Anti-karma proposition

[Slenderbro]

Karma has gotten out of hand... Any group of mad kids can trash someone's reputation in one click.
Instead, we should have a system based on ranks. Posted under your username in a thread, the rank can only be changed by mods.

This effectively removes the annoyance of karma completely.

[Mentonin]

Let kids try to trash karma. With only one karma giving daily to each user, mods can easily identify serious karma-stalkings over some days, and karma spreads are even easilier identified. On the other hand, one thread to complain about each user is way too unpractical. If I dislike a post of yours, I would have to publicly expose myself, leaving you able to retaliate, and mods would have to watch over hundreds of threads to see each complaint. Hardly ever we would see people speaking good of others, because no one wants to have trouble to compliment someone. Besides, mods would have trouble deciding how serious each complaint is and how it should affect those "ranks"

[Keyeto]

Karma is a way for every user to express their opinion of posts, comments, or whatever else try feel necessary. It is quick, simple, and effective. If people are trolling, the mods know, and respond accordingly. For us to limit it to a single post with a ranking system would take that power from the community, and place it in the hands of the mods. I believe it would be very confusing for all the mods to keep up with who "outranks" who, as we have a large and constantly growing community. How would you propose going about ranking users?

And I repeat, I am absolutely against taking power away from you guys, and making that power "moderator only."

[Silent1236]

IMO, karma works just fine.  The community's view of someone is what is reflected by karma.  If you do something great, you'll get positive karma for it.  If you act like a jerk and outright troll the forum, you'll get negative karma. 

There are 11,259 registered users, compared to the 21 mods.  While not all of the registered users are active, many of them still are.  That would be a lot of work for 21 moderators to keep up with while still doing other moderatory tasks.  The best way to eliminate negative karma is to just not worry about it.  Someone negs you?  Cool.  Take it and move on.

Be a positive member.  Your karma will reflect it. 

[ibtrickey]

I get neg karma all the time for no reason though

[Silent1236]

I get neg karma all the time for no reason though

This has been said countless times, but a user is free to give and take karma as they choose.  You may think it is for no reason, but they may think you've done something annoying or they just think the post was stupid and unnecessary.  You can't control what others think of your posts.

[Gorzo]

I get neg karma all the time for no reason though

This has been said countless times, but a user is free to give and take karma as they choose.  You may think it is for no reason, but they may think you've done something annoying or they just think the post was stupid and unnecessary.  You can't control what others think of your posts.

To be fair, looking at the karma log now, 3 of ib's last 4 -karma hits were by the same person and all for pretty petty and pointless reasons. Ibtrickey has a reason to be weary of karma, because he is getting hit seemingly unprovoked by it. The person hitting his karma (you know who you are, and so do I) needs to chill, lest he be sent to trials for harassment. If there's an issue between you two, pm me. If you just don't like him, use the hide/ban feature. But do not keep hitting karma just to be malicious, we will not tolerate it.

[Silent1236]

To be fair, looking at the karma log now, 3 of ib's last 4 -karma hits were by the same person and all for pretty petty and pointless reasons. Ibtrickey has a reason to be weary of karma, because he is getting hit seemingly unprovoked by it. The person hitting his karma (you know who you are, and so do I) needs to chill, lest he be sent to trials for harassment. If there's an issue between you two, pm me. If you just don't like him, use the hide/ban feature. But do not keep hitting karma just to be malicious, we will not tolerate it.

So it would appear.  Good eye, Gorzo!

[ibtrickey]

Thank you gorzo. I appreciate that. I was wondering why I kept going down and I was not doing anything..

[ibtrickey]

And how come I can not see who leaves me karma?? I never understand that, because if I get neg karma I always want to know why..

[Keyeto]

And how come I can not see who leaves me karma?? I never understand that, because if I get neg karma I always want to know why..

Only mods can see who gives/takes karma. If you want to know why you gained or lost karma, you'll have to look at the post that was liked/disliked.

If everyone could see who is giving/taking karma, it could lead to less "deserved" karma distribution. People would give people negative karma as revenge for receiving negative karma, instead of their feelings on their posts. The opposite would also happen. People would "Like" posts not because they like them, but because that person liked one of their posts. Nobody would really learn from that; it would just be one big popularity contest, and Karma would turn into a useless number.

Basically, keeping it anonymous avoids "karma wars" and keeps karma as a "learn from your posts" type of system.

[ibtrickey]

But then if you give a mod neg karma they can give it right back to the person and do that. I had this happen..

[Keyeto]

But then if you give a mod neg karma they can give it right back to the person and do that. I had this happen..

Part of being a mod is having the maturity to handle this information. Retaliating in such a manner is abusing the knowledge given to us mods, and is certainly frowned upon. I keep an eye on the karma log daily (as I'm sure other mods do), and have not seen any abuse. However, if you think a mod is abusing their knowledge of the karma log, feel free to shoot me a pm about it, and I'll check it out for you.

[Langku]

Ib, I doubt the incident you mentioned requires a trial in the trial section. That said I would respect any user who had the tenacity to post a  note about a mod or even bring up a case against me or any other mod. As Keyeto said, the mods who serve you here are a mature bunch and they will take thoughtful criticism well. Users needn't fear retribution from mods for their opinions or karma. Instead, users can expect a response from the mods for harmful behavior. I'm happy to say I've even seen mods call each other out when the need arises. We are all watchdogs for one another here and that includes users keeping an eye on mod actions.

Rest well knowing big brother/sister is actually pretty decent 😉

[Piotr]

But then if you give a mod neg karma they can give it right back to the person and do that. I had this happen..

You had this happen? And how do you know exactly?