Karma? Hell. NO.

Karma systems will ONLY result in the further entrenchment of whatever cliques exist already.

Even if there's only the option of giving people a +1 for a post?

A question I've been wanting to ask since the day I joined here. As a former mod of a vBulletin forum, I've been curious why the vBulletin "thank this poster" feature isn't used here...

Yes. It will turn into what the shoutbox shout counts did - One person making it their mission to get the highest number and a mad rush from a few people to compete for that until one clear winner emerges and lords that over everyone else.

Karma systems on forums do NOT encourage anything other than vain competition for internet points - They never have, and I remember having this same discussion with people as far back as 2006 on other forums - The consensus was pretty clear. They're a bad idea.

Possibly the feature wasn't implemented in this version of vbulletin. It may date back to 2003 for all I know :p:

edit :

But people would only +1 a post if they thought it was good, right? So if someone does a mad rush to get the most points, wouldn't that be a mad rush to make posts that other people like and thus reward with a +1? ;)

It is certainly sounds better to me than post count which only rewards posting, no matter what the content is!

Same as the karma thing. It just becomes a competition, not to mention it fails to perform its primary function and just becomes an ego boost for those people who get thanked a lot - of course, if you apply that to a "cliquey" forum...guess who gets most thanks? Right, the person at the top of the biggest clique.

I didn't like his attitude and some of the things he said which I thought was aimed at Trollheart. The part about "...and you want a medal?" and there was another part about "patting themselves on the back" which I can't find... (maybe it was deleted?) Now I didn't see TH respond to them so I don't know if he picked on them or wasn't phased by them, either way reading through that thread when I got up to that part it was a bit anticlimactic for me to read. I found a bit insulting because those comments seemed to be aimed at TH. I can not speak for everyone so... in my point of veiw is that Trollheart works hard to keep producing his journals. It does takes time and effort to make them, and I didn't like cavalier attitude (not towards the journal) but towards Trollheart, and his efforts in making them. TH did go on to defend the journal section journal section. Which I am glad he did. Still begs the question how can sopsych demand forum change, and not appreciate the time and effort that members like Trollheart put into the forum?

It seems to blow a hole in his argument that the forum isn't friendly enough and there needs to be some drastic change... if he's not being friendly himself.



@ Tore you are smart enough to go on and present your own views without mentioning him, because when you do he is making you his sock-puppet-by-proxy. Verstehen?

I disagree because in regards to the principles I've argued, I've held those views for longer than he's been a member of these forums. It's just that I can apply them to his situation as I can to any situation. But thank you for your slightly condescending notice.

I said that to Trollheart after he attacked me, which wasn't the first time. I do appreciate some of his music posts when I read them (but until this week, I had never read a journal here). And I stand by my incendiary comment about people patting themselves on the back for making more music posts, as though that does much to prevent drama. (Yeah, I'm a glass-half-empty kind of person. That won't get me friends, but it shouldn't negate my ideas.)

Tore has said enough in my defense, I agree. It's time to move on to specific, non-technical solutions.

i agree with your last statement tore imo this place needs a friendlier vibe and though mods can set an exmpl by participating in the community while enforcing the rules it's also up to us the community to behave properly

what i mean by friendlier vibe is just acknowledging ppl and trying to be nice to them not just respecting someone for how much they know about music

sometimes i feel this forum as an elitist undertone to it and that you have to be a professional music critic to stand out or even be acknowledged so its ok for ppl who know more to inslut or offend someone who knows less to prove that

i don't blame anybody in particularly for this, sometimes ignorance needs to be stopped right away but instead of first degrading an ignorant person we should try to educate them not just use our knowledge to justify superiority over them and degrade them.

"Hey guys I want karma go +1 my posts".

oh look, people destroying your system.

tore, it doesn't work. it never has worked, in the entire history of online forums it probably hasn't worked, and I've seen it fail a whole ton of times the same way. it just becomes a pissing contest. hell, reddit is a site devoted to the idea of making something very similar work...and it just doesn't.

In your example, other people would still get +1s for good posts, even if one person somehow cheats. I agree that it is possible to abuse karma systems, but I don't want to categorically dismiss them all. I have heard of such systems working and so I assume it is possible.

But regardless, it was just an example of a possible way one could reward good behaviour. It is not one which can be implemented here and so it is a bit off-topic, but I would like to discuss its implementation if we were to have a new site. If only for a test run .. removing it if it didn't work as intended would be a simple matter.

