mutya's dashboard

i agree. karma is a misfeature with more downsides than upsides. – bunneh, on October 06, 2008 19:01

I should note that one of Plurk's representatives said that they are considering a grace period. I'm thankful that they have offered an alternative and am looking forward to seeing it. – tamar, on September 29, 2008 17:11

I agree with Tamar. I recently got a new job and can only come onto Plurk about once per day, which does not leave me with a large amount of time to post or respond, but I do what I can. Everyday I lose karma. So Plurk is punishing me for having a job that requires my full attention? Not fair, not cool. – ShirleyTipsy, on September 29, 2008 15:46

Oh, this: http://www.thegreatschlep.com/site/in.... Nope. I didn't even know about it. My grandparents are actually in NY. ;) (And now, back to our regularly-scheduled programming. I hope the Plurk team is still listening.) – tamar, on September 28, 2008 05:38

I like tamar's idea for extending the karma drop to 7 days or at the least 5 (a single work week). You can't really expect people to be on Plurk every day. Life happens, religion happens, etc. I think responsible plurkers will return within 5-7 days and if not THEN penalize them by dropping their karma. Hell if you want increase the amount lost if you do decide to extend it. I would support that decision as a compromise. – mwilton13, on September 28, 2008 05:04

Where? What? I don't think so. – tamar, on September 28, 2008 03:48

Oi! Are you on the great schlep? – The Dude Dean, on September 28, 2008 03:47

You mean tomorrow. ;) – tamar, on September 28, 2008 03:44

Don't worry I will fix that when you are down in Hollywood next week.

For the first time, I agree with you. – tamar, on September 28, 2008 03:17

Maybe they should offer a Kosher Karma option. – The Dude Dean, on September 28, 2008 01:15

The company's responses to this request are fucking dumb. The company claims that they "love it" but meanwhile people like me who are religious and cannot use computers due to religious observance are penalized due to adhering to their religion. I emailed help@plurk.com but hear that getsatisfaction.com will yield results.

12 hours is a problem. I'm a Sabbath observer which means that I can't actually use a computer between sundown Friday night and 1 hour after sundown Saturday night (approximately 25 hours). Every single week, this has been the case. Every single week, I get penalized. I even left my feedback in Amir's Plurk announcing the 12 hours and was ignored.

In 2 days beginning Monday night, the Jewish New Year kicks off. It ends Wednesday night. Will I be checking email? No. Will I be answering the phone? No. Will I be touching a computer? No. Will I be using Plurk? Hell no. The reason is religious and religious only. And yet, those of us who observe the holidays to this extent will suffer this week and next week during Yom Kippur and then the following 2 weeks due to Succoth and Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah (yes, I think the Plurk staff will need to Google these terms).

Karma sucks. If you want to keep karma, at least make it possible to
* disable our accounts TEMPORARILY so we don't get penalized
* extend the karma period to 7 days or something. Jewish holidays are only 2 days (3 days at most when they occur over a weekend).

Thank you.

Natsukisensei: LOTS CARE. You don't, and that's fine. But it doesn't mean that others don't exist. – Greg Fowler, on September 16, 2008 04:10

As a social experiment it is indeed fascinating, in many different respects.LOL. – Greg Fowler, on September 16, 2008 04:07

Or just go for total ambiguity and call all user/members plurkers (as we already do). ;-) – clickykbd, on September 14, 2008 08:31

"all they need to do is change the wording from "user" to "member" and end of story. A bot can be a member too ya know."

Why not a user, too, for that matter?

Continuing to hound the staff about the topic even when they have a) clearly stated their current position, and b) express the system is continuously being developed/tweaked is where my "sky is falling" reference stems. You obviously feel it is a moral dilemma (as you state in the last line). I don't think I was being dishonest in saying so. Unfortunately morals, just like penalizing bots without resorting to complex human detection, is something that can't be programmed into a web site. Your morals are your own prerogative, as are your opinions, entitled, as are mine.

In my opinion the only way to approach a bot/karma problem is with user behavior analysis and filtering.... Which is exactly what the karma system IS! Just give them the time and they'll get it into a more satisfactory state.

The final word on dishonest practices is always going to be the staff. If they don't see the genereal concept of bot plurkers as a problem then QED the bot is not a dishonest practice. It's impossible to both follow a rule while simultaneously breaking it. As for false advertising claims... all they need to do is change the wording from "user" to "member" and end of story. A bot can be a member too ya know. – clickykbd, on September 14, 2008 04:37

According to the developers, karma is supposed to be a measure of a user's activity. When somebody plurks using a bot, it isn't the user who's being active, it's the bot. It's dishonest. And saying that there's a dishonest practise taking place is a lot different than saying that the sky is falling. IOW, clickykbd is being dishonest as well. Is it a question of morals? ethics? integrity? I think it is. – Greg Fowler, on September 14, 2008 01:41

If a bot were able to affect other's karma adversely, or the ability of plurk to manage the load/activity, then you would truly have the "sky is falling" moral dilemma that Greg champions. But as it is, they don't seem to, they only affect their own account. In a world of computers, why can't a computer plurk, even if it is boring? I say there is no problem here.

If plurk really set out to eliminate bots (karma or otherwise) we'd all have to fill out CAPTCHAs before each plurk/response... talk about a user experience killer!

I'm going to have to piggy-back on this reply as I was just blocked by Amir for posting some constructive criticism. – CeeDubb, on September 10, 2008 11:15