For apps, a multi-level voting system would work. For example, a rating should have a star system, one to five, for features, stability, karma. One could have one star for stability if keeps on crashing, but a five karma to encourage the developer. Also, it could be nice and stable and very usable but lack a lot of features that they want, but want to encourage the developer.

Karma could be called "like" or something similar, so one could convey the message of support for a lees then stable app. Encouraged, yes, promoted, no.

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For talk, I would very much like a tag-like system, such as +1, -1, thanks. Ideally, several tags would be great but that would make things hard to read and waste space. However, may posts could be reduced to "agreed" or "disagreed".

While not very helpful in promoting good posters, it would help in detecting trolling as a +10/-400 immediately clues to a special person. Maybe in green/red dots hinting percentage.

I have no idea how much good that would do, but it should separate the thanks system from the agreement.

Also, announcements should have thanking disabled. It's not fair, but it skews the results to no end. I am less than convinced with this one, there's no way to know which is an announcement.

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A better idea for Talk would be levels of thanks. For example, one could have Thanks > three levels. The normal button gives +1, but the user can enter a drop menu and actively thank for a good, lifesaving solution. Kind of like thread rating, those actually work (many have non onestar/fivestar rating).

Perhaps it would be good if the Thanks button could give fractions, say, 1/5 of a point (or whole point, then 5 and 15 and then divide by 5).

This way, the casual polite Thanks doesn't impact karma as much. OTOH, sometimes a "Thanks" isn't much when a person saves you a reflash or fixes something you've waiting for months.

In the end, it's down to responsible use.