This thread is for debating on the Karma-system, more specifically on the "social implications" of it.
This was sparked by my concerns about it the very day it was implemented, concerns which were revived in
Meet the Oracle + about Karma notifications... (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,5206.0.html).
(
reference-thread for the latter part of this post.)
I would like to imply here, that the Karma-system is highly problematic and needs some major changes if it is actually supposed to help/improve the community.
Therefore, I would like to suggest :1. That the Karma-system dissappears.or
2. That the users may choose to partake in the Karma-system or not.or/and
3. That the Karma-system is renamed to something less misleading like "popularity index" or "mob-law-counter". ;-)or/and
4. That the option to deal out negative Karma is removed.or/and at least
5. That the Karma-log is fully visible for the member who received Karma, be it positive or negative. Possibly even fully visible Karmalogs of anyone for anyone if the technical side would allow this. This is meant to prevent the "the number stands as it is"- effect and may allow anyone to check into the deeds-record of a member and form an opinion about the respective Karma-score for himself.
5b. That there is a strict limit for Karma-distribution. "Feeling like" handing out Karma to various people all the time should not enable you to do so, expecially not multiple times to the same person for the same reason. Karma would then be considered like a daily vote in a truly just and democratic system: E.g., only one Karma-cast a day will make you think twice which "deed" deserves your attention instead of just "scolding that jerk" or "scratching someones back" along the way ...
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A common reaction to this concern from a Karma-advocate would probably be something like "You only say that because you have received a lot of negative Karma."
I am trying here to make a rather academic point, that has been on my mind the very day the Karma-system was announced. The problematic dimension of actually making deeds, opinions, popularity ... visible through a mere number next to a persons name is wholly untouched by the fact that people who are against it may have been rated badly. This fact is actually even the very core of the problem: Feeling bad or even injustly treated because of a negative rating does not promote well-being in this community and may even split the community. Being against the system because one got punished by it is just as much a valid standpoint as being in favour of it because one got gratified ... both standpoints still remain personal and biased to a degree that they do not really present a decent reasoning.
In other words: I am not trying to find out here, how many people got treated well and thus are in favour and how many got treated badly and thus are against it. If this were the intention, I would already expect the vast majority to vote in favour, simply because those would be the people that feel encouraged to partake in forum-activities whereas those who got treated badly probably don't even feel like posting anymore or left completely, which is, again, the core of the problem here.
Therefore, the poll-questions are not asking whether you like/benefit from the Karma-system or not.
They are asking whether you see a problematic dimension or not.
Please vote accordingly.
3 good reasons to consider the Karma-system problematic:First, quantifying people and their deeds is in itself already problematic since Karma is a stigma. The very most of us are living in a society that is obsessed with quantification. While quantifying a sportive achievement, gross domestic product, health conditions or whatever may still be necessary or even allright, quantifying peoples deeds is a rather babylonic act.
Can and should you really quantify someones deeds, especially where those are all too often simply an opinion in a forum like this? That having said, why does a system of punishment and gratification even have to be there in a recreational space such as a gaming community?
Personally, I would expect a gaming-community to provide some relief from what we all may experience in the outer world from day to day. Instead, I find just another system of judgemental social pressure.
As pointed out above, part of the core problem is in fact that people who get rated badly may feel less appreciated or even discouraged to further partake in the community at all. That well-rated people may feel a bit too good about themselves and get a little "over the top" in their ways of human interaction does seem a bit far-fetched but is also part of the underlying problematic social mechanism:
Karma effectively functions as a stigma. The clearly visible (positive and negative) stigmatization leads to a division of the community into "in" and "out", "good" and "bad". Once established, such a "social order" has often proven to be self-perpetuating and self-intensifying and often leads to systems of social injustice and insincerity.
To give you an example, in the
reference-thread the idea that there is a huge difference between "having a different opinion" and "being a total jerk" has been stated. While this is certainly true somehow, "being a total jerk" and "having a different opinion" are often very close to each other in a community like this. E.g., it is thinkable and already happening, that someone who speaks up "against" a popular persons opinion or idea is quantified as a jerk easily ... no wonder, not being in accord with the popular has never been a hallmark of being a "nice" person.
As for insincerity in a social system: Assuming the Karma-score actually does have a certain power over the people in this forum and represents a certain status and moreover assuming Karma is actually in place to "make people act nice" (see
reference thread) ... how will you weigh the incentive to gain Karma by "acting nice" against the fear to lose it by "being a jerk"? How far away is "acting nice" from "pretenseful sucking up", "trying hard to not be a jerk" or simply "refraining from expressing oneself at all"?
In my opinion, a relatively easily achievable clearly visible status symbol like the Karma-score will promote hypocritical behavior just as much as true nice conduct. It will moreover simply exlude a large portion of forum-users that either have already received negative Karma or fear to receive it somehow. These users will of course remain invisible and more or less unknown about because they simply dont make an appearance anymore.
Second, the Karma-system discourages true and mature communication. Shouldn't people rather be encouraged to express their viewpoints, agreements and disagreements in speech rather than taking the shortcut of stigmatizing (in negative and positive ways) someone with a few mouseclicks?
