Journal guttentag's Journal: Karma Caps and Beanies 3
When I began regularly posting comments on Slashdot, I had a motivation. Every time I posted something good, I was rewarded with karma beans.
After I amassed about 25 of these beans, I was given the ability to "speak louder" with a +1 bonus. I got fewer beans per good comment, but my comments were more noticeable, so my bean hill grew faster.
When my mountain of beans grew to 50, I found (as expected) that I could no longer acquire beans. In fact, if three people modded my comments up and then one person modded a comment down for being moderated to high, I would lose a bean! The only logical thing I could do to protect my mountain was to keep my mouth shut, which I did.
A funny thing happens when a person shuts his mouth... he tends to hear a lot more. What I heard was that other people in the same situation were looking for ways to "spend" their karma. After all, they had earned it, so why couldn't they spend it?
Some people griped publicly about the existence of a karma cap, others complained about the non-existence of a karma store, and others went karma-postal -- they decided to blow their karma by being the biggest, loudest trolls they could muster.
All these people
- Were positive contributers, and
- Had lost their artificial impetus to contribute
So I think the karma cap ultimately hurt Slashdot by discouraging these contributors who have moved on to Troll-world, Abraham-Simpson-world, or silent retirement.
My Solution
Open a karma store where positive contributors can cash in their beans... and their cash. 50 karma beans plus $9.99 plus shipping plus tax (where applicable) gets you a beanie propeller cap with the words "I'm a 'karma whore'|'Slashdot nerd' emblazoned on the front. The first time you buy one you get yellow. Next time you get blue. Then another color, until you reach green, and finally black.
I envision a day when I can look out across a cubicle farm and tell the true nerds by the color of their beanies; and workers can be heard proudly stating "I have a Black Cap in Slashdot."
Thank you for sharing my dream.
Good morning.
Great Idea (Score:2)
Neat Idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
nice idea in principle... (Score:1)
the system does not only reward well-formulated, insightful comments, but also a lot of crap comments that get modded insightful, or informative, just because they align so well to the leading opinions in the "/. community" (whatever that means). or because the fuckwit moderator just happens to think that someone is an expert on a subject just because he knows some terminology and has a clear opinion about a subject.
there's no way its ever going to get better the way things are now.
no lameness filter, threadslap, or any other method of trying to control comments that don't align with "slashdot coolness" is ever going to help keep slashdot a free and open forum for anyone. see l.lessigs "code=law" book for more insightful ideas on regulation by means of code.
feel free to disagree, it's just my opinion. but in my view it is not cool at all to show off your immense karma. with this "beany cap" you are actualy showing that you allow slashdot to regulate you into becoming the stereotype ideal slashdot visitor they have in mind for their target audience.
karma is the worst invention ever, it induces corruption, changes the way we perceive (virtual) reality, and doesn't allow you to think for yourself. the only good moderation would be to exclude trolls & crapflooders, one could think of a way to show a view with or without those posts, just to make them extremely happy with their little subculture of pseudo-insightful comments, and their FP shit, page widening&lengthening posts, and goatse et al.
whatever.
ps. excuse my horrible english, it's not my native language, so it's hard to describe my feelings about this matter adequately.
regards,
meneer de koekepeer