FortKnox's Journal: Amusing Karma Cap Idea

Here's an amusing idea to solve the karma cap situation.

I want a karma whore beanie now :-)

Although this is an interesting idea, it still has a problem.
Whenever you set a limit, people will always make it there, and then what?
Working with rom/rot muds in the past, I found this to be the biggest issue. What do people do when they attain the highest level?

The solution (if you care to know) is to not give people experience levels, but to just give them a set of skills. These skills atrophy when not used, and increase when practiced. That way, to stay at the top skill, they need to be practicing everyday. And to be good in several skills requires a good deal of work everyday....

Ok, this journal entry is pointless, but I'll post it anyway.

Some of your ideas

[Dead Penis Bird]

Are kind of like Scoop. In Scoop, to gain TU status you must post good stuff and keep posting it, or else the mojo associated with the posts "expires". It's a variable that can be set by admins and superusers.

I prefer the beanie idea

[Raptor CK]

Why? Mainly because I hate the concept of expiring karma. It might be a great idea, but IMO, decay is best left to anything that can't be backed up nightly.

Besides, there can be other subranks within the beanie hierarchy. Like pins! "Informative Poster," "Humble Poster (never uses +1 bonus)," "Reliable (posts on 90% of front page stories)," "BSD Guru (high karma, mostly BSD story related," and so on. The possibilities aren't endless, but there are plenty of options. I think that if it costs enough karma, you'd never hit Signal 11 levels *after* buying all the swag you can possibly get your hands on.

Besides, I just like the idea of getting swag for my trouble. Or burn a few karma points to get a bundle of ad-free pages. After all, those who earn karma provide the real content to Slashdot, and those who don't, well... they're just readers. Ream *them* for all the cash, not me.

Re:I prefer the beanie idea

[drachenstern]

someone should alert cmdrtaco to this idea, or at least one of the other editors. I like the idea of the ad-free pages, even if it's only, let's say, a dime a dozen, or ten pages for a dozen points. I know this sounds stupid, but consider the point of charging for the ad-free pages in the first place. At least this way, people get rewarded for being positive members, however, the reward is not a burden on slashdot or on osdn <?>

Re:I prefer the beanie idea

[FortKnox]

Taco shot down the idea of ad-free for karma points. But he is entertaining the idea of adfree pages for accepted stories.

My theory...

[leviramsey]

Junk the current caps on comment scores and on karma. Set different posting levels, based on the karma system. 25 karma gets you a +1, 75 karma gets you a +2, 175 karma gets you +4, 375 karma gets you a +5, and so on.

Karma rot

[gmhowell]

Karma should rot. Both positive and negative karma. After, say, three months, karma disappears. That way, if you shut up, the karma goes away. It gives people who are mod-bombed the chance to rejoin the community. It gives k-whores an incentive to keep whoring.

Your bill for 2 cents is in the mail...

Re:Karma rot

[FortKnox]

Now there's a good idea!

Re:Karma rot

[I Want GNU!]

That would increase the visability of trolls on a periodic basis. Plus, some people who are proven to be good posters by being modded up a lot and idle for a while won't have their posts as visable. When your posts aren't visable it is tough to be modded up.

/. moderations are odd

[I Want GNU!]

Apparently someone's cat dying is funny. I'll never understand slashdot moderators. [slashdot.org]

Cool, but complex

[Ars-Fartsica]

I like your idea. Its cool. It would be interesting to see if people who have built MUDs or whatever (I don't know anything about games) have some code that can somehow be grafted onto a message board. I'm not sure if Malda and Co. could pull it off.

Re:It's back!!!

[FortKnox]

I changed browsers.

Nice try, though.