Whores of KarmaFollow

Joph has a very tight connection with the boys of summer. Their faces may change, but the feelings stay the same.

Don't look back

You can never look back.

Why I need good Karma.

By Whothefuckareyou

I need some good Karma on here because then I can afford to get breast implants for my Russian bride. I promise I will PM the pictures after the surgery to all those who contributed to my good Karma.

Please donate to the cause!

The author cannot be held responsible for any incorrect information used in the below message. He is too drunk and too tired to edit it.

THE KARMA SYSTEM.

Part One: The Asylum.

In the beginning I was under the assumption that the karma system was something sacred and righteous. You are probably wondering why I used the word 'righteous' and I would like to explain to you why. You see, when I first came here I posted on the harmless game boards. The message boards where posters would post about the various games that they played. Here I saw the karma system in effect and I saw how people used it to sort of promote people who helped the community and demote people who did nothing but interrupt the peaceful flow there. I saw the karma system as I thought it was meant to be and I was happy.

Then one day I stumbled across the Asylum message board. Judging by the name and the short description, I figured this was a place where the veterans was posting. Every board has its veterans. People who have been here since the site was just an infant. And true enough, the Asylum seemed to contain a lot of veterans who also seemed to know each other outside of the boards. I was intrigued by this discovery as I admired the community built up around this friendship.

So naturally I did my best to fit in. A young idealistic poster full of energy and in need of a little self-esteem. A poster who had unsuccessful tried to fit into the high school world, but was left behind because his passion for the digital world had left him seperated from the real world around him. I will gladly admit, I was probably the closest thing you would come to a geek in high school. Not that I wore thick glasses, god-awful pants and suspenders to keep them up like some other Steve Urkel. But I was nonetheless fascinated by computers and the Internet.

Coming to these boards with a low self-esteem thinking you have finally met people who shared your ideas, thoughts and passions. Naturally you think you will fit right in as a fellow "nerd". The truth, however, is a cold-hearted ***** and she has a way of revealing herself just in time for you to see, but too late for you to do anything about it. You think you are being one of the guys and suddenly you realize it was a trap and that you are now the laughingstock of the entire community. You find yourself back in high school, back in the days with the name-calling and the bullying. You realize that all the glamour you saw, all the glittery stuff, it was just a facade.

Your self-esteem takes a dive out through the window and your brain momentarily short-circuits. You do things you would never have dreamt of doing. You realize that you are now truly alone as people from both worlds are mocking you for not being one of the boys. And too late you realize that while the entire community on this board is revolving around the karma system, the last thing they will ever admit is that they care about their karma. And you made the crucial mistake of embracing the karma system and questioning the irrational fluctuation in your karma score.

What I am trying to illustrate is that the karma not only respresents the community's average opinion on a poster's contribution, it also represents that poster's position in the board's hierarchy. Karma determines how cool or uncool you are and how the veterans like or dislike you. The karma system in the Asylum is literally what makes and breaks a poster's self-esteem.

But that is where the Asylum differs from the other boards.


Part Deux: The Game Boards.

After having ended my research on the Asylum board I chose to exile myself to the game boards where I had originally found peace and harmony. Again I would see how the karma system, much unlike on the Asylum board, was used to show appreciation to another poster's input. People who were helpful were rated up and people who were disrupting the peaceful flow of the boards were rated down. The karma system was working.

While the karma system had been a sort of hierarchy on the Asylum board where only the veterans and their friends had high scores, on the game boards it was an indicator of how helpful you were. If you put time into a post and used it to help another poster then that poster, and others, found time to rate you up for the trouble. Likewise if you were being rude and it was clear that you were only there to stir up trouble, you were punished with a ratedown.

While on the Asylum you would never get a rate-up unless you were "accepted" into the clique as one of the boys, on the game boards people would rate you up no matter what your post count, karma score and previous history, as long as the post was informative and helpful.

