Ditch karma.

[ElephantHunter]

Mancer, Keron Cyst, and everybody else who has made their concerns known (even Sean), I just wanted to say that I appreciate your input on the issue of Karma. The administrators have put a lot of thought to this and discussed how to deal with the problems that might arise. Needless to say, the system is not perfect. You've pointed out one of the major issues, and I would like to address those here.

Before I do that, let me explain some background. These forums were originally created for people to discuss Soldat and give the community some voice. Since their conception, we have been working hard to give the community more power. It's a great thing when I check my email in the morning and see that 90% of threads our moderators have taken action in have been the result of the "report to moderator" link we provide by each post. You guys help out a lot, and it's only natural that we feel you need some moderation power of your own.

Thus Chakra let out a huge wail and gave birth to Karma

The Karma system has been implemented to help inspire and regulate our forums to a limited extent. Karma allows the community to anonymously rate other forumers on their contributions. Posts that contain information that people do not want to see will be rated negatively (e.g. "smite".) Posts that people think is deserving of an award will be applauded.

Please take a look at what kinds of posts users with a positive or negative karma have made. You might see a pattern emerging. If you see a good pattern, that means that we are making progress. If you see no pattern (or if you see a pattern that is leading in a bad direction), then by all means make a post. Input helps our community grow.

Not everyone is going to read the entirety of my post, and I know some of you will complain regardless. This is not meant to be cold in any way, but simply a matter of truth: If you have been writing posts that are off-topic, offend people, or have an abundance of English errors, then you only have yourself to blame. I hope the first two items are self-explanatory. For those of you of international origins or with dyslexia, do your best to convey your message clearly. Use the wide array of tools available online, like grammar and spell checkers. Most importantly of all, please state your situation. Don't give people the chance to make undue assumptions.

What's my opinion? How do I plan to take action? My immediate response to your post is, "How can karma be abused?" It's not tangible. There are no real penalties or rewards. Beyond that, there are no known security flaws. (You can take a look at this thread regarding a recent issue to see that we do take action against those promptly and when necessary.) Still, you have come to the conclusion that it makes people feel like crap.

Well, you're not the only person who has told me that. A friend in the Soldat developer channel made the same comment. I think it's substantial enough to bring this whole issue to light. I will take the time to propose some changes to the karma system to the other two administrators, and action will certainly be taken. Since I am very busy training at my new job (yay!), the code might not get done for around a week, but do keep high expectations.

[Outcast]

Well you gotta remember, smite me and your topic is LOCKED. I know who smites me. You smite me again I give you a warning.












Joking.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

People applaud me because they think I contribute... I like to think I do.  If I was an asshole and a nazi admin, then I'd obviously have negative karma despite being admin. 

Exactly.  Just take a look at Evil-ville.

Anyway, I like this karma system just the way it is.  People with very low karma have it because they are constantly rude and/or disruptive.  People who have high karma have it because people like and respect them, and because they are helpful.  My karma is -2.  It's not terrible, but it helps me recognize that my posts may have been unnecessarily derogatory in the past.  And it's never a bad thing to understand when you're wrong.

[Krillious]

I think that the current karma system doesn't show how important a person's posts are, but how hated/loved a person is, and the only way to make people aware of howo much a person contributed is to either make some kind of 'Thanks' button, or else remove smiting.

[The Red Guy]

I can't even do ****. Everytime I get the stupid "You have -1000 Karma" error.

I think that the current karma system doesn't show how important a person's posts are, but how hated/loved a person is, and the only way to make people aware of howo much a person contributed is to either make some kind of 'Thanks' button, or else remove smiting.

Agreed. Like the one in vB.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

I think that the current karma system doesn't show how important a person's posts are, but how hated/loved a person is, and the only way to make people aware of howo much a person contributed is to either make some kind of 'Thanks' button, or else remove smiting.

How much a person contributed is generally represented by post count.  Karma refers to the quality of those contributions.  Someone isn't going to be hated unless they constantly make bad posts, and someone isn't going to be loved unless the constantly make good posts.

[Demonic]

Karma is not working? How odd, when I look around the forums, I see people with negative karma who I think should have negative karma, and I see people with positive karma whom I think should deserve positive karma.

Peachy.

