The Karma System - trial phase

[Sjbrand99]

I was kind of hoping for a sensible answer, but obviously that was too much to hope for.

Regards Howard

Wow, don't worry, I was making a point (an ironic one). I am not really going to give you bad Karma.

 

[Tedster]

The karma system is not working. it isnt achieving the desired objective instead its more to do with popularity in my opinion.

With all due repect (and I mean that) Howard would obviously have more karma points as he is usually the first one to greet in the Introduction forum and the Securty and Web forum too. (Both being very polular).

And if someone becomes unpopular then he/she gets rained down with negative karma's.

So I dont think the system reflects the ability of the person.

I left good karma for you so your boo-boo don't hurt anymore!

 

[beef_jerky4104]

*cough*IP Addresses*cough*

The website makes no mention of recording IP Addresses. I'm tempted to start a legal action.

Yeah right, this place it to helpful and cool.

Edit: Ooops! Wrong button.. -- Nodsu

 

[KingCody]

No, a new member couldn`t do that. New members can`t give karma at all.

Anyone signing up under more than one account name, is liable to be banned. That`s because it`s against our rules to have more than one account

Each member is entitled to have only one forum account and must provide a functional e-mail address (not made public unless you've agreed to).

Howard its not that hard to create several email addresses. Its just as easy to create several TS accounts. Its even easier to level those accounts up. And then all that person has to do is give people fake Karma

beef_jerky,

do you really think that people are actually going to go to all that trouble just to give somebody bad karma? especially since they have to build up a reputation under each potential account before they are even allowed to give karma to anybody else. under the "new" karma system, there are restrictions in place to help prevent abuse. no matter how it is set up there will always be a possibility for abuse, but it simply isn't worth anybody's time to do so.

the "new" karma system is much better than the original. it helps to promote a friendlier and more helpful community by holding people personally accountable for what they post. if people give helpful and relevant advice, and give it in a respectful manner then they may receive good karma. on the flipside, "one-liner responses", "opinions-stated-as-fact" responses, and sarcastic, rude, or insulting responses are never helpful and will likely result in the poster receiving bad karma. that's all there is to it.

don't be so paranoid, the karma system is still in it's infancy here at techspot. let the system mature. and just post helpful, relevant, and respectful responses and soon enough you'll have so much good karma you'll be glad that the system is in place.

cheers :wave:

 

[Nodsu]

The website makes no mention of recording IP Addresses. I'm tempted to start a legal action.

This may come as a shock to you, but virtually all services you use on the Internet record your IP address and in many places they are actually required to do so by law. You might as well sue people on the streets for remembering your face.

 

[beef_jerky4104]

Karma

Recently there has been an arguement within the members of Tech Spot. IT concerend Karma. Simply as a concerned user, I posted my opinion. A few days later I get loads of negative Karma. Dear Tech Spot members, nothing is wrong with disagreeing with me. But I did nothing wrong, I was not rude, I followed all Tech Spot rules and I was punished. That alone should be reason to stop the plauge of the Karma system. I an offended. I thought this was a mature community where people were excepted for there ideas. I remeber RBS. When he quit I disagreed with him. But he was write.

The essense of Karma is "You get what you give".

So I displayed my point of view. And people respond imaturely.

I will remain an active User at Tech Spot. But I will not support Tech Spot.

EDIT: I would just like to make it clear that I feel that Techs Spot has disowned me. And let me down. I really thought this was a great place. Where everyone was respected and had enough disipline to follow the rules. But then again why would we need moderators if that was true. But even the moderators have turned there back. Even they condone the unseen action that occurs on Tech Spot.

 

[beef_jerky4104]

beef_jerky,

do you really think that people are actually going to go to all that trouble just to give somebody bad karma? especially since they have to build up a reputation under each potential account before they are even allowed to give karma to anybody else. under the "new" karma system, there are restrictions in place to help prevent abuse. no matter how it is set up there will always be a possibility for abuse, but it simply isn't worth anybody's time to do so.

I'd do it.

The karma system is not working. it isnt achieving the desired objective instead its more to do with popularity in my opinion.

