New Karma System (Theory)

[Klors]

Although many sites have the positive/negative karma options, I'm eliminating the negative side completely. We are just going to do plus points.

Also, it really wouldn't benefit the users to abuse the system anyways, it's just a nice display of "helpfulness" count, like I said, it would be like post count, do we really need post count? technically, no... all it does is show how often someone posts on the board, it's a nice display, and that's how I'm going to implement the THANKS system. Just a nice display.
For example, Nightrider would have a very high "THANKS" count.

Yes, a fine example, we don't need post counts and yet still people abuse the system by spamming messages just to get the postcount up. It does them no good, they get no benefit from it and yet still they try and abuse it.

In a Karma system with only positive ratings allowed, some users will still abuse it by rating people highly that don't deserve it. That's still abuse of the system. There's nothing you can do in any karma style system on a board to prevent abuse, when the system uses a metric (or metrics) to calculate some objective value that gets displayed to all users. You can only try and minimise the impact the abuse has... even then it's a bit futile trying to prevent it.

Why not simply reverse the effect of any kind of rating so that it only alters how that user sees the board?

You could then give the ability for a user to see the board through another user's eyes. So if a new member joins and wants to get an idea of who is helpful, they look around for a member that they know or just like the look of their views, click the link in their profile and suddenly see how they rate the various posters/topics/posts on the forum.

[yexusbeliever]

If you guys are creating this mod... then you guys can create one that has positive and negative option. For example if the admin sees best that he should not allow negative points then there should be an option to lock it where the points will not jump down negative.

Then those who wants to keep the option of having negative points can have that along.

[Highway of Life]

Alright, I'll do two versions then, because the first one won't be that extensive, then when I get enough time to expand the features, I'll release the second version which will have those +/- options with control from the ACP.

[Uchiha Nick]

karma systems will be abused..

[MKruer]

karma systems will be abused..

All systems can be abused, should it stop people from making them?
Why do you care what people do with their time?
If you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

-1 to Karma for Uchiha Nick

[Uchiha Nick]

I don't like you.

- 1 to karma for MKruer

[Highway of Life]

Thank you for demonstrating why I don't like Negative Karma.

It turns into the... I-don't-like-your-face routine

[Uchiha Nick]

well, that was why I posted 'it will be abused', to unlock some negativity, which would result in other negativity. a +only based karma system might work though, have to see it before I believe it I've went through tons of karma enabled sites, only to find it abused anywhere..

[Highway of Life]

I have been with two systems that used positive only Karma, and they were pretty good for the most part.
Nobody felt like it was being abused on either system.
Although one was a little inflated, how they did it...
but it still worked alright, since they had a TON of abuse prevention in place.
Actually, it worked really well... I liked it. (though it was extensive)

But you are correct about the +/- systems.
Although I don't have as much experience with that kind of system, I can easily see where it would be abused.

[MKruer]

I think both your logics are both inherently flawed. Any distinction between the relevance of a post will be looked upon in a positive or negative light regardless of a number or verbiage associated with it. The simplistic way of saying “there are no negatives” is in the same line of thought as “we can get rid of all crime, be getting rid of the laws that make such actions a crime”

With a simple Nominal or Helpful you are making the system less flexible, less relevant, and more black or white. With the simplistic Nominal or Helpful schema there is also no distinction between a good, great or exceptional post.

The simple truth is any system is a filter, and any such system will be abused. Your job should not be to reduce the functionality of the system because it’s the easiest way to implement it (that is my opinion is a copout for uncreative thinking), but rather to extend it and think of procedures to nullify the effects of abuse, which is why I started this topic in the first place.

A creative way of addressing user spats (-# to Karma) would be to track the P2P rating and find out if this is the normal interaction between people. If it is, then anything done between those two people would not be reflected in the listed Karma value.

An example of a positive system yet, bad karma system is over at dailytech. In it they have go between -1 though 5, default post is 2, Guess what. Most people block any posts under 2. Even if it was 100 though 105, default being 102, most people would filter out any posts marked 101 or less. Its human nature to eliminate the posts others marked as less then the average. If you default every one to -1 or 100 (depending on the system) then what is point of the system in the first place?