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Eliminate Karma.
Get rid of it. The entire concept. It's not important, or useful to the site.
It's not bringing anything to the site except complaints about it. So lets end the bots, the complaints, and the "controversies" in one shot.
It's not bringing anything to the site except complaints about it. So lets end the bots, the complaints, and the "controversies" in one shot.
I’m Sick of the karma issue.
23
people like this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The company has not planned to implement this.
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Hi peeps,
I think Amir's short response is taken out of context :).
We are constantly monitoring the karma algorithm and user feedbacks in regards to the system. Like someone mentioned above, karma is not a popularity ranking class system, but more of an activeness indicator for plurkers. We realize some users take it more seriously than others, that's why we try to associate what we believe as good social behavior (friend whoring - bad, plurk spamming - bad, participate in conversation - good) to the karma system.
of course there'll be attempt to game any reward system at some point. We are aware that some users run script to auto post plurk, as greg pointed out in an earlier thread. But most users who are doing this are not doing it to maintain karma. They are good, legit users who use it to auto post earthquake and weather updates, indie bands auto posting new song releases and etc. Unfortunately, right now we don't have the resources to treat each script on case by case basis.
The current karma system is not perfect, hence the constant monitoring :). I don't care much about my karma either (there, i said it!). But it helps my friends know whether I'm on vacation or just busy on the day. I usually get plurks like 'hey how are you, you have been quiet lately' if my karma drops by 3 or more points a week. Like amir said, most users are fine with the occasional drop because they don't see it as a scoring contest, but rather a health indicator.
The company and 5 other people think
this is one of the best points
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We love karma and so do majority of our users.
The company and 2 other people think
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The best points from everyone
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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.
I’m fucking pissed. And I never use expletives.
4 people think
this is one of the best points
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Shoot, I think maybe if "Karma" were simply renamed to something more neutral like "activity index" it would make less of a negative impression on potential plurkers. I realize "karma" probably sounded cooler to the focus group than "activity index," but maybe some other pithy term that had nothing to do with a major religion's payback mechanism would be less off-putting. Maybe? I mean, why not "OCD score," you know?
4 people think
this is one of the best points
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As far as I can tell, I'm getting my karma dinged because I sleep during the day and work/plurk at night. Why else does my karma drop while I sleep? Whatever it is in the algorithm that punishes people for sleeping (ever--not just in the "customary" time frame for their region) needs to be eliminated.
My personal experience with the whole karma mechanism has been almost entirely negative. I like plurk over twitter because I think the threaded conversations make it a superior social networking application. But I have been unable to lure many twitter users over here precisely because they think "karma is dumb" and don't want to feel like they are always having to brown nose some entity--the application, the company, Amir, whomever--in order to stay in "good graces."
I suspect that those who spent many years in school being graded against their peers find karma an unpleasant reminder of that system's cruelty, bias, and arbitrariness. I know I do, and I was a "good student"!
Karma is causing plurk to lose potential users, users who are actually interesting and not "interesting" because they plurk "hello plurkingers!" every two hours. My honest opinion is that it seems cute to some at first but is ultimately hurting plurk's viability as a social networking microblogging application. Myself, I love most everything about plurk except karma, which I realize I could ignore, but there it is on my profile page with that stupid little downturned arrow every time I wake up and log in. Who wants to see that? Nobody I know.
I’m over it.
3 people think
this is one of the best points
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Amir: you disrespect your users who think there's a serious problem with karma by posting such a flippant response after ignoring this issue for far too long.
7 people think
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?From http://plurkingpoppa.wordpress.com/#k... ... "Karma is a ranking system. It rates the “worth” of plurkers, one against the other." That's bad enough. But add in secret algorithm which penalizes honest peeps unfairly and INVITES dishonest behaviour like bots, and it's abhorent. So despite the fact that I've managed a rank of #42 globally and #2 in Canada, I wouldn't shed any tears to see it go. Thumbs up! -
Inappropriate?All for it. The people who are supposedly "interesting" and the "top plurkers" aren't really interesting AT ALL. They all seem to add people to get MORE friends to respond to MORE plurks to get MORE karma, and all they do in their own timeline is bitch and whine about karma. Its annoying!