[PANZERCATWAGON]

OMG GUYS I WILL TOTALLY KILL MYSELF AND POST IT ON MYSPACE (AFTER I SUCCESSFULLY KILL MYSELF) IF I GET SMITED. THIS FORUM IS SUPER SERIAL AND DEMANDS THAT I WRITE IN ALL CAPS AND YES I AM YELLING AT YOU ALL THROUGH MY KEYBOARD BECAUSE SMITING IS TOTALLY LAME AND HURTS PEOPLES E-FEELINGS. I MEAN IF I'M NOT ACCEPTED IRL AND(BOLDED BECAUSE I CAN'T DO DOUBLE CAPS WHICH IS ANOTHER THING THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED BECAUSE SOMETIMES I SCREAM THROUGH MY KEYBOARD AND I DON'T FEEL THAT JUST USING CAPS EPHASISES THAT ENOUGH) ON THE INTERWEB I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LIVE FOR. SCREW IT JUST GET RID OF EVERYTHING THAT MAKES ME FEEL BAD SO I CAN BE HAPPY AND WON'T HAVE TO CUT MYSELF ANYMORE.

------I hope some of you get the point of me posting that

Ha ha ha, ohhhhhh lord I don't know how I missed reading that last time, phew ... that made my day .

Anyways, on topic, I think that the Karma system works and people should just get used to it .

[Seancapsyourass]

Karma is good for you, unless you do bad things or focus on it too much.  There are things out of your control and you need to deal with it.  I personnally like how you can't see who smited/applauded you (unless you're the admin) so you don't get that whole "upvoting/downvoting" thing as extreme as you see it on ytmnd.com and hopefully people will vote on your merit instead of petty grudges.  (That being said if I ever find out that you smited me I will hunt you down and force you to let me live out of your basement for atleast the next year if not longer... so beware.   I use alot of shampoo/soap and require my own personnalized towel with my name on it)

[stick-assasin]

karma sucks any noob is gna smite u each day wich sucks

[a-4-year-old]

It isn't karma itself that needs change, but the way people use it. Someone would smite for any reason at all, from being annoying to just saying what you think. The problem is nobody ever rewards anyone for posting something usefull, the focus is not on reward, but punishment, it should be ether mutual or just on reward/respect points.

I am sure if you look into it, you will see way more people with -1  to -10 than people with 1 to 10 and a whole lot more people with -20 and down from there than a positive 20 and greater, infact i think only Flies actually has an impressive karma, everyone else is seeing how low they can go.

[mar77a]

I agree with Demonic. Plus, the guys that are complaining are just caring way too much about karma...

[Keron Cyst]

w00t, admin recog.   ...  wait, Admin?! ElephantHunter? oO'


The thing, Demonic, is that people add to a karma because it's so negative or positive. FLAB's rises by the day while jrgp has more negative karma than negative posts. It's perfectly fine when you say that, but there has to be some way to limit karma rating exaggeration. That's why I so insist on being able to rate a post of a member only once one time, so if you want to bash him, you have to go search for all his posts, and by then—

... I know who smites me....

—if that really is possible and the "Joking" Outcast threw in there only covered the "warning" warning, everything would be fine, because if you combined the 1-karma-change-per-post limit with the ability to see who applauded or smited you, members could manually report in jerks who seem to be knocking down their karma for no reason whatsoever.

If that can't be implemented, at least the 1KCPP (lol, wow; KC! Karma Change, Keron Cyst ) code would be a major limit to exaggeration of karma.

[Sotija]

I absolutely hate karma, i have like a -50 because i have bad acne and cuz i use fireworks.

atleast maybe it should go no lower than 0?

And because we two get smited because we listen Metallica?

[jettlarue]

why should people be punished for  knocking peoples karma down? thats simply part of the system, and i believe it would be a lot of work for all mods who have to go through 200 reports like "my karma went down hlphelpelhp!!one!11one!!!1" and a bunch of shit like that, but i guess its up to them if they want that responsibility. It seems to me that people who i would think to have good karma have good karma and people who i would think would have bad karma have bad karma.

[Keron Cyst]

People should "be punished for knocking people's karma down" because they're rating them unfairly. They see a negative karma, and even if the post is a good one, they just drop it even more. It's called "karma abuse," and that's a major chunk of what this thread is about.

