Well, I feel like I’m from a different planet trying to understand this “karma whore” concept. Used FB once upon a time and I have strong opinions there, never used reddit, twitter, instagram or any of it so perhaps my mindset may seem naive. I guess my lack of social media experience led me to think in a practical way that responding with @ mentions several times in the course of conversations happening about observations in the comments would be more taxing and onerous for folks to whom I am responding than a discrete list where they could be notified that I saw and read the follow-up. I’m a very verbose person and I like to communicate gratitude but not just that…I also prefer to acknowledge when someone takes the time to have a multi-comment back and forth with me about veination of insect wings without the necessity of repeatedly typing their name again (and the necessity for them to click the observation and read the fourth, “thanks @_____ for that” ) when a simple way for them to know I saw the last comment would suffice.
Generally, I agree that effort and communication are paramount to community but practicality and efficiency are also important and tools can always be appropriately or inappropriately used.