Karma - a Suicide Mission.Follow

I am going to contradict what will likely be the prevailing opinion in this thread (that you shouldn't rate people down because their opinion is unpopular) and see what happens.

Chances are quite high that by posting that people should rate down unpopular opinions, the ones who disagree with me (the ones who say you shouldn't rate people down for having a contradictory opinion) will... rate me down for having a contradictory opinion.

- RPZip, Scientist at Large

Edited, Dec 5th 2006 7:20am by RPZip

I've read all the FAQ's over and over and I still cannot find the part that says exactly how you go about rating someone! I must just be missing it somewhere.

Thank you RPZip! I had seen the drop down box, never noticed the button at the bottom! I shall begin delivering justice now. =) And I am going to be a rampant rater-upper!

Actually, I've seen a fair number of your posts rated down within the last couple weeks, but from what I know of you that's definitely not the reason you're making this post(and likely the work of 1 or 2 buttheads you've irritated).

I've seen a lot of ratedowns around lately, and I do my best to reverse those I notice that are unwarranted, but I'm not the most observant person.

The problem with rateups is that they're not always noticeable. If you're not above a certain point, it takes 2 rateups to bring your post to "Good". By the same token, someone in the same position might only take one rate-down to go to "Default".

I'd like to think we're seeing a lot of rateups, but just can't tell.

Ratings, unless you reach autoskip level, don't matter.

On the flipside there are those that only rate up people that they like or are popular.

One scholar or below could creat a thread or post dedicated to helping someone and not get a single rating.

However, a more popular poster (thats within the certain clique) will make a some what trivial post (non-informative, i.e. 'our guild downed blahblahblah') and get rated up to excellent.

This urks me to no end. There are several very helpful posters here that deserve more rate ups than they get. Ohmikegod is one of them.

I think the ratings do matter. Aside from you caring enough to post your opinion on the subject, Allegory, [that they do not matter], I find that allot of people coming into the boards look at the Blues, Greens and Reds with a certain amount of respect. The colours show that you have made some thoughtful and/or helpful posts and do so on a more or less regular basis. I think they matter because I want to be a respected member of this community and therefore put effort into most of my posts which I think is reflected by the colour I wear.

Because I think the ratings matter, I rate people respectfully. If I am ambivalent about the nature or facts of a post, I leave it alone. If the post is well constructed and useful or (at times) humourous or interesting, I will rate up. If it is full of errors purporting to be truth, is unintelligible, or an obvious attempt at trolling for trolling's sake, I will rate down. That ratings are subjective cannot be avoided. My ratings however are almost never based on my personal opinion vs. another's opinion. I will rate down for inapporpriate content however, such as gold selling, account selling, child pronography, advocates of domestic violence, etc.

A word about content. I have posted explorations on gold selling expecting to get rated down because people tend to see a gold selling thread and instantly rate down almost anything therein except for the "Gold Sellers Suck. Go die now. k. thnx.". I was very pleasently surprised to see thoughtful comments made and appropriate ratings in the thread. This is a community of thoughtful and thought-provoking people of which I am proud to be a part. That this thread exists with an Excellent rating, I think, is proof of that. There are so many Karma threads that just get bombed because the dare to mention the word, "karma". But then this is not a whiney karma thread.

Meh, I downrate people and tell em why when it's not blatantly obvious. Usually if someone rates me down for doing so, someone else fixes it and I never know.

Been a while since I've rated someone down for something not blatantly obvious, iirc.

And I never ever ever rate down for differences in opinion.

But that may stem from my inherent appreciation for those; I'm mostly active in class forums anyway, concerning think-tank-threads about builds, skills etc. And in those threads deviant behavior only leads to splendid thinking.

This only reinforces my belief that it's most likely a few disturbed individuals abusing the rating system.

Anyway, right now I'm also wondering whether the change in Karma is affected by the distance between the rated and rater? As in: If someone with a Karma of 4 rates down someone with a karma of 3, the rated will receive a negative modifier of say -.5 ; and if someone with a karma of 3.5 does the same the rated will only lose say -.25 karma.

Would make sense to me at least.

If you rate somone down and feel the need to explain to them why you did it. Shoot them a PM.

I go along the lines of Mike but I don't always rate down to peoples when they speak their mind about



as some times it is more of their opinion on why folks may do it and not defending the poster for doing it. It depends on the post and how they "show" their intent on the subject.

But Rating seems alot like a Real Life job. Most of the time you are more likely to get ******* out (rated down) for any small mistake you make; then on the other hand you will rarely ever get a Pat on the Back (or a Rate Up) for doing a very good job at something.

/meh I have not figured it out in 33 + years but I do personally give many props and "Att'a boys" to folks when they do a good job IRL, but I will admit that I give less rate ups because the Forums do not have the Face to Face reality of it. I can and do put the forums aside for RL issues and by the time I get back to the boards and a specific thread I have lost my train of though or I closed my Browser and the post has slipped my mind.

I would say take a deep breath (Onyxia style) and re-read a thread before you rate the person down. Maybe you missed something on your first read through.

My biggest gripe with the rating system is how much post counts will affect your overall rating.

If you get a very bad over all rating (or very very good, like sage) while your post count is low, every post there after carries that same rating (assuming no rate ups or rate downs), which only perpetuates the ratings you initially received. This can lead to abuse of the karma system.

I'm in a rush atm (gotta get back to work) so I probably haven't explained myself properly here, but in short, the karma system is NOT perfect.

Why does anyone care about ratings? Is it that important? I don't care about ratings, personally, and may be missing something vital to the stability of the planet or something. Mind you, I'm still new to this :)

Edited, Dec 5th 2006 11:57am by Krago

You know...technically you just broke the first rule...