Hello!

So I had this idea for a while already, but never really shared it (until in a comment earlier), and I think it's time to make a blog post. There's been a lot of trouble regarding upvotes - people tricking or forcing others into voting. I'm sure many authors are annoyed by those incidents because while they are trying to gain upvotes by writing and trying to improve their writing, others achieve it with force or other unfair methods. 

So my idea is - now don't throw rocks at me - to make an upvote more valuable. Maybe so that one upvote costs one or more karma points. (Let's just say it costs 5 karma points for instance). I think the biggest factor that contributed to those who tricked or forced others was that an upvote doesn't mean a lot to those who were tricked or forced. They'd probably be like "my gosh, if you're so desperate for an upvote, here you go" but still, they'd upvote. However, if an upvote was worth a few karma points then people would probably think twice before upvoting a story. Maybe a small window could pop up saying "this action costs xx karma points" or something similar to that. 

Of course the amount of upvotes would decrease a lot (since no one would be willing to spend karma points upvoting ANY story anymore), but wouldn't that also mean that each and every upvote would be sincere? If you like or love a story, I'm sure you'd be willing to spend a few karma points upvoting it. A good, or well written story will mostly have loyal readers who are more willing to spend those karma points to upvote than just a popular one of rather poor quality. The latter has many subscribers, but that doesn't mean each subscriber likes the story enough to spend those karma points. So this might help to raise the quality of featured stories as well. Do you get what I mean? Of course, this is a super simple example, but I just want you to know where I'm heading towards. 

I think, with upvotes being more valuable, people will also be more thoughtful when upvoting. 

What do you think of this idea?