I challenge you to tell me where you think I attacked you. You were the one who slagged off my journal (well, all journals) by basically telling me they were not worth considering. I responded by telling you how many posts mine and others got. You responded by sneering that I wanted a medal. Nobody has attacked you: people have been quite tolerant really and have tried over and over to point things out to you, but you keep ignoring posts that don't fit in with your agenda. I would definitely love to see where I attacked you. People here know me (and don't mention cliques because I do not belong to one) and know that I do not attack anyone. It's not how I work.

And Neapolitan, thank you for your kind support of my work in the journals section. It's certainly appreciated mate. :thumb:

Francis, I love it! You've just invented a cool new word! :tramp:

Also, picking up your point somewhat. Oh no wait, first, let me echo Jamsz's welcome back to you. You have been missed.

Now, when I first joined here in 2008 I did indeed feel that there was an elitist, you-dont-know-jack-about-music attitude, and that people were laughing at what they saw as my "pedestrian" music preferences. I left. Some time later |I rejoined and changed my attitude, to the point where I now think hell if people don't like my music then fine; there's music here I wouldn't listen to. But I made the effort to get out and meet these people and found them all, mostly, to be really nice people. I used to think Urban was a grumpy so-and-so who had it in for me, now I know he's a grumpy so-and-so who doesn't have it in for me. I actually really like him. A lot of it is about perception. Are you feeling marginalised because you're letting yourself be? Are you taking things too seriously? Hell, if someone talks about my "crappy prog albums" or "stupid genesis fetish" or whatever, I just laugh. Doesn't mean anything, and isn't meant to. It's just someone's opinion, and it could also be meant as a joke.

In the end, as everyone here knows, you make the forum better by how you approach it. If everyone here was gloomy, tight-arsed and up themselves about their music, it's likely we wouldn't even talk to each other, or stay here. Some people bring drama with them like the Irish summer brings the rain, but that doesn't mean you have to join in, or be affected by it. If you make it your mission to enjoy, and try to help others enjoy the forum, chances are it will work. Maybe not all the time, but I find more often than not it does.

One last point, to everyone. I noticed myself laughing at a post today (can't recall which, think it was Urban's comment about my power metal in my journal) but it set me to thinking, how often do I laugh here at posts and how often do I scowl or get angry/insulted/take offence? It's weighted far in favour of the former, and I think that has to be a good thing. It also hinges a lot on how you see, and use, the forum.

I too think there's an elitist feel to this site. Maybe that's why few people seem to respect my music knowledge or even reply to my music comments.

There are two posts in that other thread that show you're not an innocent victim of my "medal" comment. One post includes an eye-roll and the second is a long derail filled with put-downs and technical truths that are worded sharply. I consider this mini-discussion over. In the future, please stick to your alleged non-attack policy. If people really did operate that way, there would be less drama on this site.

Anyway, when will people meet the challenge of coming up with doable, non-technical ideas for curtailing drama? This thread has been almost an amazing dance away from such musings.

I am at a lost... I thought you were going on about this site not being friendly?

No **** bro it is a music forum it is elitist as fuvk. Welcome to the internet.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6ivlv0JrE1r41i55.gif
Here is what you are doing to the members of this forum.
http://i.imgur.com/LTzzU.gif

I don't even know what to say about all this. What happened to this thread?

@Troll

well look at that i totally did invent a new word :D

Thnx for the welcome im surprise ppl still remember me
to add to what you said, yes i agree eventually you get used to this place but as a newcomer it can be kinda hard to adjust to this place cause ppl will pound at any little stupid thing you say..

Not everybody though.. i wanna make clear that some ppl here are very well adjusted and know to debate the subject not debate a person's character

The thing is those ppl get overshadowed by the jerk who attacks everybody
even i know the best way to get attention around here is by being an intellectual jerk to everybody.. we say we don't like drama but this thread alone is proof that we love to dwell on it.

i understand we all have a jerky side and that we like jerks and we secretly chuckle when they own somebody but we can't indulge that over being friendly to ppl because it affects the vibe of the community.

Its like you said, we shape the forums by how we behave on them ^^

My issue with karma systems is that they can be used to publicly popularize or shame particular users. Reputation features are tools easily manipulated by groupthink. I honestly, honestly, seriously don't think we need any more avenues through which to create and define user-cliques on this site.

I totally agree, well said.

