Does the Karma system work?

[Gawyn_Trakkand]

Ok we all know that giving karma seems to be broken, As in i give 1 bit of Karma and i can never give it again no matter how much karma i spread but thats not what i mean.

What i mean is does it work to catogorise forum users well?

For instance..

2+ boxes of Green below your name = will be famous soon enough or has a spectacular Aura.
I believe these too be awesome people that everyone respects. So accordingly everyone with this ammount should be a nice person or post awesome topics/posts.

1 box of green = Distinguished road/will be famous soon enough.
on a distinguished road seems to be to be the average joe of the forums neither being massively liked or disliked or maybe liked by some and disliked by few. will be famous soon enough with 1 square would be the kind of person again well liked in the community and respected.

1 box of green (continued) = An unknown quantity at this point.
This desription is left for those that the communtiy doesnt abhore but is none too friendly toward, sometimes posting good issues and threads but alot of the time seen in a flame war or posting less than meritable posts.

1 box of red below your name = has had a little shameless behaviour in the past.
This one to me is for those that have been banned multiple times and have also rarely had anything constructive to say and may also be a very offensive person.

These are all how i see the people with these ranks and my question is

Do you think the Karma system works in giving people an idea of what that person is like on forums. Whether to take what they say with a pinch of salt or to read and take on board what the user has posted. If you dont think it does then why not and if you dont agree with the Karma rank you have why not?

[VandaMan]

Originally Posted by Gawyn_Trakkand

1 box of red below your name = has had a little shameless behaviour in the past.
This one to me is for those that have been banned multiple times and have also rarely had anything constructive to say and may also be a very offensive person.

My karma would fit into this category. I've never been banned from the forums, and my karma is red. I have lots of constructive things to say. I may be an offensive person though, I don't know.

Originally Posted by Gawyn_Trakkand

Do you think the Karma system works in giving people an idea of what that person is like on forums. Whether to take what they say with a pinch of salt or to read and take on board what the user has posted. If you dont think it does then why not and if you dont agree with the Karma rank you have why not?

I do not think the karma system works. In total I've had about 20 green karmas, and 3 red karmas in about a year on the forums. (Along with like 70 gray karmas) The current value of my karma is -10. Even though the vast majority of my karma is either green, or gray with positive comments, my total karma is red because 1 person's red karma counted for (as near as I can tell) -28.

I'm not sure why one person's karma should count 28 times more than anyone else's, I don't really understand the way karma works. Afaik the only reason is because the person that gave it is a developer, but if it's something else (like karma from people with lots of green karma counts for more?) then I think it should be changed. Karma can't really show someone's reputation within the community when some community members' opinions are given more weight than others'. It's just silly for one red karma to wipe out a year's worth of green karma.

I also have issues with the gray karma. I'm not sure anyone really knows what they mean, and why they're gray, but it's been explained to me several different ways. The explanation that seems to make the most sense to me is that whoever gave the karma doesn't have enough karma of their own to contribute to your reputation. If that's true, I think it should be changed, since right now about 80% of the karma I get is gray. If it can't be changed, it should at least notify the giver that their karma will be gray, so they can add a comment to clarify the meaning of the karma. (not everyone leaves a comment, they assume the color will speak their intentions)

So... recap...

karma is a lie.

[ncvr]

This is how karma works:

-Every 20 posts, or every 30 points of positive karma gives you 1 point of karma to spend. If you don't have enough points, your karma will be gray.
-You must give karma to at least 24 different (iirc) people before you can give it to the same person again. I've had green karma from one person twice before.
-On the admin panel, admins can see who gave who what karma and what they said in the comment.

Anyway, I don't think the karma system works particularly well because it's too easy to give anonymous red karma to people whether or not they deserve it. I remember some time back someone was giving anonymous red karma to random posts. Second, even if that was changed, I don't see the point of karma except as a tool for NGD to silence people who speak to negatively about their game. I know for sure that Kailer has given multiple reds at once to at least 5 people now (and yes, I can name them. All of them except the last one had, I believe, around +40 to +60 karma before they were karma-nuked) for "excess negativity".

[Gawyn_Trakkand]

O.O seriously dont know what i was thinking when i posted this >.>

er.... i guess I might have been slightly sleep deprevated.....

Discuss more i guess XD

[Pizdzius]

well, also I noticed:
one green box - chance to give one karma a day, giving one point.
two boxes - two chances to give karma, giving two points

etc.