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Inappropriate?I really doubt it will go away... as it's been around too long. But I'd be fine (actually happy) with it vanishing too.
Maybe a user preference to participate or not participate in the karma system. Not participating is a choice and would elimiate your ability to appear on karma rankings and other "interestingness" type browse pages that employ karma in the algorithm. I'd accept those penalties for not participating without a second thought.2 Comments Add a comment
This is one of the best points
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A 'not participating' option is essentially the same suggestion as those who say 'just ignore it.' It does nothing to address the problem, which is the fact that Plurk has established a competition that pits users against one another. Pretending that this class system doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. -
I think calling karma a class system is taking it a bit too seriously... It's just a way to filter active and perhaps interesting users from their databases, which they need to attract more people to the service. But many people just regard the whole concept as silly and perhaps is a reason why they don't gravitate to plurk. These people should be allowed to opt-out, even though plurk may still maintain a karma value internally for it's own purposes.
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Inappropriate?I wouldn't mind an option to 'opt out' or 'freeze' karma. Think of it as a little game! But when someone goes on vacation/begins to get a life, karma's penalties are too harsh. For example, I'm on nirvana now. I get 0.04 if I plurk, and -0.16 if I don't?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Personally I am not sure "freezing" karma could work. Maybe if the "freeze" only lasted until your next plurk. Otherwise you'd have people freezing as soon as they hit some theoretical high value regardless of the reason.
I'm still in favor of just opting out of the karma system.1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
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I'd like to see that. I've seen a user who had 60-something karma, but then had to go on holiday for the whole of the summer. She came back to almost nothing, because there was nowhere she could plurk (and probably because she was enjoying her holiday too much to think of a little system on a website).
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Inappropriate?clickykbd: you're entitled to your opinion, but so are the many of us who think that it's non-trivial ... those plurkrs who are constantly elevated to prominent positions acc. to karma rank and other comparisons are consequently seen to be a class 'elite' ... other plurkrs are seen to have less status, by comparison ... perhaps you're not taking it seriously enough.
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Inappropriate?We love karma and so do majority of our users.
The company and 2 other people think
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?Amir: you disrespect your users who think there's a serious problem with karma by posting such a flippant response after ignoring this issue for far too long.
7 people think
this is one of the best points
2 Comments Add a comment
This is one of the best points
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I like karma, but not when it sucks all the fun out of Plurk. Why can't we opt out or freeze it if we no longer want to play in the karma game?
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I'm going to have to piggy-back on this reply as I was just blocked by Amir for posting some constructive criticism.
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Inappropriate?Hi peeps,
I think Amir's short response is taken out of context :).
We are constantly monitoring the karma algorithm and user feedbacks in regards to the system. Like someone mentioned above, karma is not a popularity ranking class system, but more of an activeness indicator for plurkers. We realize some users take it more seriously than others, that's why we try to associate what we believe as good social behavior (friend whoring - bad, plurk spamming - bad, participate in conversation - good) to the karma system.
of course there'll be attempt to game any reward system at some point. We are aware that some users run script to auto post plurk, as greg pointed out in an earlier thread. But most users who are doing this are not doing it to maintain karma. They are good, legit users who use it to auto post earthquake and weather updates, indie bands auto posting new song releases and etc. Unfortunately, right now we don't have the resources to treat each script on case by case basis.
The current karma system is not perfect, hence the constant monitoring :). I don't care much about my karma either (there, i said it!). But it helps my friends know whether I'm on vacation or just busy on the day. I usually get plurks like 'hey how are you, you have been quiet lately' if my karma drops by 3 or more points a week. Like amir said, most users are fine with the occasional drop because they don't see it as a scoring contest, but rather a health indicator.
The company and 5 other people think
this is one of the best points
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You know - the reason I seldom use Plurk over Twitter, Rejaw, Indenti.ca and Pownce is the karma function.
Because I'm a little too old to appreciate getting 'graded' for class participation.
