I believe that the lack of information on reddit results in a couple very important things.

Anonymity. It's good. It's not facebook. A hot chick has no more clout than an ugly, basement dwelling, one eyed cyclops. People don't know who you are so you are judged by the quality of your posts/comments. People also feel welcome to discuss a variety of topics without their mother, brother, professor, or fuckbuddy judging the "real" them by these comments.

Unfortunately, they put in a karma count. This is why karma is so damn important. It is the only thing that allowed you to quickly judge a user. As it turned out, that singular number that was less about the quality of your posts/comments and more about if you posted/commented using the right words or in the right amount of time. Enter: people who say nothing but the "right" words.

Hubski allows you to judge a user based on a myriad of different points. I can immediately tell whether or not I follow someone or they follow me. I have a short description that gives me more information. Even leaving this blank gives me some information about the user. I can tell how many tags or people they follow. I can see the number of people that follow them. I can see how many badges they have given and received. All these points come together to create a comprehensive look at each Hubski user. It also takes away the ultra importance of any given number. Is someone who has a few followers but a lot of badges better than someone with a lot of followers but no badges?

Because of this, we have to work hard at a lot of different things on Hubski. We want to, even subconsciously, gain badges by writing great comments. But we also want to post and comment on things, even if they aren't the longest or greatest comments so that we interact with people. We want to make sure what we post and share is interesting to others so we can obtain and maintain followers. We want others to notice the stuff we write and respond to it.

I think this breadth of goals is another thing that makes Hubski unique and especially different than reddit. On reddit, users mostly want karma. It doesn't matter whether it's a picture of a cat or a long essay to get karma, although the first is infinitely easier. On hubski, a funny cat video may get shared around but it isn't going to get you a badge or increase your follower count. I really, truly hope that Hubski will stay this way even as we get more and more users. I believe that having this variety of information helps with this and why circlejerkers get bored with Hubski so quickly.

Taking away any of the information about users makes the leftover information more important. The less information I have about a person, the more quickly (and falsely) I can judge them. It also makes it easier for people to feel like they've "won" Hubski by increasing these specific points.

The only way to "game" Hubski is to be awesome and interact and follow and debate and put real time and effort into what you say and post. I like it like that.