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July, 2025

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Karma System

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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22739 - Karma: 77,027
I'm curious to hear what people think of the Karma system. When we launched it and made the major tweaks on it, we did a pretty good job of getting everyone to agree that the 'best' users were on the list.

However, in another thread, I heard a few complaints that it has lost its validity.


What do you think about the people that are on there?

I agree its a lot of orange names, but to be fair that is because most of them do a pretty good job of being stand up members of Newschoolers. Everyone likes what they do, and they score high.

Let me hear some thoughts. We can always do an upgrade to the Karma Algorithm, as its not points its an overall rolling score. Just like how Google updates its search algorithm.




14 years ago
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.RYAN66
Posts: 5381 - Karma: 225
your kidding right?

how does when someone joined the site make their post valid or invalid.

now if the person joined yesterday i wouldnt base my decision of that, but there are a bunch of good newer members in gt.

i think karma is a better way to gauge someones credibility then when they joined the site, thats just stupid.
14 years ago
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I_liketobutter
Posts: 2664 - Karma: 997
i should rephrase that. im much more likely to take the advice of someone who joined in 2004 than 2011. that doesn't mean i'm not going to consider his advice and that doesn't mean i'm going to only listen to the old members either. i know there's some good new members, its just something i keep in mind.
14 years ago
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james6345789
Posts: 4763 - Karma: 464
Oh man I lost it!
14 years ago
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freestyler_251
Posts: 94 - Karma: 11
i agree with the like/dislike on each post a person makes. there are many people that i have helped multiple times each, and they have me at 10/10 from the first time and cant rate me any higher.

also say someone makes 1000 really good posts, and have 10/10 from tons of people, then they say something stupid or bad ONE TIME and a ton of people get pissed and rate that person 0. thats bullshit because by putting that person at 0 it would mean they have contributed absolutely NOTHING, ever! and cancels out all their good deeds/posts. if we did a like/dislike system, for each like you/your post gets, your karma goes up, get a dislike, its goes down, unless the like/dislike ratio is way off cause of a troll.
14 years ago
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freestyler540
Posts: 13239 - Karma: 20,498
I dont even bother with the karma system. I keep getting depressed when I see long time trolls with higher karma than me. Sure I have put my foot in my mouth a few times, but for some odd reason that is all that sticks. Im sure my good posts surpass the bad ones....

Since my internet sucks and is unreliable, I cant post footage and pics all the time. So I feel a little...penalized here too. But like I said I dont bother with karma. Just real life karma is important to me!

I use post counts to detect trolls. The correlation between karma and troll is less accurate than post count and trolls.
14 years ago
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.Ian.
Posts: 1568 - Karma: 72
Honestly I don't really pay attention to my rating from other members, because *most* of the time I try to make helpful posts anyways, so if people rate me down I know I'm not doing anything wrong really. The reason I say *most* is because I recently took part in "trolling" some kids asking if EA's SKI is real. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever "trolled" someone really. That brought my karma down a ton though, where I've made tons of legitimate posts and never get +k (not that it's a big deal in the first place).

I just feel like I always look at another members karma to judge whether there a helpful member or not, when really you can't do that. Karma has really kind of turned out to be a popularity contest. I'm not saying that there is any way that you could change it to make it not a popularity contest though. I just feel like it should be more of a rating on helpful members VS. trolls. I don't really know though that's just my $.02.

Feel free to tell me I'm an idiot and -K to me. Haha
14 years ago
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Jake...
Posts: 11976 - Karma: 296
I never use karma, ever. (and been around for quite some time).

To value someone i look at these things:

1) first and for most user name. do i recognize it
2) post count, how high is it? (higher means more legit in 90% of instances, and its pretty easy to tell if you are a troll / post whore for posts)
3) do you have an icon
4) if I have to go into it - what your profile looks like. Is it full of detail, how is feedback?

i never look at karma. I totally skip that. and to be honest, i very, very rarely issue it (both - and +).

I guess i just got used to the oldschool site and never adopted the new ways. Oh well, i get by fine without it.


14 years ago
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.Ian.
Posts: 1568 - Karma: 72
Also I was just thinking, looking for people who have donated is usually a good way to separate legitimate members from trolls.

I was going to donate last week, but now that there is no store I forgot about it and now I don't have any money. This week once I get paid I'll get a donator status though.
14 years ago
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Holte
Posts: 10753 - Karma: 7,974
Basically the only things I look at past a familiar icon and name are post count and donator status.
14 years ago
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Mike-O
Posts: 14593 - Karma: 1,089
I just noticed I give karma very extremely, it's either 0/10 or 10/10.
14 years ago
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
this is normal, we can see karmaxchange for each member and i'd say about 80% of the exchange is either 10/10 or 0/10

for me its the same, i usually give 0 or 10 and occasionally a 5 if a 0/10 does something awesome or if a 10/10 does something assbackwards...
14 years ago
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AHSkier
Posts: 563 - Karma: 42
this, this, this and this. I've seen my karma go down hundreds at a time not even because I am trolling but because people disagree with my opinions.
14 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22739 - Karma: 77,027
+1 / -1 doesn't solve anything alone. First off, simply calculating that way is broken. Exerpt from Evan Miller (one of the reddit guys)

"Score = (Positive ratings) - (Negative ratings)

Why it is wrong: Suppose one item has 600 positive ratings and 400 negative ratings: 60% positive. Suppose item two has 5,500 positive ratings and 4,500 negative ratings: 55% positive. This algorithm puts item two (score = 1000, but only 55% positive) above item one (score = 200, and 60% positive). WRONG."

So without processing +1/-1 properly, you still get totally skewed results.


