Karma?

It doesn't show up in both Google Chrome and Safari. But maybe that's because of my "Newbie" status.

[Edit] yes as soon as I posted this I was able to give karma

Mubanga:
It doesn't show up in both Google Chrome and Safari. But maybe that's because of my "Newbie" status.

I see yours. I'm using Chrome. You must be logged in to see it. If you do not see that because you are a newbie, then something should be changed in the forum settings. It is normally newbies that need the most help, and benefit most from this forum.

Well after my 5th post on the forum I was able to give Karma so I guess that had something to do with it.

Diod:
What is karma? Please post below and help me out.

As you have had it explained, I'll add that there is a good Mod (modification) for SMF forums that force you to give a reason for the karma so that there are no mysteries as to what it was given for. I know because I have an SMF forum that uses it. I personally don't like the fact that negative karma has been disabled. It's like Facebook - you can only "like" something, you can't "dislike" something - but we all know that people dislike things just as well. I don't like trying to create a feel-good everybody-gets-a-trophy world when we all know that's not the way life is.

Another thing is I see is that this forum is still running SMF 1.1.17 which is long been outdated. They can upgrade it for free so I wonder why they are using a version that is so outdated. The latest version is SMF 2.0.4. :~

Good deal. I guess a minimum of 5 posts in order to give karma is not too bad.

modeller:
I personally don't like the fact that negative karma has been disabled. It's like Facebook - you can only "like" something, you can't "dislike" something - but we all know that people dislike things just as well. I don't like trying to create a feel-good everybody-gets-a-trophy world when we all know that's not the way life is.

I use other forums that have negative karma, and at first, some users would abuse it in a flame war. But after a while, it became a good tool. If some newbie gave karma to a user that suggested something incorrect, we could counter that with negative karma.

I just tried Chrome 24.0.1312.57 and I can't see the + either. Must be version dependant, what have you guys got?

[Edit] yes as soon as I posted this I was able to give karma

Ignore me, I didn't see the extra posts.


Rob

SurferTim:
I use other forums that have negative karma, and at first, some users would abuse it in a flame war. But after a while, it became a good tool. If some newbie gave karma to a user that suggested something incorrect, we could counter that with negative karma.

Simply having both + and - karma can hardly result in a flame war anyway. There are sufficient controls built-in to stop that - I know all about SMF forums, I'm an expert at running them. As it is, you can have a similar thing happening with only positive karma - the groups that have formed cliques on the forum (all forums have this happen) will give each other positive karma all the time and the result will be a biased total. IMHO - you either use the full karma system or not at all.

@Graynomad: Same version as yours.

@modeller: Now you are going to start the "turd stir"! I am a big proponent of karma in both directions, but I felt like I was standing alone against the masses here when the forum reintroduced karma a while back.
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,123348.15.html

edit: ...and you are correct. The + and - did not start the flame war. It was only used as a weapon in that war.

I think you just don't see your own.

LOL if only one could see their own "karma++" button!

I hadn't been here in a little while. I notice I got two Karma points. Whoopie doo. :slight_smile: How do I see for which posts I got those?

If that's not possible then that's an obtuse kinda positive reinforcement: "You did good, but we can't/won't tell you why." :roll_eyes:

That might be somewhere in my profile page but I'm not seeing it.

Related to that, is there some way to see -others'- 'Karmised Posts?'

Another Q... Inside a particular thread with 500 posts it'd be nice to see a list of Karmised posts as 'best of.' If not possible then take it as a suggestion.

You can't see who gave you karma, and you can't see why or which post of yours was "karmised", as you say.
I guess karma helps you build a good reputation on this forum, but as others have pointed out before it isn't that reliable if your karma can only grow bigger and not smaller.
You also can't see other members karma development or filter post on awarded karma.

Other form software that use (a hack that allows) karma, can show which of your posts were rewarded with karma, but not for others to see yours, as far as i've seen yet.

If you want someone to know he did well, you'd tell him yourself you upped her/his karma by showing a + sign or just plain telling him they got some karma.

MAS3:
You can't see who gave you karma,

I know you added that for completeness, but I actually very specifically -didn't- as k that question, because for me it doesn't matter much. I'm much more interested in which post (any)one found 'more than averagely useful.'

...and you can't see why

There was an interesting previous comment about that, that karma required a 'why.' Actually even though I've been 'doing net' for 30+ years I've seen forum software that gave -post- level karma type rating, I'd never seen -author- rating. I like giving positive feedback for exemplary or 'over the top' information and wouldn't -mind- the added burden of a 'why' comment. That's the sort of things that moderators would find useful as far as understanding users.