Having been a member on a few forums with this system, and moderating on one of them, I agree with this. The rep and karma systems are ALWAYS abused. Popular members will get +1 points for crap posts like GIFs and sh*t like that, simply because they are popular users. Reputation systems end up ostracizing members rather than encouraging or rewarding quality posts and good behaviour. I have held this opinion for several years now.

You are completely correct. The other forum I frequent is Bodybuilding.com (misc section) and it has a rep system. Half the threads are rep begging or just rep seeking threads. It works there cuz everyones there to just bull**** but a place like this would be awful with that.

I agree with the first part of your post about editing a person's post while making it known that a moderator edited it. Then, if they don't get the message, take further steps. We used to do that more than we do now, and I agree in that we should implement it more. Just so long as people don't accuse us of public shaming, like it was done in the past.

As for your second part, regarding punishment not being possible a while and only on the condition that someone reports it, that's pretty much taking wheels off our bike. If we can't independently verify whether someone is breaking the rules, and must rely on someone reporting it, then this place would be a war zone. Coming from someone who has been doing this for years, and not just here, I can categorically tell you that your idea in this respect would not work.
Of course, I could be misinterpreting what you were saying, so do feel free to clarify if applicable.

We don't need gimmicks to promote good behavior. We need members that want to behave well. The fact that you think we need motivation for people to not be a problem is pretty telling in that you, at least subconsciously, know that the people in question are not interested in being good because it's their nature. Me personally, I'd rather just weed out the bad to make room for the good. I'm not going to sit here and waste time trying to convert the problem people, I'm just going to punish the ones who cause problems. And you're completely right about us needing to be stricter. I think the main problem as of late is that we were far too lenient with the problem people, and that's how this whole mess started. Fortunately for your peace of mind, I don't think we'll be doing that anymore, but I think we might like some input on how to balance the gray areas a bit better. Sopsych has some input, some of which I agree with, but I think we're missing the mark when the primary stance is to reward good behavior with gimmicks, because we're then acknowledging that people are inherently not interested in making this place the kind of place they want to be a part of. And I think that's entirely cynical and insulting.

1. We haven't requested it
2. Based on our previous experiences, it wouldn't be implemented anyway.

Whether it's a good idea or not, I don't know. If the whole idea is to not reinforce cliquish behavior, then it seems to me that a system people can use to elevate another person is completely conducive to cliquish behavior in a community such as ours. Not to mention the fact that we don't need a gimmick in order for people to behave well. We just need people to behave well. If they can't do it on their own, we have mods that can take care of it.

We're not trying to build a society of individuals who love rewards. We're trying to foster a community of people that enjoy talking about music. All we need are people that enjoy talking about music.

I agree, and have seen this myself. It works better in very large forums of thousands of active users, such as city-data. They even have cash prizes for "most helpful" competitions. In our scenario, it would only foster more competition, then after a while you'd have people bubbling up to the surface of the matter complaining that only the friends in a clique are voting their friends up, just like we already have people complaining that posts are not being replied to because of cliques.

If certain people can't see the parallel there, then I am extremely worried.

Ok now I'm extremely worried.

So then your position is that people just stop creating drama to make this place better? I totally agree!

Do you think people are elitist for not responding to your comments?
Do you know how many posts I make that go completely ignored? Lots. And I'm even part of the "elite mod group"... But when I wake up the next day, finally sober, I look back on those posts and realize they were just bad or uninteresting to people. I can't just sit there and blame everyone else because my posts weren't interesting enough to generate feedback.

I understand your feelings, however I think you're misplacing the cause here.
Also, you've been here long enough to be ineligible to claim the things you're claiming. If you had joined a week ago, your claims might hold some weight. But if you're going to blame everyone else for the fact that you haven't become as prolific as you want to be in all the time you've been here, then you're up for a pretty sore disappointment.

Stop attacking me. You see how easy it is to make that claim? I feel insulted. Please follow the rules...

Obviously you can see the value in one single person not dictating the reality of the scenario, and I hope you understand from here on out that the mods are acting on an aggregate of information when things are not clear cut. Posting an eye-rolling smiley is not an attack, otherwise we'd have it removed. Just because you feel a certain way does not make it true. It's the kind of thing you report if you feel you're being attacked, and a team of individuals will determine if it holds weight. There is absolutely no way you can sustain a community with the kind of retribution you're advocating.

Clearly this is not the type of forum for a thanks system it wouldn't work here.

but ive seen it work in another forum this is just not that kinda place i guess

It wouldn't. I, for example, would thank you to ****ing hell.

