The "Karma"-system: A controversial debate

[Scaredgirl]

This is exactly how I feel Karma system should work. It should encourage positive, productive behavior, and "punish" bad behavior.

Which I agree with.

However, there is a point where the punishment gets too much. People don't go to jail for life for stealing something. As it is, once you get negative karma it has this permanent social stigma saying that you suck.

So you make a mistake and insult someone. Most people would probably forget all about it in a week or two. But with karma, they're constantly reminded of what you did. I think making it last a little bit is good, but there's a point where it lasts too long.

Can you do good things and get it back up? Yes. But it isn't as likely; a person is more likely to increase the karma of someone who already has a lot versus someone who has negative.

Are you seriously comparing "going to jail for life" with having -5 Karma? Then I think you might take this thing a bit too seriously.

There's absolutely zero evidence to support the claim that "person is more likely to increase the karma of someone who already has a lot versus someone who has negative". You just made that one up. Many people, including original poster of this thread, have easily bounced back from having negative Karma simply by doing something productive.

People in this community are way more inclined into giving positive karma than negative karma, simply because they are cool 8).

But what if, tomorrow, a complete noob comes to the forums. He says something wrong, and then 10 people take it the wrong way and he gets -10 karma. He just rubbed those 10 cool people the wrong way.

Since it can happen, it needs to be addressed.

Actually no. Using that logic we should prepare for Aliens taking over our servers because that too can happen, right?

As long as it doesn't happen, who cares? If it does happen, I'll take care of it. I have access to Karma logs and can remove entries if needed.

But I think you should have some faith in our community. You really think people would give -10 Karma to a noob who "says something wrong"?

[pepokish]

So you make a mistake and insult someone. Most people would probably forget all about it in a week or two. But with karma, they're constantly reminded of what you did. I think making it last a little bit is good, but there's a point where it lasts too long.

Can you do good things and get it back up? Yes. But it isn't as likely; a person is more likely to increase the karma of someone who already has a lot versus someone who has negative.

In the real world, if you make a mistake and insult someone, people will forget all about it only if you change your attitude and start being nice.  If you continue making thoughtless comments and insults, they'll be less likely to forget any past wrongs you may have committed.  The same works here.  The only reason someone will continue losing karma is if they continue acting like a jerk.  I really have a hard time believing that someone who is tactful, sincere, and mature will suffer by this system.

[killsdazombies]

person above me just got + karma

[Jangoo]

Can you do good things and get it back up? Yes. But it isn't as likely; a person is more likely to increase the karma of someone who already has a lot versus someone who has negative.

Are you seriously comparing "going to jail for life" with having -5 Karma? Then I think you might take this thing a bit too seriously.

There's absolutely zero evidence to support the claim that "person is more likely to increase the karma of someone who already has a lot versus someone who has negative". You just made that one up. Many people, including original poster of this thread, have easily bounced back from having negative Karma simply by doing something productive.

Why not compare -Karma to jail? You compared it to "social jail" already. This forum effectively functions as a little model-society which always somehow mirror the larger society we live in ... what else than jail is Karma going to be if we are talking about a comparison already?

As for Puppys thesis: Of course there is evidence ... a ton of it!
The mechanisms of stigmatization have long been researched and proven existent and problematic in various social contexts. You can read up on this with Norbert Elias or Erving Goffman for example ... great science!
What Puppy describes here is, what I described as "self-intensifying system of social injustice" in my original post. Stigma actually does function as marker for repulsion, a "positive stigma" (status-symbol) as marker for attraction: The rich and popular get all the fame, girls, cash and cars which attract even more of those things while the poor and unfortunate get a broken front tooth and a dirty rag for clothing (stigmata) which will sure not get them a job, a good dental insurance, a woman etc. spiralling down.

Even, if I am not a professional game-designer, I at least got some truly professional experience in social sciences and I can assure you: Any community that installs a system of publicly visible status-symbols and stigmata (their counterpart) wilfully promotes that social dynamic ... It's really just about the oldest trick in the book of societies and even the greatest trust in an upright and "good" community has always been failed, simply because humans are like this.

However, nobody here had -10 yet. The least I've seen was at a guy named Elentier who was doing A LOT of ranting and rule breaking. He was at like -5. After that, he got banned.

But what if, tomorrow, a complete noob comes to the forums. He says something wrong, and then 10 people take it the wrong way and he gets -10 karma. He just rubbed those 10 cool people the wrong way.
Since it can happen, it needs to be addressed.