The 'war' thing, well, that's a social not technical issue, but can be dealt with technically. There ARE ways to analyse user actions to discover such activity, either deliberately incrementing or decrementing ratings for nefarious purposes. The admin reaction to that should be -not- to -delete- users (because they can always come back under another handle,) and not even to remove their karma abilities, but to set flags in the software such that 'somewhere down the line' (a few days later when the user isn't paying rapt attention) to remove the +/- karmas that they've carpet bombed. That would yield a more realistic longer term reflection of -average- user activity as regards giving karma +/-.

..."karmised", as you say.

I -researched- that word before I used it. :slight_smile: I can never think up anything original. :frowning: But oh well. :stuck_out_tongue: https://twitter.com/karmize

I guess karma helps you build a good reputation on this forum, but as others have pointed out before it isn't that reliable if your karma can only grow bigger and not smaller.

Not necessarily. All it means is that the nefarious/bogus account (or even an active user) can skew the karma upwards and not downwards. But as I said if analysis can discover these accounts then their effects can be neutralised.

The Yahoo Answers 'game' is a great example of site admin -failure- to deal with these kinds of problems. I say game because there are ways to 'play' it that yield TREMENDOUSratings with very little work. Eventually Yahoo simply changed this in a way that DESTROYED the ratings system rather than figure out how to deal with it. Personally I preferred to play it as a -real- user and -still- stay within the rules, and yet achieve high ratings. It was when they wrecked the ratings that I stopped playing.

You also can't see other members karma development or filter post on awarded karma.

Which would be fabulously useful, if it also has a keyword search system. Arduino.cc is a 'realatively' small site, 1.6M hits vs for example rcgroups.com which I'm very active in which returns about 10x more hits. The arduino.cc search too is pretty good because it uses google. Rcgroups uses a ridiculous that returns site search hits and hits returned via direct google searches as PAGES not POSTS. The site search, if you look for two keywords, and each keyword appears in -two- posts on -one- page of 15 posts, then you receive 'two hits.' Ridiculous. If you do a direct google search for those two keywords, you get only the one page returned, but because the two words might be in two separate posts and the two posts might have nothing to do with each other the 'information' returned is very likely useless. Again, ridiculous.

Craigslist is another example though, even worse, of absurd ridiculocity. They return -valid- web pages for 'flagged' ads. Meaning google doesn't filter them out -- it returns the deleted pages as valid hits looong after they're deleted. Google looks foolish but it's CL's -fault-.

Enough /RANT. Sorry, back to the point.... :slight_smile:

AND THIS IS THE POINT...

Arduino.cc isn't extremely large, but it isn't going to get smaller. There're an entire cottage and aftermarket industries built around Arduino. -Those- are only going to get bigger too. Admin has the choice of dealing with the problems NOW while they're perceivable -and- -identifiable-, or wait till it's too big of a bloated elephant to be -able- to deal with it. Or just ignore it and hope/assume the problem goes away. :roll_eyes: :slight_smile: Which it -ain't- gonna go away. In the digital future Arduino-the-product, the educational, learning and development hardware, -will- 'go as the site goes.' Meaning if the -site- isn't useful, viable, and evolving, then the -product- itself could -die- for lack of USEFUL AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION available to the user.

That's most relevant to the recent comment about 'wrong' information, which is worse than no information. Wrong/misleading/dangerous advice stuck in locked (read only) forums... - Website and Forum - Arduino Forum

If you want someone to know he did well, you'd tell him yourself you upped her/his karma by showing a + sign or just plain telling him they got some karma.

I do a variety, as appropriate in a particular situation and forum. If it's just 'thanks' I use PM, though only very rarely. More often I post it to the forum, but -also- add they 'why' or further information on the topic.

I have problem with the Karma + button. I can't find it. Look at the attached picture. There is one of user and I am not able to add Karma to him because there is not a + button on the left side. Based on help it would be placed uder the Karma text. Should I setup something to see it ...some checkbox in my profile or etc?

You have a post count of 3 at this moment.
I don't know, but it is likely that you have to have a minimum number of posts before you can add karma.

MAS3:
You have a post count of 3 at this moment.
I don't know, but it is likely that you have to have a minimum number of posts before you can add karma.

Thank you. May be it is not so very good for those who help the new members of the forum. They are loosing lot of karma points because of this restriction, don't you think so? They helped them and don't have any rewords. Just my point of view...

I can see my own Karma button, but I can't give myself Karma. Is this a bug?

No, it's a feature.

Pete

GeoDuino:
I can see my own Karma button, but I can't give myself Karma. Is this a bug?

The fact that you tried says something about you I think.

Delta_G:
The fact that you tried says something about you I think.

No no no, you see that wrong :wink: We're all programmers and try to find bugs in other peoples code as our own code is always bug free :smiley: