POLL: Remove karma system

[Cianyx]

This isn't Facebook either. I don't see how mentioning a 'thanks' when someone provides assistance would count as spam.

[iNerd]

A "thanks" allows the topic to progress. If it is not followed up with another question it sort of signals that the query has been adequately addressed. Now that I think about it I've never seen a "thanks" interfering with a thread. What does one line do to clog up a thread?

More than one poster contributes to a thread - your looking at ~5-10 thanks per thread...

[burbs]

false

[Cianyx]

"Thanks everyone", "cheers guys", "thanks for the help" etc.

Online forum etiquette 101

[pi]

Just as a side note, won't removing -ve karma defeat the purpose of the word 'karma'. Might as well remove the whole system if the plans are to remove half of it... Keeping half (+ve) wouldn't be 'karma' then, then it would be more like 'brownie points' (which would look lame on someone's profile btw).

Yes but it's not exactly like it is used proportionately. I doubt anyone negatively karmas more than they positively karma.

That's true, but usually people only give -ve karma if someone's really being an idiot or a pain (which is rare on a forum like this). On most other forums, only mods have positive karma!

And its probably not being used proportionally because there is random +ve karma going around for no apparent reason sometimes... (which is fine as the system is for fun and really doesn't mean anything to members over 6 months or so). My comment was that keeping half the system would be stupid to call it karma.

A "thanks" allows the topic to progress. If it is not followed up with another question it sort of signals that the query has been adequately addressed. Now that I think about it I've never seen a "thanks" interfering with a thread. What does one line do to clog up a thread?

I would agree with that view, a 'thanks' system would be better than removing half of 'karma' (although 50 thanks in a row in a thread would be a bit ridiculous...)

[lexitu]

A "thanks" allows the topic to progress. If it is not followed up with another question it sort of signals that the query has been adequately addressed. Now that I think about it I've never seen a "thanks" interfering with a thread. What does one line do to clog up a thread?

More than one poster contributes to a thread - your looking at ~5-10 thanks per thread...

I've never seen someone's karma go up by 5 to 10.

[iNerd]

A "thanks" allows the topic to progress. If it is not followed up with another question it sort of signals that the query has been adequately addressed. Now that I think about it I've never seen a "thanks" interfering with a thread. What does one line do to clog up a thread?

More than one poster contributes to a thread - your looking at ~5-10 thanks per thread...

I've never seen someone's karma go up by 5 to 10.

I don't follow? Karma? I meant you'd have 5-10 posters saying "thanks" and that would fill up a page.

[lexitu]

Yes but it's not exactly like it is used proportionately. I doubt anyone negatively karmas more than they positively karma.

That's true, but usually people only give -ve karma if someone's really being an idiot or a pain (which is rare on a forum like this). On most other forums, only mods have positive karma!

And its probably not being used proportionally because there is random +ve karma going around for no apparent reason sometimes... (which is fine as the system is for fun and really doesn't mean anything to members over 6 months or so). My comment was that keeping half the system would be stupid to call it karma.

Yeah that's fair enough then, it would seem silly

[werdna]

IMO, the VN karma system is similar to the Facebook 'like' system. For the most part, we -ve karma people and we 'like' someone's wall status either to show that we found their post funny or in the case of Facebook 'likes', we just want to reaffirm our friendship with them - this last part sounds wacky, but it's kind of true. The VN karma system goes a step further, I think, in that it allows people to thank each other for their help and so on. BUT, it is largely a pointless system.

Let me explain my point:

There are people whose Facebook statuses garner an average of around 30 'likes'. These statuses are by no means academically-inspired, useful or handy in everyday life, they are just people's attempts at being comedic in their approach. Point is, most of the time, and I reiterate, most of the time, we 'like' a status and we +ve karma a person not because their posts were worthwhile or valuable, but because they were witty or facetious.

However, in saying this, I know for sure that there are plentyyy of members on VN who do earn their karma points. To name a few - shinny, EZ and TrueTears. And also in response to ATAR's suggestion that we implement a 'like' or 'thanks' button, I don't see how this is any different to the earlier suggestion that we have only a +ve karma button, and no -ve karma button. It's practically the same thing, and saves the admins the time and effort going into making a separate inbox just for one-lined 'thanks' messages, and saves members time going through each one - when in fact it's already convenient through the karma system.

And   9 new replies.

[lexitu]

A "thanks" allows the topic to progress. If it is not followed up with another question it sort of signals that the query has been adequately addressed. Now that I think about it I've never seen a "thanks" interfering with a thread. What does one line do to clog up a thread?

More than one poster contributes to a thread - your looking at ~5-10 thanks per thread...

I've never seen someone's karma go up by 5 to 10.

I don't follow? Karma? I meant you'd have 5-10 posters saying "thanks" and that would fill up a page.

Yeah but what I'm saying is if this was to supplant karma I don't think there would be a massive influx of thankers.

[pi]

As long as we don't get thread like this (as an example of excessive 'thanks'), it would be fine.

(although that thread was pretty funny)

[werdna]

A 'thanks' system would work well too - just hope that every thread doesn't become a clone of one of this thread.   Good idea though! It's plain and simple - it's a given that we respect others on a forum and appreciate their help. We all unknowingly accepted this notion when we signed up to this forum, and I guess a 'thanks' system in the actual threads would help to accentuate this.

EDIT: Rohitpi you beat me to it. 

[iNerd]

A 'thanks' system would work well too - just hope that every thread doesn't become a clone of one of this thread.   Good idea though! It's plain and simple - it's a given that we respect others on a forum and appreciate their help. We all unknowingly accepted this notion when we signed up to this forum, and I guess a 'thanks' system in the actual threads would help to accentuate this.

EDIT: Rohitpi you beat me to it.  

What the....? In your previous post you just bagged my system and said it was no different to leaving + karma without negative and now your saying the system would work? :S

And also in response to ATAR's suggestion that we implement a 'like' or 'thanks' button, I don't see how this is any different to the earlier suggestion that we have only a +ve karma button, and no -ve karma button. It's practically the same thing, and saves the admins the time and effort going into making a separate inbox just for one-lined 'thanks' messages, and saves members time going through each one - when in fact it's already convenient through the karma system.

[lexitu]

Lmao at that thread. I love it.

[pi]

What about people posting things that are not 'thanks' in reply to a particular post, eg 'thanks for that useless bit of info' or even simply '-1'. The topic would most certainly go off-topic after a negative response to a post. I think -ve karma wins in that area (less threads off-topic because of it being there)