catwho, pet mage of Jabober wrote:
Usually people karma bomb someone because they 1. Asked a question that was answered in the forum stickies because it's asked once a week 2. Posted a drama thread without any evidence, usually under a sock puppet, and 3. Went off on someone in an unjustified manner during the course of a drama thread. (I.e. invoked Godwin's Law.)
You post far too often in the Asylum and OOT to not know better than this. Admittedly it's become milder of late, but there was a period when most every post by a vsistor in the asylum and OOT hit default or sub-default because it wasn't by a regular or didn't appease the regulars. Sometimes new posters would get into karma wars with older posters, but would take quite the beating because they didn't have the post count or the backing. Being rated down for a simple difference of opinions wasn't too uncommon for some boards. There are a plethora of inappropriate reasons to rate, and they occur all the time.
catwho, pet mage of Jabober wrote:
Most of the time, though, the karma system works as intended.
No, it's jsut that the flaws are largely covered up by the overall impotency of the system. The only real consistency is with gold sellers and other marketeers. Outside of that teh system really does not work and is highly inconsistent. My often quoted example is RPZip, he's posted here for years, generally quite knowledgeable about the games he plays, and contributes a good amount to the site, but he is a scholar for whatever reason. The same could be said for Jordster. The reason most people are able gloss over the inconsistencies and flaws in the system that are shown in these cases cases is specifically because the system is so useless that no one cares that Jord and RPZip are scholar because even if they were default people would still listen to them. No one bases their opnion on the rating of a poster, so that rating is useless. Flaws hidden by impotence.
catwho, pet mage of Jabober wrote:
If you're getting rated down, figure out why and fix it. Bad grammar? Edit your posts. Asking FAQs? Check the database. Flaming people for no reason? Cool your temper.
That's silly for two reasons.
1. The thing about the karma system is that you don't have any idea why you've been rated. Bad grammar can get you rated down if someone's a grammar ****, or it can get you rated up if someone thought it was funny, you can't really know what effect it will have. Likewise you don't know whether you should really pay attention to a rating or not. Did I get rated down because their is a genuine flaw in my opinion about the warrior class, or did I get rated down because someone couldn't stand me proving them wrong? Did I get rated up because I made a genuinely useful contribution, or is someone goading me on? You don't know.
2. You can't fix it. Generally people rate you because they either like you or dislike you, which is slightly based on what you did in that specific post, but they really don't rate you down for a specific reason. Several OOT regulars will rate down new posters for poor grammar, but ignore it for regulars they like. It has less to do with the content of the post and more their opinion of the poster.
thatdamnelf wrote:
An admin, in the middle of one of the user bases flame fests wrote:
The karma thing is unfortunately unavoidable in a thread about a sensitive topic like this. When people feel strongly one way, they will rate down the opposite opinion simply because they do not agree with the argument. This is allowable and a reasonable reason for rating down.
Emphasis mine.
I disagree with that.
Agreed.
I've also heard at least twice from an admin that it is ok to karma camp other posters because I don't like them under the condition that I don't go searching for old posts, but only rate down the new ones I find. That's just silly. We're not even pretending that we're supposed to rate on a post by post basis now?
Edited, Jun 24th 2008 12:18am by Allegory