In the end, I kind of regret ever signing up - because at one point, my 'karma' (horrible name btw) was 47, but now it's 0.0 - and I come back and think "yeah, I'm not going to 're-prove' myself every time I want to come over here and interact with my friends."
There's a real difference between "I don't care much about my karma" and "I find the whole idea offensive".
But hey, apparently, some folks don't mind. But I think I'll stick to social platforms where I don't get graded. -
Agree with GeekMommy. If u offered Plurk w/out Karma (heck, mark my account as such) u would get a lot more useage from those of us who love microblogging & forum sites. and your flat refusal to consider will keep plurk a silly, fun place but not for serious online bloggers. too bad 'cuz i like your app. lots!
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Inappropriate?Glad to see you jumping in on this Alvin.
Maybe I did over-react and take Amir's response out of context because of my frustration. But I don't think that I can be blamed for that. Like I've said many times without response from you, I think you have a serious communication problem. Not only the ESL issue, but the fact that you simply don't do enough of it. Not here, and not even on the Plurk blog. Maybe you need to hire somebody.
You say that you're constantly monitoring the karma algorithm issue and the user feedback. Well, you could have fooled me ;(
I agree with you that karma is a kind of an activeness indicator (but I disagree that that's all it is). Observation by me and others indicates that some activity in every 4-hour karma increment is required in order to achieve max. karma increase. Of course, this is just speculation, since you're unwilling to publish the algorithm for some reason. Whether that's to give an unfair advantage to some plurkers over the rest of us or not, who's to say?
But your secrecy does invite speculation, and you have only yourselves to blame for that. One thing is for sure, is that there is a penalty for not being active. Also for certain is the fact that such penalty is greatly resented by lots of plurkers. Not some... LOTS! I know that from the private emails that they send me agreeing with the posts that I've made.
You say that you realize that and you suggest that the algorithm reflects your attempt to reward good behaviour and penalize bad behaviour. But you won't reveal the algorithm so that we can verify that. So don't be surprised if many of us don't believe you.
What we do know, is the way that you punish us for NECESSARY inactivity. We could maybe understand a penalty for non-activity past a reasonable length of time (24 hrs. maybe?), but give us a break! The way you've got it set up now penalizes people for sleeping! And it rewards the people running the damn bots because they can avoid that!
I can accept you saying that you don't have the resources to monitor/police all the people running scripts at this time. But that doesn't excuse the unfairness of the current situation. And there IS a way for you to eliminate that unfairness. By eliminating the penalty for not participating until at least 24 hours have passed.
Thanks again for getting involved in the discussion. You should try it more often ;)
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this is one of the best points
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This is one of the best points
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...you're one of those old men who goes into a retail store looking for things to call a manager over and complain about, aren't you?
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mutya: I'm a community activist and used to publicly speaking my mind. I don't look for excuses to complain, but I'm not adverse to doing it when I think the situation warrants it. Are you one of those people who tries to discredit people who have good arguments to make when you can't refute the arguments?
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I'm one of those people used to dealing with old men who walk into retail stores looking for things to complain about. Though admittedly, this is the first time I've heard one defend himself and his spit and bile as 'community activism.'
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mutya: Spit and bile? Sorry that you're so jaded by life. Can we take this back to what's happening on Plurk now, and forget about your job troubles?
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Inappropriate?Alvin Woon: "The current karma system is not perfect, hence the constant monitoring :). I don't care much about my karma either (there, i said it!). But it helps my friends know whether I'm on vacation or just busy on the day. I usually get plurks like 'hey how are you, you have been quiet lately' if my karma drops by 3 or more points a week. Like amir said, most users are fine with the occasional drop because they don't see it as a scoring contest, but rather a health indicator. "
Out of all my friends I couldn't tell you what any other person's karma is, much less use it to determine their stats for the day.
I truly love Plurk but the Karma is such a frustrating thing in an otherwise really fun site. I hope you eventually kill it because frankly it's a downer more than anything. -
Inappropriate?I think all it would take to resolve the majority of user frustration with karma is to extend the period before it drops from inactivity. 1-2 weeks would be ideal, but even 1-2 days would be a big improvement. The short cycle before it drops feels disrespectful to the community (that otherwise loves Plurk by the way!) and our busy lives. And frankly it also comes across as an attempt to manipulate user behavior, which may lead to increasing ill will towards the brand over the long-term.
