- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: Achronos
You guys are thinking about the karma system the wrong way. The idea is to give positive reinforcement to good contributions to the community. Very little of it will be based on human interaction.I don’t think an automated karma system would be easy to design, or even ever work. I wouldn’t even know what parameters to begin with. The only thing I can readily think of, is running every person’s post through a spell checker and rating them based on that. I think karma is something that can only be dished out by people, not computers. So I’m going to explain how I think a good karma system would work.
We start off with the mods. At first, only they can hand out karma, and it can be good or bad. Also, only they can see people’s karma. Karma would appear as a color next to a poster’s name. After a while, some people will have really good karma (actually, I know some people will have really good karma that day) and some people will have bad karma (within the hour, perhaps). The people with good karma will be ranked as Tier 2 good karma users, and will then be able to dish out their own karma, good or bad. This karma will be kept separate from mod karma, but be displayed along with a user’s mod karma, but have less weight. Also, no amount of Tier 2 good karma can get you into the Tier 2 good group, only mod karma can. Of course, as some people the mods don’t notice build up good karma, it can act as a flag for the mods to see who’s been good.
The other benefit of Tier 2 good is the ability to dish out bad karma. Since the number of Tier 2 goods will exceed the number of mods, their eyes would be in more places at once. Perhaps someone has been misbehaving somewhere, and then they make a rotten post that merits deletion. The mod sees the bad karma rating, and decides a banning is in order as well. If they had seen a good karma rating, they may decide to be flexible and give out a warning instead. Another benefit of letting mods see bad karma is for repeat offenders. Anyone who’s been banned gets a mark for each ban. People who have been banned several times could then face harsher and harsher punishments until the banhammer comes down on them with full force so they can never return here again.
The benefits of the described system are obvious. In this system, the karma is used only as an aide to the mods. No special privileges are given out yet, but the karma is still being used effectively. The karma will assist the mods in telling apart trouble makers and people who do not intentionally break the rules. This karma system would also be easily testable, since no action is actually taken on a user’s karma except for being able to give out karma that doesn’t matter except for helping the mods. The system has a low chance of not working properly, since it starts at the mods and only Tier 2 good people could influence another user’s karma. There will be no runaway explosion of people dishing out good karma, since only the mods’ ratings will count in being able to give it.
Ultimately, people with good karma could receive benefits like a forum for good karma users, or possibly special avatars or such. I hesitate to suggest such thing, however, as it will lead to grudges and resentment. This is why I feel a karma system should at first only be used as a tool to assist the mods.
P.S. Bungie employees could change a user’s karma level to be anything, obviously.