This is lifted in true plagiaristic style from the website of the guys who code the forum software;

You grow your Karma with the true Hindu virtues of patience, friendship and altruism...

More on Karma can be found here

Now, to save everybody some time:

Basic definition: Karma is a sanskrit word and a concept of eastern religions. Simply explained, it is a sum of all that an individual has once done during many lives and is currently doing. The effects of those deeds actively create present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life.



So, to summarize: it is the sum of what you do and what you don't.

Now, to cut to the cheese: other board users can let your Karma increase by applauding you (thumbs up) or smite you (thumbs down). You can not manipulate your own Karma, actually, it's punished if you do... you go down 5 points for trying alone...
Even Adminstrators can not alter their own Karma! (Unless they hack the database, but that's pathetic).
A user can alter 1 user's Karma every 24 hours with either +1 or -1 point. A moderator or administrator can alter as many user's Karma by as many points they like.

The whole idea of the system is this:
You can have users that post little but their post are always very good. Some people post much, but they never get further than 'Yeah' or 'Me too'. The first will have a low post count, the second a high post count. Now, which of the two is more useful or credible?
The first! And other users can reward him/her with a larger Karma and the second with a low Karma (even a negative Karma is possible). That way, other or new users can see that the person posting valueable posts with a low post count and a high Karma is more trustworthy and valuable to your community than someone with a high post count but low Karma...

The second poster will have a higher ranking, because that's based on post count. Karma compensates/relavates this because a 'Junior Boarder' can have a huge Karma and a 'Platinum Boarder' a very low or negative Karma...

Hope this helps!

Post edited by: Bert, at: 2006/04/27 15:42

Thanks for the explaination Bert,

I know you cut/pasted it from the code forum so its not your words.

You can have users that post little but their post are always very good. Some people post much, but they never get further than 'Yeah' or 'Me too'. The first will have a low post count, the second a high post count. Now, which of the two is more useful or credible?

Agree with this statement in part, the part I agree with is that a poster should give an opinion or answer that is worthy of posting not just a one word answer, its basically the easy way to post a "bump" to get his forum rating up which might get deleted by the "admin team". However to say that one is more credible than the other I dont agree with as this person may have posted what he/she thinks are perfectly good posts.

I run a BB Forum for a gaming clan of which I am a member, the only rules we have is no bad language (if you do the censorship software deletes it anyway so use the odd few ** )or porn to be posted, anything else (as long as its in the correct forum as I hate having to do the Admin) is open for discussion with no comeback, if someone doesnt agree with the post they "voice their own opinion" by post. If I added this system to my forum a lot of the members would stop posting as they would get upset (polite way of saying p*ssed off) thinking that every post they submit would get them a bad karma rating. I also think it stops the "open forum" idea as its easy to hide behind the "I wont post my opinion as it "might" effect my karma rating so I will just give it a bad rating". If the system worked in such a way that if you gave a certain amount of "bad karma ratings" without a post it would effect your karma rating then the "open forum" would get back to its status quo, as such the way it currently is it might stop people posting, not the way for a forum to be!

This is not a shot at anyone, (especially you Bert as I know how much work goes into running the forum) its my opinion and as a firm believer in free speach, if you dont like what I say "tell me" but in the meantime dont forget to give me the "thumbs down" as im on a mission.

I did like this bit
You can not manipulate your own Karma, actually, it's punished if you do... you go down 5 points for trying alone...

Now you have got me thinking... how many accounts to register?



Post edited by: fatboy, at: 2006/04/27 18:57

Maybe Earl's views about karma are right.