the "show karma only after voting" camp.