So the karma system once more became a tool used to increase and lower a poster's self-esteem, but this time it was possible to actually raise that score without being in a clique, but by posting valid and helpful information.


Synopsis.

While both karma systems have a direct impact on my self-esteem, the karma system in the Asylum seems to be based on your social status within the community rather than your contribution to the chat. Of course one could change the social status given, but it would still be controlled by those at the top of the hierarchy, the veterans. The game board karma system, on the other hand, while still being a determining factor for my selfesteem, it is just as much an indicator at how well you are helping the community, the newcomers, the regulars.

So to conclude this short and confusing analysis of the two versions of the karma system, while I would like for Jophiel to rate a hundred of my posts up, it would have no effect on my existing position within the Asylum hierarchy. In fact it would most likely just make my situation worse because this rather lengthy post shows that I do care about the karma system. And while a hundred rate-ups do sound tempting and innocent for the use on the game boards, I would have to live with the knowledge that a hundred of my posts were rated up simply because I "won" a competition set by a person who has nothing to do with the game boards I am posting on. Thus I would have achieved to raise my karma score but without helping the community and that would make the rate-ups pointless.

I wish for my posts to be rated up or down depending on how they helped the communities I posted them in. Even if I get the hundred rate-ups I will not have gained anything to raise my self-esteem.

So in other words: I care too much about my karma score to want the hundred free rate-ups. Which is quite ironic, is it not?


Fin.


I hope you understood what I meant with that.


Sorry about typos and grammatical errors. English is not my native language and it's 4 AM over here.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/shared/forumhelp.html
The math is in there on how it all works.

Of course, it also depends how many times you hit the button. if you're an admin.

I've personally always found the game boards to be far more liberal with the rate-button than the Asylum. Typical FFXI board form seemed to be "rate a person down if you don't agree with them", last I recall.

Since dropping FFXI and relocating to the Asylum, my karma hasn't moved one ounce either way. So I can't say I can relate to people who complain about undeserved rate-downs here. And considering the inane crap that flies as "good posting" in other forums, I might tentatively say the system works better here than anywhere else.

Jophiel:

I am pleased to write this letter of recommendation for Karma. Karma worked with me in the Department at Allakhazam for the duration of my tenure.

During Karma's service with us I interacted frequently with him and depended on him. Very goal oriented, Karma was always punctual. He was very much a people person.

Karma demonstrated from early in his tenure that he understood what business is all about. He thrived under adversity. He was quite aware of the bottom line, and had a knack for recognizing and eliminating waste. I suppose doing well in business is easy if you are, as he was, driven by quality.

Karma is available for new challenges only because of his desire to excel and grow further. I would have loved to see him stay at his current position, but certainly understand his need to advance.

In closing, let me say I have no hesitation in recommending Karma for 100 rate-ups.

Sincerely,
CrescentFresh

That, sooooooo reminded ME of Boogie Nights.



Why are you still <COLLOR=YELLOW>yellow rated on topic and on poster then?


A philosophical double for the new American U.N. Diplomat? Why don't you get >COLOR=RED< first before you bore with the Miss America speach? Just a suggestion ...

GitSlayer is red(, ; ; how do I make colored words?,). Score: Good. Period. Not no poser "Yellow" apoligist of pretending to see no evil hear no evil read no evil unacknowledged color name label bias. >.> What happened to affirmative action? From welfare queens to karma whores ... I get it.

But otherwise I see you've stumbled upon an objective basis for delivering allakhazam karma, or at least the chi- balance to such "rating"? Ponder this, it takes more of a ***** to rate a ***** a *****. But then again in your subjective value deriving egotistical benefit from artificially meaninglessly existing karma world, post count > color.

So yeah, back to GitSlayer, "drama queen much?" settles it. 'Cause we're stuck in a time warp where the 'word' "drama-queen" is still used ... /points at Bodhi, especially in reference to colored names and perceive mental reactive states of affection.

If you switch to one of the other forum skins, the green sage color switches to red.

I have teh bewbies! Karma plz.