[Axel]

w00t, admin recog. ... wait, Admin?! ElephantHunter? oO'


The thing, Demonic, is that people add to a karma because it's so negative or positive. FLAB's rises by the day while jrgp has more negative karma than negative posts. It's perfectly fine when you say that, but there has to be some way to limit karma rating exaggeration. That's why I so insist on being able to rate a post of a member only once one time, so if you want to bash him, you have to go search for all his posts, and by then—

... I know who smites me....

—if that really is possible and the "Joking" Outcast threw in there only covered the "warning" warning, everything would be fine, because if you combined the 1-karma-change-per-post limit with the ability to see who applauded or smited you, members could manually report in jerks who seem to be knocking down their karma for no reason whatsoever.

If that can't be implemented, at least the 1KCPP (lol, wow; KC! Karma Change, Keron Cyst ) code would be a major limit to exaggeration of karma.

i agree with this post here. the one karma per post would really knock back the karma fluctuations in general, and if someone really is just trying to knock down your karma by going through all your posts, you would know who is doing it and ask an admin to give them a warning. i have a few changes though; instead of just being able to see who is rating you badly, i think that there should be a system where(includes one karma posting) if you go into your own profile and look at your old posts, next to each post there should be 2 stats, positive and negative karma hits. thus you would be able to see what posts people dont like, and this would also help proving some peoples posts here, like if people only rate you bad cuz of your sig or because they just dont like your thoughts, even if they are very well thought out(i have -5 cuz i made a topic in weapon balance in a hurry cuz i really felt i was right, people couldnt get a certain something to work, it was locked, and iv had -5 ever since). also, if one member has consistently rated you negatively, and the conditions could vary alot, only after conditions are met that indicate that he is attacking your karma, an alert apears in your pms alerting you to this, so that you can decide to ask them why they are doing this, if this is a coincidence, or ask for administrative action. my addition to the one karma per post though, is the ability of the user that if you ignorantly rated someone poorly, and then realized it, you could take bak your negative rating. you can only make it neutral though, so as not to allow someone to go back and change any one individual's karma by several points to the uber positive. thats all,
later

[5th_account]

It is getting abused too much. I mean, Dascoo has like -9057109578 something points and he didn't even deserve the bad rep. Mine's always 0 or -1, no matter how nice, helpful, or contributing I am, and it's just proving that poeple will smite even if they disagree with them on something, or if they don't like their sig, or something else not worthy of a smite.

Ya that would be due to me =)
I smite joo for every crazy post in wep balance forum

[Twistkill]

It is getting abused too much. I mean, Dascoo has like -9057109578 something points and he didn't even deserve the bad rep. Mine's always 0 or -1, no matter how nice, helpful, or contributing I am, and it's just proving that poeple will smite even if they disagree with them on something, or if they don't like their sig, or something else not worthy of a smite.

Ya that would be due to me =)
I smite joo for every crazy post in wep balance forum

That was only in one thread, and I am not easy to irritate. I don't believe I smited you, either... :/

[Keron Cyst]

Axel's idea is even more targeting an' accurate (applaud!); full support for both of his ideas. So...

So far we have this, if I may be allowed to sum :

---

→ Only allow one karma rating per user per post (you can only rate a post once)
Why? If you want to bash and continually smite someone you'll have to go looking for his posts specifically, and by then the person will have caught on to your stupidity
→ Be able to see who rated you for what post overall, in, perhaps, your profile
This is not quite the same as the last suggestion, as this tells you who rated what post; perhaps the board-mod could list all the people who have ever tweaked your karma, and stick links to every one of your posts each applauded or smited; three tables, if you will. I can draw a rough sketch of what I'm thinking (probably not the most efficient way of showing it) if clarification's needed.
→ Be able to take back an accidental karma rate
Admittedly, it's never happened to me, but it's just an idea Axel had which I think could be useful in occasional circumstances.
→ Be able to see each of your own individual posts' karma statistics (all the karma which each of your posts collected alone, if you're viewing a thread you posted in and you see a post you made in the past that has since been rated)
Why? Just to compare, since you already have the post content right there, your quality of post and the general public's idea of "quality" in a post. Does not show raters; that would inflate all of your rated posts too much, and that's what the second sugg. is for anyways

---

Any of these would be a great help to the current system. (Maybe, on its own, not the third one )

Tell me if there are any you feel should be explained more specifically and I'll try to rephrase them the best I can.