I realize extending the period before karma drops conflicts with your intent to make it a current activeness indicator, but most users don't see it that way anyway, and I truly believe the current system is doing you more harm than good.
2 people think
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?My biggest issue with the karma isn't that it takes so long to get after awhile, but the fact that it takes nearly a week of constant plurking/responding/participating to lose all that karma in less than a day or two. It isn't that I want to "deplurk" as it were, but really, I immediately start to lose karma by almost double what I could ever possibly earn? I don't get the algorithm, and to be honest, I don't care. I think if not get rid of it, at least give us the option of turning it off, or making it invisible.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?As far as I can tell, I'm getting my karma dinged because I sleep during the day and work/plurk at night. Why else does my karma drop while I sleep? Whatever it is in the algorithm that punishes people for sleeping (ever--not just in the "customary" time frame for their region) needs to be eliminated.
My personal experience with the whole karma mechanism has been almost entirely negative. I like plurk over twitter because I think the threaded conversations make it a superior social networking application. But I have been unable to lure many twitter users over here precisely because they think "karma is dumb" and don't want to feel like they are always having to brown nose some entity--the application, the company, Amir, whomever--in order to stay in "good graces."
I suspect that those who spent many years in school being graded against their peers find karma an unpleasant reminder of that system's cruelty, bias, and arbitrariness. I know I do, and I was a "good student"!
Karma is causing plurk to lose potential users, users who are actually interesting and not "interesting" because they plurk "hello plurkingers!" every two hours. My honest opinion is that it seems cute to some at first but is ultimately hurting plurk's viability as a social networking microblogging application. Myself, I love most everything about plurk except karma, which I realize I could ignore, but there it is on my profile page with that stupid little downturned arrow every time I wake up and log in. Who wants to see that? Nobody I know.
I’m over it.
3 people think
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?My karma drops when I go to class in the morning, and I usually come home in the late afternoon. This isn't a good message to send other, younger students that are also plurkers.
I’m distressed
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Inappropriate?Just an off-the-wall idea here, and one that might be horrendously complex to implement, but...
How about allocating a fixed number of "karma holidays"? Use them to "freeze" your karma when you are going away for a while - like on an actual (offline) holiday.
Having read this thread through (OK, "skimmed it" :o), I can't say that I look at my friends' karma as an indicator of their activity. I look at their timeline and see if they've been plurking!
A bit of an opportunity for some social responsibility here, too: remind people that some r/l is allowed (and encouraged). *g*1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
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Sounds like a great compromise on the surface. But IMHO fails in that it would likely encourage users who dislike karma to use more of these "vacations"... and the more they have to deal with the karma system in general the more frustrated they will become.
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Inappropriate?Shoot, I think maybe if "Karma" were simply renamed to something more neutral like "activity index" it would make less of a negative impression on potential plurkers. I realize "karma" probably sounded cooler to the focus group than "activity index," but maybe some other pithy term that had nothing to do with a major religion's payback mechanism would be less off-putting. Maybe? I mean, why not "OCD score," you know?
4 people think
this is one of the best points
5 Comments Add a comment
This is one of the best points
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People would still complain about their activity index going down, and how they're being penalized for not being active on the site while they're asleep or in class. (Never mind that it makes sense, if it's a measure of your activity.) The real gripe is that these numbers are used to rank users and present them as 'interesting'--maybe simply retitling 'interesting users' as 'most active users' would unruffle some feathers?
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actually if anyone remembers, karma ranking used to be one of the 2 things in the interesting plurker page. right now it's pushed down to the last tab on that page, for obvious reason :).
