Karma Level

[psoTFX]

The point of karma is being totally missed by you konigswolf If you have a low karma it should (assuming users aren't totally abusing the system ... and this is where our efforts are going in terms of progressing this system) indicate to you that your posts are not being thought of highly by other members. If you falsify data the system becomes totally pointless and you may as well disable it.

[Master LL]

Honestly, I love the idea of Karma. I think it's a good way to show how well the user is as part of the community.

But here's some of my opinions:

1- I believe it should be maybe "number based" (+ and -).. so that way it can be adjustable on how high your karma can be (like from -999 to +999 or -9999 to +9999).. If it's like this bar graph based (as now).. it would be great if we can adjust the amount. (See #3 for more info).

2- The karma amount you have gives you prevliages.. like ability to post new topics, avatars, signatures, "report to moderators", etc. This will help sort out those who are worthy and not. You dont want low karma users to "report to moderators" and it isn't viable. Of course this is adjustable by the Administrator to decide the # of karma mininium to gain those "abilities".

3- Karma increase automatically per day by # of points (adjustable by Admin.. like +0.1 per day or +1 or whatever number). Of course good deeds help increase that person's karma (legit reports to mods, etc and more). Also, the Admin can give out bonus karma or so to users if needed. Karma decrease can be like stated: breaking TOS, 1 liners, etc. Thus if they kept doing that.. they deserves it (losing karma) cause of what they did (breaking the rules).. thus they will lose prelivages. Of course amount gained or decreased can be configured by the Admin (like breaking a rule can lose -5 points or something, etc).

Of course all of this is my personal opinions.. but I believe this can help keep the board clean and such. I would love to hear some feedback on my opinion (the developers and moderators). I dont believe this system can be abused.... basically, if you follow the rules and loved by all, your karma can go up (thus gain more prevliages). If you break the rules and not loved.. your karma will go down (and lose prevliages on the board).

PS- I hope there is a ranking system still (I like it). But the Karma is a great idea which I hope my idea (or something similar will be implanted)

[libertate]

I would be very careful not to build a fixed way of generating the karma ranking.

There is just so many reasons why someone would want their users to have high, or low karma, (or none displayed at all!).

For example, on a board like phpBB, members would get high karmas for a completely different reason verses a generic chit-chat board, or a business discussion board, or a support board.

The truth is, any ranking of any sort that is displayed 'publicly', has more negative impact then the expected positive one. It is a discouraging note instead of a positive reinforcer.

Think about it - over time, there will be group of "elite" posters, which always alienates 'non-members', which turns them off to contribute.

So I would want to be very sure I can turn it off...
Just because we can build it, doesn't mean we should.

[Master LL]

That is so true. The ONLY fault I can see by my suggestion is that people may or will try to kiss up to the Admin of the board (or mods, assuming they have permission to give karma) in hopes their karma will go up. That will lead to problems and competitions which is not the true purpose of the "karma system". Thus 1-liner posts, etc and many more may happen because of this.

This will then be no different than the "post ranking" or those "Level" mods.

The key thing is that I believe the karma should do what I suggest for #2 (the higher karma you have.. the more prevliages you have.. the lower karma you have, the less prevliages you get).

I guess keeping the Karma # amount can be a secret but only to the Moderators & Administrators (only they can see everyone's karma). Or that's one previlages you can get if you get high karma (for the user).

[Master LL]

Offtopic: I can only edit once? Dang... I just lost a whole paragraph of what I wanted to state

Anyways, I'll have to retype it again.

The REAL problem is how karma can be gained without it being abused. Please keep in mind that all numbers can be changed based on the Admin's decision.. I'm just using those numbers as examples

My suggestion is that users get +1 karma per day automatically. Thus this can't be abused at all since the most you can get it +1 karma. Unless it's a special ocasion (Admin gives karma to user manually, etc.. or everyone gets 10% increase of karma for "board's anniversity", etc).

Thus it's harder to keep your karma than lose it.... since breaking the rules can result in losing +2 karma or whatever.

This will keep users in check mostly because you lose more than gain if you break the rule.

Of course users that doesn't think karma isn't worth it (or dont care) and decide to break the rules and stuff will be eventually deleted or banned. Not that it matters since karma would not been a factor since of their behavior (that person would end up being banned or have their account deleted eventually.. due to their personality of breaking the rules).

[carpetbagger]

libertate wrote "I would be very careful not to build a fixed way of generating the karma ranking"

Absolutely. Different board owners will have very different views on how this should be handled.

Whatever system is introduced in 2.2, you can guarantee that as soon as we start using it we'll get loads of different ideas about how to change / improve it.

My suggestion is to restrict the 2.2 work to something reasonably basic. The most important thing is to provide for storing and amending a karma rating, and using it for various permissions. Then you can build functions on to this later (MOD developers could use it too).

[psoTFX]

There is nothing to be gained from making the min/max "number" changeable ... it's just that, a number ... this is why I've assigned words to each level. It ultimately doesn't matter whether you have 5 graduations or 5000 graduations ... a "bad" user is a bad user and a "good" user is a good user.

As already stated, the admin will have certain capabilities to alter the way in which Karma is calculated.

No one should think of this as some amazing feature which will prevent spam or "dopey" users It will still be able to be abused by those that try hard ... the idea though is to make it a "useful" as possible within certain constraints.

[Master LL]

Yea I understand about that.

But it'll be sweet to have like an ability like this (using my format or in a way similar):

In Admin Panel.... there's a Karma Editing "Permissions" with:

IF karma (= < > /=) than (input number), then (type of permissions) (variable).

Thus a person with negative kama (bad users), you can make it like "If their karma is < 0, than allowable post per hour is 1". Thus this will restrict them from using more than posting one post per hour.. keeping them from spamming or so.

some "type of permissions" that would be nice would include (with variable:
- post per hour (number)
- avatar (allow/disallow)
- signatures (allow/disallow)

etc.

but honestly, that maybe going too far.. because to code something like that would be (especially the customizable IF, THEN statements) hard to pull of. That would also mean there must be some adding to the file (if that is even possible). Plus there are many possibilities on the type of "permissions" that can be thought of.

Anyways, I'll see what you all come up and finalize with I just that thought I should give you some ideas of my opinions in case they were good that's all. I'm already impressed with the new version (love it!).. I just want to see it as best as it can be!

[BesigedB]

alongside the link imo there should be radio boxes so that someone can go through a thread and at the end click a box to rate them all

edit: the above users suggestion of posts per hour would be appretiated as a variable in the new control system (if someone is registered x days.. etc)

[psoTFX]

Absolutely no to the checkbox idea, the idea is for users to put some thought into ratings. While users could simply go through clicking "bad" or "good" at least they know they have to do it for all posts ... clicking a checkbox then "good" or "bad" just doesn't sit at all well with me.