As long as it doesn't happen, who cares? If it does happen, I'll take care of it. I have access to Karma logs and can remove entries if needed.

But I think you should have some faith in our community. You really think people would give -10 Karma to a noob who "says something wrong"?

I have seen -12 at least once, then never again ... wonder which game he wondered off to. *shrug
But why are you all stuck with that "extraordinarily high" number? A smaller amount of -Karma is already enough to make you feel really bad as experienced in this forum by various people numerous times ... it does happen, all the time!
My whole point against negative Karma is that it doesn't matter whether you "bounce back", "recover" or whatever "saves" that pesky score of yours in the end... the experience of being branded is NOT funny and it also does NOT feel very encouraging to "improve" oneself ... speaking for myself, it's more like a slight depression that stirs feelings of anger against the community.
While I could take it once and actually stuck around to bounce back, others couldn't:

To name just one example, Pyros for Porno discovered that grinding for cash takes forever after his initial phase of enthousiasm, so I guess he was still kind of a noob was he?
He started a "ranting-thread" about how grinding gods is too hard and boring etc. which imho actually had some really good points. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,4911.40.html)
As usual he got kind of talked down by the regulars, with all that "try harder", "not another rant-thread", "leave if you dont like it" stuff that is always easily said. Then Pyros got called "childish" and more and more people seemed to be against him. He got kind of aggrovated (but not exactly rude!) which I could totally understand ... it was only a matter of time until the first rock (- Karma) flew. Pyros couldn't take it apparently: He complained about the -Karma and was never seen again ... 
For a measly anti-grind-rant ... the regulars favourite "let's bash the noob"- gettogether.

You could probably argue that Pyros was indeed childish if he couldn't take this and accept his "mistake".
However, I am arguing that the community was very careless here and willfully drove a nice user out via the Karma-system.

(I actually had a pretty sad part in this, suggesting that -Karma as a totally bitter joke in the first place. Karma failed and the community actually did it.  )

The only reason someone will continue losing karma is if they continue acting like a jerk.  I really have a hard time believing that someone who is tactful, sincere, and mature will suffer by this system.

As stated in the original post "acting like a jerk" and "not having the same opinion" are dangerously close to each other. I also pointed out there that "acting nice" is dangerously close to "sucking up" or "shutting up", since you are talking about sincerity.

E.g., I would generally consider myself tactful, sincere and mature, however I do have a tendency to ... well ... let's say be a bit critical about things sometimes. So let's not beat around the bush here when it comes to SGs earlier real example with person A and B and the card-art:
Person A is actually vrt, person B is actually Jangoo, the art is the pharaoh-card which I happen to not like all that much art-wise.
I stated this in the thread in an admittedly somewhat "jerky" way ... guess I didn't have the best day or something. Check out the Pharaoh-thread, boy oh boy you will see I got beat down for this. Needless to say I still wouldn't agree with the fact that I got totally lynched for that post with -4 Karma, two of which called me an "asshole" anonymously, in conjunction with the thread raining verbal destruction on me too ... if I was a total jerk in that thread, the community didn't prove to be much better than that honestly ... simple and blunt double-retaliation.

Now what have I learned from this?
Theoretically, to be nicer and if I have to issue critique to issue it as careful as possible.
Practically, I think I actually learned that critique in general, popular artists and the art-section is HOT STONES I don't want to touch again. From now on, I will try very hard to simply watch the shiny happy "well-done-good-work"-parade and shut the hell up whether I actually like some art or not.
It actually took me a bit of courage to make this critical thread too, since (like Glitch said right on top) I already saw that - Karma rolling in for being against something, a party-pooper etc.

While this really doesn't present a problem for my score, that darn score is the actual problem for my sincerity from now on. My actions in this forum feel a lot more limited now which is a personal problem.
Community-wise, you be the judge if even my critique could be worth hearing some times or if the system suceeded perfectly by shutting that Jangoo-nagger up.

[Scaredgirl]

As long as it doesn't happen, who cares? If it does happen, I'll take care of it. I have access to Karma logs and can remove entries if needed.

But I think you should have some faith in our community. You really think people would give -10 Karma to a noob who "says something wrong"?

I have seen -12 at least once, then never again ... wonder which game he wondered off to. *shrug

It's pretty funny how you try to talk about facts without even knowing them.