I agree that red karma should be automatically named, cause I noticed ppl often write down false names under it (besides it would lower the amount of cowardly anonymous comments). There could also be some restriction of how many red karmas you can give in a row to prevent the red karma spam

Karma is a very good system, it somehow works for me like a chocolate box ;P You give some tasty walnut chocolates to ppl who say smart/funny things, they're happy and continue the awesome way of living, sometimes you give a fishy chocolate, so the person can think their actions through again.

Also, sometimes the comments there are priceless and very private

[UmarilsStillHere]

I think 24 differant people is a bit steep considering the number of regular users on the English forum (do we have 23 'regulars'?) countless times Ive had the 'must spread more rep etc' message when I cant even remember the last time I gave that person karma of any sort.

I also think Grey karma is a bit to common, In my last 20 or so 'Karmas' Only about 2 have not being Greys, Ive been stuck on 48 ages

Note: Thanks for trying Sniper, but as expected, it came out Grey

[Gytha_Ogg]

So if I get the 'you must spread' message, the recipient gets nothing, right?

If I give 'approve' reputation, the recipient gets either green or gray. Is there a way I can tell which, is it just the first one given after the day ticks over? So I should really save up all the posts I want to karma, and at the end of the day, pick the very best one to give the green to, and give gray to the rest.

Do you get bad karma if your post gets removed by the moderator for being off-topic? Purely hypothetical, of course!

I usually just use the karma system as a poor-man's PM, to say 'lol' or 'good point' to something that I like, but my response wouldn't really add to the general conversation. For that, I would rather be allowed to comment even though it won't affect the recipient's karma, maybe a 'clear' karma? - better than that 'spread' message. Still, that's more of a vbulletin issue, not a regnum issue.

I would like to see auto-signed karmas, I usually sign when I remember.

I would be kind of a dirty trick to retroactively turn on signing for existing messages, but I'd support auto-signing for new messages.

--
Anonymous

[Pizdzius]

Originally Posted by GythaOgg

So if I get the 'you must spread' message, the recipient gets nothing, right?

If I give 'approve' reputation, the recipient gets either green or gray. Is there a way I can tell which, is it just the first one given after the day ticks over? So I should really save up all the posts I want to karma, and at the end of the day, pick the very best one to give the green to, and give gray to the rest.

Do you get bad karma if your post gets removed by the moderator for being off-topic? Purely hypothetical, of course!

I usually just use the karma system as a poor-man's PM, to say 'lol' or 'good point' to something that I like, but my response wouldn't really add to the general conversation. For that, I would rather be allowed to comment even though it won't affect the recipient's karma, maybe a 'clear' karma? - better than that 'spread' message. Still, that's more of a vbulletin issue, not a regnum issue.

I would like to see auto-signed karmas, I usually sign when I remember.

I would be kind of a dirty trick to retroactively turn on signing for existing messages, but I'd support auto-signing for new messages.

If you have "a distinguished road" and higher, you give green. The people without karma settled yet give gray. (and it's gray even with green or red picked )

You get red karma only if a person gives you some :P


Yeah, auto-sign ftw there

[Gytha_Ogg]

Originally Posted by Pizdzius

If you have "a distinguished road" and higher, you give green. The people without karma settled yet give gray. (and it's gray even with green or red picked )

You get red karma only if a person gives you some :P


Yeah, auto-sign ftw there

Ahh, thanks! < -- See? That would have gone into a karma, but nooOOooo.
"You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours...."

[Mikan]

Without self-pimping, I think that the karma system works.

In general, the people with two or more green boxes you can depend on to be nice to you and at least semi-know what they are talking about in their posts, whereas people with one green box will generally be friendly and non-antagonistic.

And in general, people with red boxes or lower have had 'shameless behavior in the past'. With a few exceptions which I am not going to mention due to fairness, most of these people have been banned, and back before we had moderation large portions of the community were begging that some "red box users" such as gigo and Valorius be banned.

However, like anything, there are some gotchas:
- The karma system can be wrong, you shouldn't judge a person by the amount of karma they have.
- People are free to 'karma-nuke' others if they have a big enough reputation, dogs that they may be.
- Similarly, people can get green karma for absolutely nothing worthwhile.
- The rules for the karma system are too strict and are meant for forums with much larger populations.
- Because of the above, too many karmas come out as grey (90% of them, it seems).

So karma should be treated more as a general guide rather than a textbook refererence. Always try to err on the side of humility rather than pride, and give people a chance even if they have red karma. And try not to give red or green karmas to people who don't deserve it, because it warps their reputation and makes it hard for others to know what to expect from them.

It is important to remember... this is a community like a library, not a playground.

Kind regards.