If you participate in a mud-slinging contest, even as the winner you're still likely to end up full of mud.

I love wedrifid's response to ialdabaoth, and am considering implementing it myself.

It's not a bad response. While I assert that wedrifid's (and hyporational's) assumptions about why I'm doing this are incorrect, you all have no reason to trust that assertion. From your perspective, this could easily be a simple grudge or whining or social ploy, and it makes good sense to respond to it the way you are.

That said, I'll continue to take whatever karma hit you impose, because my own karma is less important than bringing attention to this sort of thing. I bring attention to my own case instead of other people's because I'm closest to my own, but I have frequently thought "I can't be the only one experiencing this", and that has motivated me to complain rather than simply going away.

Part of the problem is that I have three different classes of situations in which I will post about karma.

Class 1 is when I notice that I am confused. My post will typically convey something like "why was this voted down?". I fear that wedrifid has mistaken those posts for an attempt at shaming, but my actual intent was to say, "I thought karma was supposed to be used like {this}, but I see it being used like {that}. Please help me correct my understanding of karma's purpose?"

Case 2 is when I have a reasonably strong suspicion that karma is being abused. My post will typically convey something like "is this really how we want to behave as a community?". I can understand why another person's view might blend these together with case 1, but they actually are completely different. When wedrifid posted his admonition/threat, I took that opportunity to re-evaluate how I was communicating in Case 1 and Case 2. Hopefully I'm doing a little better.

Case 3 is when I am tired, and lonely, and perhaps a little irrational, and feel somewhat persecuted. My post will typically convey something like "why are you doing this to meeeeee?". I can see why another person's view might blend these together with case 1 and case 2, but unfortunately when I'm in that kind of mood, my rational facilities are not operating at peak performance. Whenever I do this, I actually APPRECIATE people like you and wedrifid downvoting that post to oblivion, because it provides useful social feedback not do to that shit. As an imperfectly rational being, I must rely on the social feedback of other imperfectly rational beings to improve my rationality.