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Unless the opposite happens and a new member is rated down continuously for no reason and then most users won't see them and be able to correct the incorrect average Karma.
Well, a user that new can easily just make a new account to reset his karma. And he's not going to be rated down to sub-default that quickly unless he deserves it.
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User moderation without checks isn't a good idea because then it simply becomes a popularity contest or based on opinions rather than quality. Sure post wise even a Guru can become sub-default quickly, but what prevents them from flooding a board with multiple topics, which all are based on the average rating?
A) It's not really a popularity contest though. Yes, there are certain groups who will rate you en masse if they don't like you. But there are *THOUSANDS* of site visitors each day who will only rate you if you deserve it. The ones causing problems seem to be a very small minority.
B) People do what you're saying sometimes, it's generally referred to as being a [:postfarmhoe:] as was recently explained to me. However, it doesn't actually help that much. Deadgye is one of the more prolific posters, and as long as I've been here he's always been at <3.0 karma, so he's always just been a standard user. Recently, even with his high post count, his karma has shot up and he's now a scholar. He's been posting a lot of good, helpful information and his karma reflects that. Being a [:postfarmhoe:] doesn't really matter that much, ultimately. People are still going to rate you the way you deserve, and your karma is still going to reflect that.
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Suppose a non-member reads the forums, sees a "Default" topic, finds it useful, but can't rate up since they're not a member. They go out somewhere, come back and find it gone, not knowing that it has been rated down. I doubt they would register just to ask what happened to the topic, rather they would go elsewhere to find the information.
If it were really a helpful, on-topic post, it wouldn't go below the filter, and if it did it would quickly get rated back above the filter. What you're suggesting is maybe a one-in-a-million situation, and not something worth revamping the current system over IMO.
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Strange. Every time I see a complaint of a rate-down in the same topic of the rate-down either the original post is rated up or even both it and the complaint post. Of course creating a new topic about it would (and should) result in more rate downs.
If someone mentions that they've been rated down unfairly, and if people agree, they rate the person back up. If people disagree and feel the ratedown was justified, they rate them down further. So, if someone takes an unfair hit they get an overall karma boost, which I expect helps to discourage the karma trolls that just try to lower someone's karma to be mean. If you rate a helpful post down, chances are good the person is going to end up with even higher karma than if you had left it alone. It's a self-regulating system.
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Ok, recruiting reviewers/moderators/whatever and having them handle all rate-ups/downs may be too much work/effort, but how about adding an option for other users to report bad rate-ups/downs (exclude the poster and person/people who rate the post) and have someone look at it (either the existing mods/admins or recruit a couple more)?
That's already in place, but all scholars+ do the corrections. As you said before, if someone complains about an unfair ratedown, often people will come along and counter it. If I see someone's been rated down and I don't think it was justified, I always give them a rateup. And in the end, as I explained above it usually ends up countering a "karma troll".
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I haven't seen any examples, although I only visit a very small portion of the forums. Still, there should be some time limit on the average rating, so that Gurus stay smart and sub-defaults have a chance to become smart. The other option of course is to purge old posts after a certain time, which would effectively do the same thing. :)
Gurus DO stay smart. If you've made it a habit of posting quality information for the last six months, you're probably going to stay in that habit. You should have more faith in people. And purging old posts is a bad idea, there's a lot of great info out there that was posted AGES ago. Why should good posts ever be taken down?
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Odd, because I already see it for posts under non-topical areas (say a quest). Also I notice that the system doesn't look at more than just the current page when filtering, meaning if set at Excellent Only some pages may be completely empty with only the "x topics filtered by settings, 0 displayed".
The quest info boards are set up totally differently, and understandably so. They don't get the regular posting traffic that a conversation forum gets.
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There is a "c", where "someone's opinion based on facts may be rated down just because the rater has a different opinion" and a "d" where "a poster's popularity/reputation in game may result in being rated up/down even if the post itself is the opposite". These are what I see everyday and why I have even seen users say that they refuse to post on certain forums because of the karma campers. In my opinion the only ones benefiting from the current system are the popular, go with the flow veterans whereas heaven forbid someone new brings up an old topic like "JP vs. NA" or expresses an opinion like "I like x because of y" (which goes against the "norm").
P.S. I won my bet about being rated down for posting this topic. I guess it goes against the norm and I'm not popular enough. :(
The problems you're complaining about happen SO rarely, and are usually wiped away by later ratings. I've had issues with my karma in the past, I had one individual very angry with me and (I suspect) he rated down many of my posts, taking me down almost a full point. I got very angry about this since I hadn't done anything to justify that karma loss. I emailed the admins, I ******* in this very forum, I asked my boyfriend to go back through and rate up any of my posts that he could find. But you know what? I should've listened to Redyne at the time (I love her, she is an absolute angel of calm wisdom and her panda is adorable) when she said that ultimately things would balance out. My karma now is higher than it was before it took that big hit.
Think of karma as your Allakhazam biorythm. It occasionally has sharp spikes in one direction or another, but the overall picture is an almost-completely-accurate image of your posting quality. If I post a reply to someone's thread and basically just say "yeah, I agree", my post doesn't get rated at all. If I post a rude "stfu n00b" reply, my karma bombs. If I post an intelligent, well-thought-out rebuttal and I try to keep a cool head and a civil tongue, my karma either stays the same or goes up a little. If I post a guide or some new information that I think will help the community at large, my karma takes a big jump. That's how it SHOULD work.
So, ultimately, I think it's important for everyone to appreciate that in the grand overall scheme of things, karma trolls amount to absolutely nothing. There are roving bands of karma faeries who will rate you up randomly, there are board members who will take action if they see someone being unfairly mistreated, people WILL react to rubbish posts. And ultimately... it's JUST a number.