I didn't say it was strictly meaningless or negligibly meaningful.

Nor did I say you said that. You said this:

But past a certain point -- somewhere in the 200-500 range -- more karma just doesn't matter very much when assessing a user account.

And I replied with this:

If karma isn't very meaningful past a certain count, why keep track of it at all?

My apologies if you feel I rephrased you inaccurately, or missed your meaning.

The reasons for not having an explicit "vetted" status in lieu of accumulating karma are to a certain extent historical -- it wasn't thought of when the LW karma system was implemented, since that was adapted whole-hog from the Reddit codebase. I think the reason why such a change hasn't been made in the meantime is three-fold: (i) it would obviate the "Top Contributor, 30 Days" status incentive (the most feasible way to top that list is to write highly upvoted front page articles), (ii) it would obviate any loss-aversion-motivated engagement induced by each account's "karma in the last 30 days" score; and (iii) on general "if it ain't broke don't fix it" grounds.

To the system being historical: "That's the way we've always done it" isn't a very good reason for any policy or behavior to continue.

To (i) and (ii): Keep 30-day karma and ditch cumulative karma. No need to obviate anything.

To (iii): Begging the question.

Yes, churches win at creating socially cohesive communities. If your complaint is that that karma system induces undue (in your view) social cohesiveness, my response is, "feature, not bug".

Social cohesive is fine, of course. I agree it is a feature. And it is great!

It (social cohesiveness) shouldn't take priority over adherence to reality. When it does, it's buggy. And it is what happens in the church. In my experience, they value "unity" over rationality. At LW, that is a clear no-no. (I agree it is a no-no. Make sure you are correct first; only then be unified. Lest dogma tends to ensue.)

If you suspect that the harmfulness of the system outweighs the usefulness, set some standards for harmfulness and usefulness and then collect some evidence for and against that hypothesis.

This is way outside my level of interest in, or commitment to, LW. I've given what I believe to be a reasonable criticism of the karma system (one that you mention has been independently noted many times) and made what I believe to be an accurate and helpful analogy (i.e. how "karma" works in the church).

It's on the record for anyone who is interested to do with it what they'd like, or ignore it altogether.

Keep in mind that by design, the biggest rewards go to high-quality front page posts (like this one criticizing time spent kibitzing on LW).

One of my favorite posts. Though I would say reading and interacting on LW is really good for rationality novices -- like me.

At some point, it does become a bit of an anti-rational engagment. For me, in this thread, that time is now.

Tap.