With all due repect (and I mean that) Howard would obviously have more karma points as he is usually the first one to greet in the Introduction forum and the Securty and Web forum too. (Both being very polular).

And if someone becomes unpopular then he/she gets rained down with negative karma's.

So I dont think the system reflects the ability of the person.

Thats how I feel. And its happening as we speak. And most people here condone it. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who sees the truth.

 

[twite]

KARMA...is overated

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Threads merged, as the subject is being discussed in this thread and it does come under the heading of Site feedback and Suggestions.

beef_jerky4104: I`m sorry you feel let down, but let me try and make some points that may or maynot help to explain the situation.

A member who doesn`t have a lot of karma points can quickly find themselves swinging wildly from a positive to a negative karma points total simply by someone giving either positive or negative karma to one of their posts. No one is immune from this at the moment, not even mods.

This is to be expected and is absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Don`t go thinking that just because someone has given you negative karma, that Techspot has a problem with you. As far as I`m aware that is most certainly not the case.

There are several safeguards in place to try and prevent abuse of the karma system and on the whole, I would say they appear to be working properly.

Also, as Julio has already said quite plainly, the Karma system is in a trial phase and can be got rid of at anytime, should Julio see fit to do so.

Regards Howard

 

[Sjbrand99]

Recently there has been an argument within the members of Tech Spot. IT concerned Karma. Simply as a concerned user, I posted my opinion. A few days later I get loads of negative Karma. Dear Tech Spot members, nothing is wrong with disagreeing with me. But I did nothing wrong, I was not rude, I followed all Tech Spot rules and I was punished.

- I totally agree, and to prove my point, after showing MY 'personal opinions' I received 6 bad Karma blocks in 22 hours! Oooo that must mean the the people on the thread who were 'listening to my opinions and trying to sway me into giving the system some time' - (Howard!) are the ones using it to dog me down, exactly NOT what it is for and what people believe! This proves that it doesn't work.
Also to prove that it doesn't work - after receiving all those 'lil red bricks what did I do? Out of malice I merely returned the favor by giving red blocks to the people who were against my views who I suspected tagged me! Further proving the b*****t of the system.

Amen

 

[tifc8lraz]

And how do you know who gave you bad karma? ?

 

[Sjbrand99]

by giving red blocks to the people who were against my views who I suspected tagged me! Further proving the b*****t of the system.

Please fully read my post next time or I may be tempted to give you bad Karma!

 

[SNGX1275]

I refuse to believe there are people out to get you, in general this community seems pretty friendly. What I'm seeing here is a few people getting wound uptight about this without using their heads. As an individual user you can see what threads you got karma in, now if you can show an overwhelming amount of your negative karma is coming from this thread then we may have an issue that can be addressed. But if they are coming from threads outside of this, you may need to go back and see if you actually had a decent post(s) in the thread.

Now right now it seems you Sjbrand99 are the only one abusing the system, and beef_jerky seems like he'd abuse the system if he had an easy way to do so.

If we want to analyse this a bit further - You (Sjbrand99) told me to **** off in a thread earlier where I called you out for jumping all over a guy that brought up a post 3 months old, you mistakenly thought he brought it up from 3 years ago. Then I see you post right after me in the Canadian Net Neutrality thread, and magically my Karma goes down. That isn't the way to go about things.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Sjbrand99: cfitzarl asked you a simple question, but you have to come back with some totally unhelpful crap. Then you wonder why folks end up giving you negative karma.

Basically, you`re just assuming who has given you negative karma and you`re therefore trying to give negative karma to people based on your supposition. However, you need to realise, that people with a negative karma level, can`t give karma at all.

As I tried to explain earlier, karma levels are going to fluctuate wildly at the moment and it`s completely expected. Karma is meant to be used for rating posts as either helpful of not helpful and that`s all.

There really is no need to blow it out of proportion or get hot under the collar about it.

Regards Howard

 

[tifc8lraz]

My question to you Howard is how many positive feedbacks do you need to reach that nifty second bar .

 

[howard_hopkinso]

101 karma points will give you a second green block. How quickly you achieve that, is dependent on who is rating your posts. Karma altering power is based on the info that Julio gave earlier on in this thread.