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Alvin: It's true that karma isn't so prominent a measure on the 'interesting plurker' page as it used to be. However... click on the arrow beside anybody's username on the timeline and their karma is displayed... visit their profile page and their karma is prominently displayed. But even if you eliminated those other things too, I don't think it would matter. Everybody knows about karma by now. They know it exists. Trying to hide the monster that you created in a closet probably isn't going to solve the problem. Also, simply hiding the problem doesn't do anything to address the unfairness of the inactivity penalty.
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well, honestly, I thought this might be a compromise that would still allow something like "karma" to reward people who are active users of plurk. but I still think the algorithm needs to stop punishing people for sleeping or taking a day off from the internet. and I don't see why those with the highest karma scores should be highlighted in any way. karma indicates nothing about how interesting a person's plurk line is, nor its readability, nor its relevance to anything in particular. not to complicate the coders' lives too much, but an interests cloud would be more useful for locating plurkers whom one might want to follow. I'd even invert the cloud so that popular interests were smaller and obscure ones bigger. but I'm perverse.
karma needs to change substantially or go. that's the bottom line to me. -
Alvin: In order to reinforce the arguement about why the penalty has to go. Last night I was penalized -0.16 for the 4am to 8am (Eastern) increment again. Over the past 13 days, I've earned a total of only +0.03 karma in that increment because that's when I sleep. Instead of the +0.52 that was earned by the bot cheaters. I just glanced at @martinbogo's stats, and it looks like he hasn't had a single penalty in the last 100 increments. That's a huge advantage that honest users cannot hope to compete with.
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Inappropriate?Perhaps there's a compromise. Say, for example, is someone leaves to go to the hospital or vacation. Perhaps this person could turn a notice to Plurk that they're leaving and can't plurk and then won't be loosing karma?
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
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This is one of the best points
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That would add extra work to Plurk that I doubt they want to have to deal with, instead of the simple fix of just eliminating the penalty from the algorithm. Worse of all, it leaves users at the mercy of Plurk's honesty. Instead of transparency about what's going on, we'd have to trust Plurk to fairly decide whose excuse should allow them to escape the penalty. Frankly, from what I've seen so far, I don't trust Plurk at all.
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Inappropriate?I don't like the karma system. Users, and I include myself, feel bullied and manipulated by it. If you don't have a certain number on your profile, you can't use certain emoticons or other features. It feels like 2nd-class citizenship, especially when it slips away when a user is away or has computer problems or whatever prevents one from participating. I think it should be discontinued completely, but if that's not possible, keep the numbers without exacting penalties for drops in usage. There must be some less hurtful way to keep the books balanced or whatever the intention is. I say, get rid of it!
I’m annoyed
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Inappropriate?I could care less about Karma... now after using Plurk and finding great value in conversations with friends there. BUT, it's the biggest barrier for newbies. Making Karma optional would allow for a new group of Plurk users to develop and make it less intimidating for new users.
But most of all: it's a total misrepresentation of the true meaning of karma. If I was a practicing Buddhist, I would be very put off by the use of the term karma (more here: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/k...).
Peace to your day!
I’m tolerating.
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?make karma easier to gain and harder to lose. the more karma you have, the harder it is to gain karma, which kinda reflects real life's experience-gaining algorithm but hey this isn't real life!
friends who are wondering what i've been up to because i haven't been plurking will get the idea that i'm away or otherwise occupied by the down arrow next to my karma -- my karma itself shouldn't have to drop by miles to make that clear.
i have lots of plurk buddies who've quit plurking because they can't bear the karma pressure. lots of ppl are intimidated by falling numbers to that extent, yes, and they're all your customers so you should do something about karma!
I’m frustrated
2 people think
this is one of the best points
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This is one of the best points
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Make it optional? http://getsatisfaction.com/plurk/topi...
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Inappropriate?Obviously the Karma system needs more cowbell and tweaking. Like I suggested on my Idea about making Plurk Nirvana Cooler idea.
I’m amused
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Inappropriate?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.
I’m fucking pissed. And I never use expletives.
4 people think
this is one of the best points
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This is one of the best points
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Maybe they should offer a Kosher Karma option.
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For the first time, I agree with you.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You mean tomorrow. ;)
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Oi! Are you on the great schlep?
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Where? What? I don't think so.
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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.)
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