This person you are talking about (only one ever with -12 karma) was a 13 year old kid who gained a lot of haters in a very short period of time with his annoying posts and even more annoying chat behavior. He broke half the rules in the book, and after countless of warnings and temporary bans, he was finally given a permanent ban. The day he was banned, the quality of our community improved 200%.

So please do not try to make him sound like some innocent newbie that the community treated badly. Get your facts straight.

To name just one example, Pyros for Porno discovered that grinding for cash takes forever after his initial phase of enthousiasm, so I guess he was still kind of a noob was he?
He started a "ranting-thread" about how grinding gods is too hard and boring etc. which imho actually had some really good points. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,4911.40.html)
As usual he got kind of talked down by the regulars, with all that "try harder", "not another rant-thread", "leave if you dont like it" stuff that is always easily said. Then Pyros got called "childish" and more and more people seemed to be against him. He got kind of aggrovated (but not exactly rude!) which I could totally understand ... it was only a matter of time until the first rock (- Karma) flew. Pyros couldn't take it apparently: He complained about the -Karma and was never seen again ... 
For a measly anti-grind-rant ... the regulars favourite "let's bash the noob"- gettogether.

You could probably argue that Pyros was indeed childish if he couldn't take this and accept his "mistake".
However, I am arguing that the community was very careless here and willfully drove a nice user out via the Karma-system.

Lol, if these are the two examples you have why Karma system failed then I suggest you try dig a bit deeper You won't find anything though but doesn't hurt to try.

I didn't participate in this particular discussion but reading it, it looks like your average venting rant of a player about to quit the game. There's not much constructive criticism in the thread and it's written in a highly hostile way.

What annoys me personally with posts like that is the fact that Elements is a free game and Porno for Pyros has never spent a dime on it. I just find complaining in an angry fashioning about something you haven't paid a cent, highly disrespectful.

Furthermore you don't just come to game community forum and start ranting about a game, not expecting to get negative responses. But the funny thing about that whole thing was that guess how many negative karma the community gave him after he called everyone "children" etc. ?

Total of 3 negative karma.

Clearly the Karma system is evil.

[PuppyChow]

In the real world, if you make a mistake and insult someone, people will forget all about it only if you change your attitude and start being nice. 

Yes, but with the karma system, they won't forget about it even IF you change your attitude. . In my experience just a nice attitude doesn't gain you karma back.

Which is why I'll suggest this instead: If you have negative karma, for every week you don't have another -karma, you gain one back.

[Jangoo]

I guess it is about time to get clear on a few things and shortly review this debate.

xdude said he had never seen someone with -10 Karma and I stated merely that I actually have, one single time, and that this user must have left. Now whatever that has to do with "facts" I am not supposed to know about ... spare me the fuddy-duddy details because if anything, my personal observation just proves SGs and xdudes point that high negative Karma-scores are the exception on this board.

This in turn has really nothing to do with my basic point:

That Karma itself is problematic, especially negative Karma.
The specific context in which negative Karma was and is used and in which quantities is likewise not important for this my reasoning: I mean to say that also small amounts of negative Karma are indeed "evil". I also mean to say that nobody, not even the worst spammer, deserves negative Karma. There are better ways to "better" him without it and even worst case scenarios like the one above will be handled just fine without Karma as well.
(For more details on the line of this whole reasoning please do get back at the very elaborate original post, since I really don't feel like repeating myself over and over again.)

The two examples I gave (my own and Pyros) were merely to elaborate on the possible bad consequences of negative Karma to make it more vivid and conceivable for the reader. So, I dont think that doing any more "digging" in the annals of this forum to tensely try and "prove" my point will be necessary, the reason being:

An individual case does only present a highly subjective type of "proof" (compare opening statement in the original post).
As for a much broader, so to speak socio-political standpoint on the issue, it is really only a matter of forming an opinion for oneself.

Opinions are rarely effectively formed by "pounding" them into people but by convincing them of one's reasoning, which I am trying to do here. This is called "debate" and usually there are two opposing opinions in a classic debate like we are having here.

It is more than obvious that while I represent the "Con"-side in this debate, which has so far been supported in parts by bojengles77, mafidufa and PuppyChow - Scaredgirl has chosen to take the lead-role for the "Pro"-side, which has so far been supported in parts by xdude and pepokish.

The users standizzle, Kuroaitou, Demagog, Glitch and killsdazombies have so far expressed mixed opinions or indifference towards the subject. A large number of users has moreover not expressed any statement yet or may choose to avoid involvement after all.