The main issue here is the point of the Karma system is to score a "Good Newschoolers member"

This makes the formula so much more infinitely complex than simple up and down. So its wrong to think that a new voting system will fix everything. Rather, likely more of the issue is in the time expiry of the actions you've taken.

Sure you can't keep giving others Karma. The reason is that if you could, you could just make accounts all day long with throwaway hotmail accounts and rate yourself to the heavens. We had to take into account this... the Xchange counts for a LOT of your score, but it is very difficult to raise or lower. Its a floating calculation which as more people like you overall, you go up. That is the key - one person can not keep assigning you more and more Karma. If they could... even without making new accounts you and your buddy could just sit there for a month and a half straight assigning each other more and more Karma.

The top 100 list was voted to be extremely accurate when we first made it. Sure its annoying to see so many Orange names on there... but you guys are the ones who rate them so high and check out what they do.

Generally if someone is extremely helpful in the forums and has a low Karma score... this is because they don't contribute in any other ways. There's weight to posting content, rating content, making reviews, blog posts... etc.

What we need to do is overhaul the calculation. Sure having more rating and such on posts in the forums will be fantastic, but we aren't capable of adding that in immediately. We could make some tweaks to what is currently there, as well as add some more strict point loss for inactivity.

What you guys should tell us is what YOU think is a good NSer. Do pick through the top 100 list and come up with reasons why you think those users no longer belong there. Think philisophically about what would make the best all-around user of this site.

Finally, having separately sorted lists won't be a big deal either. We could have a list that is blue names only type deal.


14 years ago
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
^^interesting :)
14 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22739 - Karma: 77,027
Yeah man this shit is seriously complicated. Its incredibly hard to score people using math but getting results that 'feel' right.

Its like the single biggest problem on the internet today. I'm really excited to dig deep into this issue though, I'll certainly tell you that much!


14 years ago
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
in the top rated members list theres also the average karmaxchange score they get, so basically a score x/10 that was given to them by other members, the same one each member can see on their own profile, wouldn't it be cool if this was also visible to other members?
or is there another good reason you guys didn't make those stats public for everyone ?
14 years ago
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.RYAN66
Posts: 5381 - Karma: 225
i agree this should be able to be viewed by the public, it lets you know what other people think of this member.

bishop, you made it clear that a lot goes into karma besides member ratings, but lets face it the forum is what drives a lot of members on this site, and i think it would be a better way to judge someone by on what other people rate them then their overall karma.

here is an example of why i am saying this, and i hope he doesnt start a shit storm.

eheath, uploads a ton of content to this site, and great content to and his karma shows it, but his posts in the forum piss people off and he gets a bad reputation, thusly i would have to assume he is rated as a 0/10 by most members. so his average rating could be around a 3 or so. it would be helpful to know if the person is an ass or troll or a genuine good person, i think this pertains to heath more now because he is an orange name.

now my averge is a 4.94, used to be at 6 so i guess i pissed someone off. but i am going to bet that most people are right around 5 because of how people distribute karma as either a 0/10 or a 10/10. so in normal members that are relatively new this idea might be completely useless because of how similar the average might be. would anyone else be willing to share their average?

so this idea might be completely garbage anyway if that is true.
14 years ago
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Mike-O
Posts: 14593 - Karma: 1,089
That's the problem.

If you piss people off, be it by being controversial (as you know from all the gun stuff etc.) or just pointing out something that people disagree with... does that make you a bad member and worthy of a Karma drop - even if you can back your shit up and it's, you know, your opinion?

I don't care anymore, but it made me wonder many times as to what I had said/done that I saw a huge drop in one day. That's why we see so much... fanboyism even in single threads. If the first reply to a thread is negative and from a known member, chances are that the bandwagon is hopped on furiously and the following comments/ratings are negative - but the same works in reverse, I have noticed.
14 years ago
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.RYAN66
Posts: 5381 - Karma: 225
was this in regards to me?

because i remember your name/icon from something and it could have been a gun law argument, not to many people take the conservative side on that.

and actually it is pretty rough being a conservative on this site since everytime i voice my opinion on something it gets shit on.


but that is a thing i have thought about also, it would be cool if there was a way to rate a post, but so many people would downrate the post (which in theory would affect karma) just because they do not agree with what was being said, think of nsg threads about religion, politics, and gun control, just to name a few. and a post that could be completely BS could get uprated (and result in a +K affect for the poster) just becuase people agree or it is a very well known member and they jump on the bandwagon as you said.

the said part is that this idea can be trolled very hard, think of threads like the non-donator assault thread, which would just downrate certain members comments, for those who dont know what i am talking about, do you remember when jhendrix got bombarded with giraffes?

so there are some great things that can be done, but sadly none are fool proof and can backfire pretty badly.
14 years ago
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Asterisk
Posts: 954 - Karma: 199
just wondering, does rating someone a 5 count the same as n/a? Because wouldn't it change their average rating?
14 years ago
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.Ian.
Posts: 1568 - Karma: 72
I've been thinking about how you are going to change the rating system in videos and photos to an up/down system. I don't see why that same system wouldn't work for member ratings either. Instead of the karma system, since most people rate other members either a 1 or a 10, wouldn't the same rating system work for member ratings also?

If I'm missing something that would make this not possible please let me know. Other people asked in the downrate thread if this change is going to be applied to karma too, but in the OP it stated just for photos and videos, so I would assume not. If I'm wrong, feel free to let me know.
14 years ago
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YoungJah
Posts: 1106 - Karma: 66
Karma is a fake little bitch.
14 years ago
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loomis
Posts: 945 - Karma: 176
You should get some karma points depending on how long you have been a member, or minutes or hours you spend on it. Just a thought.
14 years ago
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