Handing out Karma, does not require you to (really) explain why you did so. It is a private response to a public action without involving the need for public communication, a verdict without a trial: "Your Karma was changed on this message" may pop up in your inbox numerous times without a single post in the respective thread that praises or scolds you. People should publicly know about the (Karma-)distributors reasons. The distributor should know and express himself why he actually approves/disapproves on the basis of clear articulation. Contrary to that, in the worst case Karma enables him to approve/dissaprove on the basis of nothing more than an intuitive feeling or mood, the cause for which he doesn't even need to find out as long as he can just make a couple clicks.
Moreover, as Karma is distributed anonymously, it provides a fast and irresponsible way to effectively influence a persons presence in this forum without even having to stand by this action personally. Not having to go through the least bit of trouble, responsibility or consideration when responding to a person via the Karma is far away from the maturity Elements community is supposedly having.
A part of this anonymous system is that Karma can easily be exploited to overcome the very reason it is allegedly in place: Being nice.
If you followed my above reasoning carefully, dealing out negative Karma can in itself already be viewed as a very un-nice act ... but what if this is even accompanied by coarse language or bold name-calling which the scolded cannot even trace back to the distributor?
An example for this I personally experienced would be how I received 4 negative anonymous Karma notifications for "being a jerk" I guess, two of which directly called me an "asshole", the other two of which expressed a judgement that person would have never expressed this way in a public thread.
I claim that it doesn't really help the community if people pretend to be nice in public but then proceed to be total "assholes" behind the curtain of the Karma-system. The option to not communicate/curse anonymously is an incentive to actually do so and has a major negative impact on forum (non-)communication.
Third, Karma is an arbitrary, random, exploitable, corrupt and "non-quantifying" scoring system that is dominated solely by social sympathy while pretending/appearing to be much more than that, some kind of honorable "courthouse" or at least a reliable and true quantification of a persons deeds for example.Karma is supposed to represent "niceness", "service to the community", "good work" and a lawful and reliable verdict that has been made over you. In the
reference-thread, Karma had been justified as an act of law, negative Karma has been portrayed as "social jail". Leaving aside that I dont think Elements needs a "jail" of any kind, the Karma-system is not even close to the lawfulness of a courthouse or the original concept of eastern Karma:
In both cases, a verdict is achieved by a higher and (more or less) singular, neutral and incorruptible power whos judgement cannot be questioned because it follows a set of firm rules.
In both cases, deeds are pedanticly kept score of and result in a "process" of the individual: Original Karma and the lawsystem have a very accurate memory and each piece of the evidence is reviewed again and again when it comes to the verdict.
In both cases, deeds are weighed against each other and underly a categorization that results in a reliable quantification: Lying to someone is not as bad as killing him, giving some food to a beggar not as good as saving a whole family while risking your own life. The verdict and punishment will be made accordingly, infractions that happened long time ago may be forgiven, the penalty for lying will by far not be as high as the one for killing ...
None of these features is in place with the current Karma-system:
A judgement can be made by anyone no matter how biased he may be.
The final number next to the name possbily being a kind of current "verdict-summary", has no record of deeds whatsoever, the Karma-system has no memory and deeds dont become barred by time.
You cannot see from whom and how many times, for what and when a user has received Karma. If you you receive Karma yourself you may not even see who "sued" you.
Also, Karma can be dealt for whatever reason the "judge" wants. Penalty for no real infraction is just as possible as gratification for no good deed at all. The quantity of this penalty or gratification can moreover vary to about any degree the judge wants.
The fact that the "verdict summary" is actually the result of a biased "community of judges" brings me to the conclusion that the only law inherent in the Karma-system is a kind of clientelistic mob-law.
Examples (that are mostly drawn from my experience. Well I cannot look into other peoples Karma-logs ...) :
Someone had a bad day and didn't like your style? -> - Karma (certainly happened)
Someone would like to be your friend? -> + Karma (certainly happened)
Someone would like to have a high Karma-score? -> + Karma to many people with signature, - Karma to fewer people with no signature (actually happened, see OP in the
reference-thread)
Someone didn't understand an obvious joke about the ingame you made? -> - Karma (actually happened, to me)
Someone got defeated by you in PVP and promised Karma for it? -> + Karma (actually happened, to me)
Someone liked an ingame-summary you made that might as well be considered "regular behavior" in a gaming-forum? -> + Karma (actually happened, to me)
Some people disliked your viewpoint on an issue and considered it "rude" behavior, then proceeded to call you names? -> - Karma several times and multiple times from a single person (actually happened, to me)
Someone finds that a certain user didn't deserve to get a lot of negative Karma by various people? -> + Karma multiple times from the same person until the user is back to 0 (actually happened, I did it)
Someone is online every night chatting with a certain friend and finds him nice? -> + Karma constantly for witty comments, providing offtopic links etc. (certainly happened)
As you can see, the Karma score doesn't necessarily have to represent anything but total social randomness and yet it appears to be a reliable quantification, where the common mode of "quantification" is hardly a part of it. It may be assumed that a person with a high score is indeed a "good and nice" person where he may have received large portions of his Karma from a single person or even went around advertising himself.
A person with a high negative score may indeed be viewed as untrustworthy or "not worth to read his post" where he may have simply expressed his dislike for a popular idea or have been misunderstood for whatever reason.