It should go without saying that Jangoo and Scaredgirl will most likely not change their opinion, thus the chances of them convincing the other are close to none. Also, convincing any member that has already expressed his opinion clearly is not very likely, although not totally impossible.

In debate there are usually three ways to make the event fruitful for ones cause:

1.  To gain support through the undecided by presenting a good reasoning. (commonly the main-objective )
2.  To consider the debate as a fruitful act of cross-communication that promotes understanding and thus proper conduct in a diverse society.
3.  To outmaneuver the opposing reasoning thus presenting ones own reasoning as a more attractive choice in direct comparison.
3b.  A more fierce sub-strategy of this is discrediting the opposing reasoning or even the opposing spokesmen as persons, thus effectively getting rid of any viable counter-reasoning.


As for me, I feel I have extensively made use of option 1. and to some degree of option 2. and 3.
All my major statements have been made to my satisfaction.
I hope there will soon be more and above all various undecided and decided people to talk with.

For the time being, I do not wish to engage further into option 3. and not at all into option 3b. ...
Those "Battle for Asgard"-type debates have never really struck me as very fruitful to be honest.


-------------------------------

Yes, but with the karma system, they won't forget about it even IF you change your attitude. . In my experience just a nice attitude doesn't gain you karma back.

Exactly, you evil deeds do not become barred by time and neither by a nice attitude in itself:
The negative number stands as it is to start out with ... absolute and supposingly representative; no matter e.g. if I received all that Karma last year and eversince was too "scared" to post something new. Which will then be why of course I cannot gain + Karma either ... the attitude itself wont cut it: It is always action required whereas no action at all could also be considered a "neutralizing" factor.

Which is why I'll suggest this instead: If you have negative karma, for every week you don't have another -karma, you gain one back.

I am really starting to like those kinds of options, after all without hardcore bargaining nothing will be achieved here as it seems.
Over-time regain if no negative interference happens could actually be a pretty good compromise here.

[pepokish]

E.g., I would generally consider myself tactful, sincere and mature, however I do have a tendency to ... well ... let's say be a bit critical about things sometimes. So let's not beat around the bush here when it comes to SGs earlier real example with person A and B and the card-art:
Person A is actually vrt, person B is actually Jangoo, the art is the pharaoh-card which I happen to not like all that much art-wise.
I stated this in the thread in an admittedly somewhat "jerky" way ... guess I didn't have the best day or something. Check out the Pharaoh-thread, boy oh boy you will see I got beat down for this. Needless to say I still wouldn't agree with the fact that I got totally lynched for that post with -4 Karma, two of which called me an "asshole" anonymously, in conjunction with the thread raining verbal destruction on me too ... if I was a total jerk in that thread, the community didn't prove to be much better than that honestly ... simple and blunt double-retaliation.

The thing is: yes, there is actually a difference between disagreeing and being a jerk.  The two only get crossed when immaturity is thrown into the mix.

I understood Scaredgirl's example, Jangoo.  To be completely frank, that was not a mature post whatsoever, and it was not critique.  You cannot act the way you did, and expect everyone to love you -- whether it's on a forum, or in the real world. 

Imagine a crowd of people admiring a newly released card for a TCG.  The artist who contributed his work to the card is standing in the midst of the crowd, showing off his work.  And you walk up and say, "God, what the hell is this shit?  What crappy artwork." People are probably going to call you an asshole.  There is no problem with disagreeing.  There is a problem with being rude and ignorant.

Something like this would have more than sufficed: "Hmm, I'm sorry but I have to say that I'm not really a fan of the artwork.  Perhaps if you changed (x) and made his pose more (x)?  That's just my suggestion, of course."

You offered no critique, you just ranted about how crappy the art was.  And boy, do I mean ranted.  Critique is pointing out specific flaws and offering advice on how to improve.  You did neither of these, and you certainly did not use tact.  Had you, we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.

The point I'm trying to make is, believe it or not, humans already use a karma system in their minds.  Every action calls to mind a previous set of actions.  When people see you say something cruel or unthoughtful, it will call to mind (even if subconsciously) all of the previous cruel and unthoughtful things you've done.  If you do something kind and maturely, it will call to mind all of the kind and mature things you have done in the past.  This is how the human mind works, it's how we form general opinions of people.  If you speak in a mature, thoughtful, and tactful manner, I promise you: everyone will forget the bad parts.  And if you are especially contributive and helpful to the community, then yes, your karma will rise. 

