It's been a few months since the forum karma system has been removed. This isn't a petition to restore karma, although I'd like to see it. This is just a small analysis of the benefits that system had.
A lot of the complaints against karma were that a new user could join the forum, make 2 worthless posts, and within 20 minutes have a +0/-12 rating.
Plain and simple, that means the system works.
A user who has contributed nothing should have a negative rating, the lowest of ratings. Once this newbie user starts posting legitimate content, people will change their ratings toward them.
Karma: What goes around, comes around.
The more forum newbies go around posting junk, the more junk gets pushed into their karma.
I believe the rating system promotes good posts.
When newbies strive to attain a high karma, they'll work harder on their posts. I know Soldier once had a +0/-10, then he began asking how to raise it, so we gave him pointers. When he started following it our suggestions got a few pluses. Because of karma we turned Soldier into a useful forum member, who doesn't post random stuff every 15 seconds.
There were some who claimed they didn't care about their karma, and it was reflected. People with very few +'s and a lot of -'s, clearly post worthless criticism or unnecessary personal flames. Can you think of anyone recently banned with a 'good' karma? I can think of a few banned recently with notably bad karma.
Too much on forums do people think, 'hey, they have a high post count, they must be someone too listen too' This is not always the case, more so on this forum then others I belong to. A karma rating adds validity to posts made by posters.
What if you posted an idea in the feature request forum, and a person with a bad karma said it was bad, what would you think? It's obvious they criticize a lot, and therefore you shouldn't be discouraged by their post. And on the flipside, someone with a +0/-50 rating who tells you they like their idea means more probably, than someone with a +5/-5 who probably gives a superfluous amount of compliments .
I don't know why I posted this, other than to note that the karma system was something that I thoroughly enjoyed using as a reference when I was newer, and I'm sorry to have seen it go.
Cheers,
y00tz.
*will edit for grammar, content, and y00tzisms later.