Regards Howard

 

[tifc8lraz]

Okay, thank you Howard! I seem to have missed that . Only 44 more points to go .

 

[Julio Franco]

I'm closing this thread temporarily until further notice.

 

[Julio Franco]

Thread re-opened...

I think I have figured a way of making good use of the Karma system without pissing off users receiving negative scores.

* If you thought there was too much of a coincidence that mostly users with negative karma complained, whether it was deserved or not, they do have a point that a negative karma invalidates somewhat the rest of their effort and time spent making good posts.

I apologize to those users that felt undermined or thought we did not appreciate their collaboration, that is not the case at all. I asked for patience getting the system sorted out, and part of the corrections are here.

* Users with positive karma will keep showing their green bricks.

* New users with 0 karma or negative karma holders won't show anything.

* I have removed the rather bland descriptions for karma holders, instead they are showing numeric values that correspond to their karma points earned.

* Overall the rules and weights for calculating karma remain the same as the last time I covered that in this discussion.

* The recent changes should keep the karma system principles the same, while avoiding that certain members feel 'publicly' attacked if they receive negative feedback.

* I hope you understand the karma system has the only purpose of enhancing participation, adding value to the community and pursuing the best behavior from our members.
We must remain operating under the assumption that people come here to get informed, help others, and talk their passion for technology...

 

[howard_hopkinso]

I think it was a good idea to get rid of the Karma titles and just replace them with the points total. Getting rid of the negative Karma blocks is also a good idea and will hopefully go some way to calming the the recent situation down as regards members who have a negative karma rating.

Will members with negative karma ratings still be able to see their points totals in their user profiles?

Regards Howard

 

[CMH]

Hmm... the green karma blocks are a good way of letting new users know the standing of the person who has replied to their post. Its no point having a karma system, but new users can't tell that we have it in place.

Some other forums have a small line saying how much positive feedback a person has received. It'll be equally effective to replace the green blocks with this.

 

[CCT]

I am missing something here I guess.

Just who is giving this stuff to whom?

If a poster gets help and forgets or ignores the 'karma' thingie, the helper gets nada.

Or are you saying readers other than the original poster can rate each other and play silly buggers?

Somewhere I missed this.

 

[CMH]

I believe anyone can give anyone else good karma, if they are eligible to give anyone karma. I've received tons from a single post, in a thread I started, so that explains quite abit.

And yes, if people don't give the other guy karma, they don't get it.

 

[Masque]

Okay....I've Gotta Weigh In Here.....

Julio and Mods. I understand you want to try and further interest in the forums with one thing or another, and that's commendable. BUT (notice the big but?), I don't think this site or forum really needs it. There are already titles...whether or not these are needed is up for speculation. In my honest opinion, this forum stands on its' own. People come here to offer help and receive help. There are a ton of good people here willing to lend in. We really don't need something to spur us on. Either one person has the knowledge to help or he doesn't....it's not going to stop us from reading on in the hope that we might be able to pitch in.

I really enjoy these forums. I haven't been as active lately due to real-life getting in the way, but I'll never stop coming here unless Howard stops buying the beer (was I supposed to say that?).

Nonetheless, I'm of the opinion that the Karma system isn't needed for reasons stated above and others.

That said....please forgive me by crapping on your parade, as such, and let's get back to what we do best....help each other.

Thanks.

 

[rf6647]

To Enthusiasts, Addicts, Gurus, et cetera, et cetera:

My participation began about 2 months ago, and I have been observing the contributions being made by the more active members. I respect the collegial behaviors that are at work in these forums. I laud everyone for their generous commitment of time and expertise.

Before I posted my first problem, I tried to gauge who in these forums could be judged to be credible and trustworthy. Until today I knew nothing of karma. Best I could surmise - titles were bestowed based upon a secret rating scheme and controlled by the “society” within the TechSpot forums. In my first days here, I used ‘join date’, ‘posts’, and title as a measurement. This karma ‘thingie’ has possibilities to establish a visible measure of knowledge, helpfulness, and politeness. Let’s give it a chance.