So please, don't tell me that one mistake will stamp you as an outcast for the rest of your time spent on the forum, because it isn't true.  If that one mistake keeps repeating itself, it will be a problem.

[Chemist]

The karma system allows a person, in theory, to give someone -karma for having a different opinion. So yes, I can see a problem with the system and I didn't even have to look too hard. The system isn't flawless, but of course we couldn't expect any sort of system to be without flaws. The questions are: how important are the flaws compared to the benefits and could we conceivably change the system to remove the flaws without introducing new ones?

For anyone who looks at karma as a social mirror (rather than as handed out by specific individuals) having negative karma is like the community saying: "We don't like you (here)."

I'd guess the person posting less is what would normally happen, and they might even leave. Now (this is important) many people may behave like jerks, but very very few of them do so because they wished to be a jerk. Many people could feel that them getting -karma was unfair in the first place.

The karma system encourages people with lots of karma to post more and discourages people with negative karma from posting. That means more good posts overall and that's a good thing, right? Except that in theory I would much prefer a system that encourages the people who are making bad posts to improve the quality of their posts rather than to stop posting altogether. (I've seen such a system before, though that implementation didn't work too well.) Negative karma doesn't say: "We don't like what you did here, could you please try not to do that again?" It just says: "We don't like you."

[Hobnob5000]

I generally don't look at person's Karma to judge them. I saw some guy (I think his name was Elentier) who posted a deck. When we started to give feedback, and constructive criticism, he went into a hissy, ranting about how he doesn't care about our views, as he likes it how it is. It was only then I looked at his Karma, and saw he had a very high negative value, which was understandable. I don't believe Karma is overly important, positive or negative. It just gives an idea of the person. As I say, don't judge a book by it's front cover. Therefore, don't say someone is a troll if they have negative karma. If they post in concise english, and make intelligent responses to articles, I probably wouldn't even look at their Karma. It's only when they start talking in 1337 sp33k or ranting or similar that I think, "Is this the sort of person I want to listen to?" It when they start to really get out of hand that you give them negative Karma.

Referring to the Pyros incident, I think ranting in general is not something the community wants to really hear. Especially ranting about something that can be easily fixed. That's why he received the negative Karma. If he were to come back on a different thread and post without ranting, I wouldn't give a monkeys about his previous incident.

As for purging the person of Karma, I don't think that is really necessary. The person can easily get Karma back by posting constructively. If you were to, I think it would have to be for a longer period of time than one month

On another note,  at PuppyChow and ScaredGirl disagreeing on something :L

[Essence]

That Karma itself is problematic, especially negative Karma.
The specific context in which negative Karma was and is used and in which quantities is likewise not important for this my reasoning: I mean to say that also small amounts of negative Karma are indeed "evil". I also mean to say that nobody, not even the worst spammer, deserves negative Karma. There are better ways to "better" him without it and even worst case scenarios like the one above will be handled just fine without Karma as well.

I disagree.  Negative Karma is a perfect way to tell someone, anonymously and without any chance of starting a flame war, that a particular behavior isn't appropriate.  More importantly, a LACK of negative Karma can tell someone if they AREN'T being unacceptable.

For example, when I ranted and raved on the Master's Battle thread, I got slameed -- I lost 4 points of Karma in 48 hours.  When SG and I butted heads in the War thread and the War got derailed, I had no impact on my Karma at all.  That was an important message to me: I actually was being a whiny bitch in one thread, and mostly reasonable in the other.  I've changed the way I deal with problems based on that community feedback, and I'd be pretty upset to lose that. 

[Kael Hate]

Hmmm.

The Karma System it is against my Religious Beliefs and never use it in any way Positive or Negative.

In a logical reference I think it should be changed.
At the moment it is a schoolyard view. The Popular kids get praise and the outcasts are belittled. Only if you start your own group can you be protected against being marked.

Test the Observation and have a look at various users Karma value.
Those with High Karma are group leaders or have Awe value.
Those with medium to low karma are those that have a group intentionaly or otherwise and often show light on the unpopular view.
Those with neg karma are isolated and have had made a view or step that has drawn wrath but do not have an accepting group.

How to fix this?
Solution: Allow only positive karma for an action that some one appreciates. Anything that would generate negative karma that isn't a forum infraction is merely spite. Do not allow negative karma.

This would mean that users with Karma have done something that is accepted by the community in some way. Those without have yet to do something accepted by the community. Nobody can be treated badly, just you have done something good or yet to do something good.