POLL: Remove karma system

[ninwa]

Title self explanatory...

After talking about this with mods... justifications:
- unnecessarily creates "hierarchies", differentiates members
- bruised egos from negative karma
- a silly way of judging someone's contribution to the forum considering half the karma given out is for stuff like making a funny/rude rather than helpful post

Suggestions/comments please

[vea]

You have some valid ideas there but I use karma to thank people that help me instead of posting to thank them which in turn may create unnecessary spam and clog up the forums.

[iNerd]

Karma should be removed from mods only - their mods, self-explanatory, they don't need karma.
(don't think you can karma enwiabe anyway?)

Keep the karma for normal members but you can't karma people with under 50 posts since they can't karma you back and they may feel intimidated by receiving negative.

^^ solves vea's issue aswell or you can just drop a PM "thanks".

[IntoTheNewWorld]

Yes please. I fail to see what Karma contributes to the site.

[Eriny]

Karma should be removed from mods only - their mods, self-explanatory, they don't need karma.
(don't think you can karma enwiabe anyway?)

I disagree. I think that you should be able to judge mods as much as you can judge normal members.

I hardly ever karma people, which is why I assume my karma is so low for someone who has been around for so long, since a lot of karma is 'karma-ing back'. I think it's pointless though I do like to know which of my posts others liked so much that they did something about it, but surely there are better ways to do this. Additionally, if you want to thank someone you can send them a PM, it's more meaningful that way anyway.

[eeps]

For the reasons listed in OP, in my opinion removing karma would be valid. Especially after this thread a while back. I think in that thread the original poster/member had under 50 posts at the time of posting and she felt the need to make a thread about "Karma b**ches on VN" after receiving negative karma from other member. I think karma has lost its' intended original purpose. Hence, it's hard to judge whether a member is really helpful or not. That's just me.

You have so much karma that it doesn't matter to you anymore =/ -1 or +1 doesn't make any difference at all to you. But for people who are new and haven't got much karma, each +1 or -1 matters a lot.

Kind of like money: when you're poor $20 is a significant amount to you, and you are very reluctant to spend that amount. Yet when you are wealthier, $20 means nothing, and you wouldn't even care if you lost a $20 note to the wind or something like that.

I agree with that as well.

[iNerd]

Karma should be removed from mods only - their mods, self-explanatory, they don't need karma.
(don't think you can karma enwiabe anyway?)

I disagree. I think that you should be able to judge mods as much as you can judge normal members.

I hardly ever karma people, which is why I assume my karma is so low for someone who has been around for so long, since a lot of karma is 'karma-ing back'. I think it's pointless though I do like to know which of my posts others liked so much that they did something about it, but surely there are better ways to do this. Additionally, if you want to thank someone you can send them a PM, it's more meaningful that way anyway.

That's the problem though - mods are mods, no-one's going to treat you like a normal member. Whether you would like to believe it or not - to negative karma a mod takes balls and you are certainly not treated as a normal member.

Anyways I wrote that because I was expecting outrage over the eradication of karma but the best option would be to just eliminate it.

[zomgSEAN]

Change it so we have to write an extensive essay about why the certain user deserves a karma change for the given post. This essay will be reviewed by a newly employed KARMA MODERATOR, and must be of sound reasoning and structure in order for the karma change to be declared valid.

That'll stop silly +/-karma, whilst improving users' english abilities,

Ha.

[Water]

Change it so we have to write an extensive essay about why the certain user deserves a karma change for the given post. This essay will be reviewed by a newly employed KARMA MODERATOR, and must be of sound reasoning and structure in order for the karma change to be declared valid.

That'll stop silly +/-karma, whilst improving users' english abilities,

Ha.

An essay for every karma given? Thats a lot of reading for a uni student.

[shinny]

If you want to keep the novelty of the system, then just keep the + karma. The negatives create more trouble than they're worth. I've seen arguments break out unnecessarily over that crap -_-" I think the + karma is still a nice token to have though as it avoids having to flood the entire forum with 'Thanks' posts. Perhaps just hide the karma count from the left hand side and make it profile-viewable only?

[zomgSEAN]

If you want to keep the novelty of the system, then just keep the + karma. The negatives create more trouble than they're worth. I've seen arguments break out unnecessarily over that crap -_-" I think the + karma is still a nice token to have though as it avoids having to flood the entire forum with 'Thanks' posts. Perhaps just hide the karma count from the left hand side and make it profile-viewable only?

+1

[iNerd]

If you want to keep the novelty of the system, then just keep the + karma. The negatives create more trouble than they're worth. I've seen arguments break out unnecessarily over that crap -_-" I think the + karma is still a nice token to have though as it avoids having to flood the entire forum with 'Thanks' posts. Perhaps just hide the karma count from the left hand side and make it profile-viewable only?

-1

There really is no novelty in the system left. People are just + karma-ing their friends, funny/rude posts and it's not truly reflective of a 'helpful poster' at all.

[shinny]

If you want to keep the novelty of the system, then just keep the + karma. The negatives create more trouble than they're worth. I've seen arguments break out unnecessarily over that crap -_-" I think the + karma is still a nice token to have though as it avoids having to flood the entire forum with 'Thanks' posts. Perhaps just hide the karma count from the left hand side and make it profile-viewable only?

-1

There really is no novelty in the system left. People are just + karma-ing their friends, funny/rude posts and it's not truly reflective of a 'helpful poster' at all.

Hence why I said hide the karma count, and just let it be a way to thank someone or screw around with as they please as we can't exactly police it and say 'THAT'S NOT WORTHY OF A + KARMA'. It'll largely just be a novelty system, but at least it won't influence how other, often newer members perceive others.

[iNerd]

If you want to keep the novelty of the system, then just keep the + karma. The negatives create more trouble than they're worth. I've seen arguments break out unnecessarily over that crap -_-" I think the + karma is still a nice token to have though as it avoids having to flood the entire forum with 'Thanks' posts. Perhaps just hide the karma count from the left hand side and make it profile-viewable only?

-1

There really is no novelty in the system left. People are just + karma-ing their friends, funny/rude posts and it's not truly reflective of a 'helpful poster' at all.

Hence why I said hide the karma count, and just let it be a way to thank someone or screw around with as they please as we can't exactly police it and say 'THAT'S NOT WORTHY OF A + KARMA'. It'll largely just be a novelty system, but at least it won't influence how other, often newer members perceive others.

How exactly do you 'hide' it and how hard would it be to 'find' it?
IMO if you want to do this properly either keep the system (with changes) or eliminate it completely.

[shinny]

If you want to keep the novelty of the system, then just keep the + karma. The negatives create more trouble than they're worth. I've seen arguments break out unnecessarily over that crap -_-" I think the + karma is still a nice token to have though as it avoids having to flood the entire forum with 'Thanks' posts. Perhaps just hide the karma count from the left hand side and make it profile-viewable only?

-1

There really is no novelty in the system left. People are just + karma-ing their friends, funny/rude posts and it's not truly reflective of a 'helpful poster' at all.

Hence why I said hide the karma count, and just let it be a way to thank someone or screw around with as they please as we can't exactly police it and say 'THAT'S NOT WORTHY OF A + KARMA'. It'll largely just be a novelty system, but at least it won't influence how other, often newer members perceive others.

How exactly do you 'hide' it and how hard would it be to 'find' it?
IMO if you want to do this properly either keep the system (with changes) or eliminate it completely.

Hide from the left hand side and make it only viewable in the profile through the 'Who changed my karma' button.