Karma system incoming!

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Originally Posted by James

Hi chaps; I've been reading all of your concerns. There are a couple of options we can perhaps use to address concerns - these work for all registered users, either on or off.


Can See Who Left User Ratings

Can Leave Negative Reputation


Unfortunately I cannot disable the leaving of comments.

So, we could disable neg repping, and that means people can only move up in the world. You'll still be able to leave a comment, but at least if you are getting called an idiot, your karma went up in some sort of twisted forum-karma justice.

We could remove the anonymity of the karma system so people can't hide. It might make people consider more carefully the message they send.

I think this makes sense - the number 1 forum rule should still apply to the karma system:

1. Aggressive or unnecessarily offensive behaviour will not be tolerated.
- IE, no personal attacks, insults, bigotry, misogyny, hate-speech or condescending language.

IMO, calling someone an 'idiot' is not the worst example of an insult, as long as the person casting aspersions has the balls to put their name to it. It should preferably be backed up with a forum post detailing just why they think said user in an idiot.

I notice Tinman never posted the mechanics of the Karma system, so I can revise those and post them here so everyone knows how the points system works.

The third option is to simply turn the damn thing off altogether.

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I'd think that the best option would be to remove the ability to neg-rep someone since this seems to breed animosity one way or the other and just allow +rep. Your twisted forum-karma justice is apt :p

I've also been speaking to Mephisto and I think we both agree that the Karma system seems to take a lot out of "discussion." In other words, it becomes easier to just give/take rep than to actually engage with someone.

One way or the other, I agree that anonymity should be removed (in fact, I think we can all agree on this). Worst case scenario, there's a bit of tension that will soon finally be put to ease.

GO, GO, GO!

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Originally Posted by czc

I was tempted to tell you all to get back on topic. :p

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Whatchoo talkin' about? I never took part in that thread at all >.>

I'll give it a day or two for other concerned parties to respond and then I'll make a decision. I'm leaning toward both disabling the negative karma and removing anonymity.

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Originally Posted by James

I'll give it a day or two for other concerned parties to respond and then I'll make a decision. I'm leaning toward both disabling the negative karma and removing anonymity.

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Yay! \o/

Things are definitely going to get interesting in these parts :3

I vote for having it removed altogether. My experience shows it's always just been one way of promoting e-penisry. If removing it entirely doesn't work, I think the ability to neg-rep should be removed and every user's points should count the same. One user shouldn't be able to add 14 rep to another user's score simply because he has a higher rep.

Still, by removing the neg-rep, we're going to end up with all members sitting on full rep pretty soon, so it might be equally pointless. For that, I'd also suggest wiping everybody's slates clean so everybody starts out on the same page.

For that matter, I vote we remove the Karma system entirely for a month or so, see how things go, and if people want it back after that, reconsider bringing it back.

here is something interesting


http://i53.tinypic.com/vdcq5e.jpg


split the post id and user id


then all you need is this link...

http://mygaming.co.za/forum/member.php


...not so anonymous any more. i wonder if this was by design, if so it was really bad on vbulletin's part ;)

lol; hacked.

I was considering resetting the whole thing and we all start from scratch.

I like the idea of having all rep at the same value, no perks for accumulating lots of karma etc.

I can revise the hovering messages and level increments to accommodate that new system.

In my experience, removing a feature will mean there is an immediate outcry and people will all act like they want it back, so a testing phase would just be pointless.

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Originally Posted by Graal

I vote for having it removed altogether. My experience shows it's always just been one way of promoting e-penisry. If removing it entirely doesn't work, I think the ability to neg-rep should be removed and every user's points should count the same. One user shouldn't be able to add 14 rep to another user's score simply because he has a higher rep.

Still, by removing the neg-rep, we're going to end up with all members sitting on full rep pretty soon, so it might be equally pointless. For that, I'd also suggest wiping everybody's slates clean so everybody starts out on the same page.

For that matter, I vote we remove the Karma system entirely for a month or so, see how things go, and if people want it back after that, reconsider bringing it back.

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I kinda agree with Graal here - taking the neg rep away removes the reason it was put there in the first place; to make people think before speaking. Obviously this hasn't worked. The flaw in the system is that it pre-supposes that everyone taking part are adults ... mentally or physically - take your pick. I've seen the karma system used to great effect on some professional forums - again, the fact that most of the participants were professionals probably had something to do with it.

I just vote for removing it entirely - I'm sure we can put something else in place that will hopefully promote people's ability to be valuable contributing members of the forum. Even if we remove it, I doubt a lot of people would notice, just look how long we had it before people actually started using it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pr⊕phet

here is something interesting


http://i53.tinypic.com/vdcq5e.jpg


split the post id and user id


then all you need is this link...

http://mygaming.co.za/forum/member.php


...not so anonymous any more. i wonder if this was by design, if so it was really bad on vbulletin's part ;)

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You gave me +rep! You sweet, sweet bastard :D

I'll pay you back at some point :D

(And here we have a fine example of anonymous-free rep back-patting) ^.^

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Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

You gave me +rep! You sweet, sweet bastard :D

I'll pay you back at some point :D

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lol ... case in point :D

Not what the rep system was designed for :p

I agree with Ly 100% and I also take my hat off to James for taking things into consideration and coming up with solutions ......