:laughing:

why?

outta spite? cause my post are stupid? why dammit!? i wanna know!!

Did someone mention the karma system? Oh yes, bring on the clique wars. Ain't nobody messing with my clique clique clique.

But seriously we couldn't even get the arcade back that we once had how the hell do people thing we would get the karma system implemented?

Yay. After 30+ pages of discussion (and not counting older threads), a moderator is seriously considering an idea that addresses the basics. Thank you. And you're probably right about relying on reports not being smart. I still think you have to implement that kind of thing gradually, including public announcements so that there is as little surprise as possible, and I suggest you start with picture removal.


No, it's that people instead reply to esoteric points. Such as Kanye West's production over a subtle grenade I rolled about Rod Stewart. When very specific knowledge is required to get dialogue, forum activity suffers.


I'm actually not big on calling out attacks on me, and I wouldn't normally point out an eye-roll. The problem was a lengthy rant about me. It probably didn't contain specific insults that would get a post removed, but its rant nature is about as bad and ought to be unwelcome on this site. People can indicate they dislike members, but discussion shouldn't center around such dislikes. It's the type of thing that could keep a lurker from posting.

You gotta be kidding me. Are you serious about Trollheart's "eye-roll," you totally dismissed his dedication to this site with your journal comment and then you are going to belly-ache about his use of emoticons?

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsty21JQfU1qzozj1.gif

I remember that comment. I assume no one replied to it because it was kind of off-topic for the thread it was posted in and didn't really add anything to the discussion. I didn't bother pointing that out at the time because I was just happy to see you actually talking about music for a change of pace.

Sopsych, your concerns are definitely being taken into advisement, I assure you. I'm glad we all have this opportunity to air our grievances on both sides of the aisle of all issues, and that's what this thread is for, in the hopes that we can change things for the better.

Thank you for your contributions, and everyone else as well. I just want to let everyone know that we are not just sitting here defending, but trying to be actively involved in the discussion, which is great for poking holes in either side's approach, and it ultimately helps at the end, because we are all in the position to be a factor of change.

Again, I personally thank all of you, and I'm hoping soon we can move forward to a more positive environment based on the concerns of all involved.

I really do not see why you guys are continuing to give this guy your time and attention. He has contributed next to nothing to musicbanter as a whole and just repeatedly complains while doing nothing about it. He has 22 created threads here on musicbanter almost all of which are put together with minimal effort.

Because whether he has contributed or not, he's still a member of the community, and whether we're addressing him or not, we're really just addressing the community, and he's really just serving as an example.
There are certain things that go beyond what they seem, and this is one of them. If we did not use the opportunity he presented to explain something that is truly relevant to the rest of us, then we would be doing everyone a disservice.

I appreciate your position, however, you must realize that we are not really speaking solely to Sopsych when we reply to Sopsych. The very fact that we are debating this in the open, as moderators, should hint at the fact that we are making our positions known on the topics he is bringing up, in the context of general behavior and perspective.

When we feel like it's no longer productive, you will know it. :)

There's a real possibility that your subtext is going unnoticed, as people may see "Sopsych" in the quotation and skip past all of the circular dramz.

I post and mod on a forum which has a thanks system in place and I think it does more harm than good. Basically what it encourages people to do is thanks-whore by trying to make the wittiest posts they can so they can massage their e-dick. This often leads to completely pointless and counter-productive replies to serious and potentially interesting threads and can often derail a thread before it even gets off the ground. There seems to be a common habit in some threads to try to be the first to reply with a witty remark and receive loads of thanks from everybody, even if the reply adds nothing to the original post and in quite a lot of cases it doesn't. Some people will even just thank posts and not contribute anything at all just like the way people vote in polls here and not add anything in the thread itself.

It does have it's benefits such as posts which actually deserve thanks getting just that. This can be useful when you're skimming through a non-debate thread with quite a lot of posts and you only want to find the posts worth viewing. It also discourages people from replying to posts with just '+1' or 'I agree' which is a complete waste of a post if you ask me.

I think MB is just fine without a thanks or rep system in place and a simple statistic such as a post count doesn't even mean that much to me.

I agree, I don't think a reward system is the best idea. The original posts in this thread were criticising the fact that the forum is very cliquey, I think a 'thanks' or 'like' based system for posts would just make it into even more of a popularity contest.

Your comments regarding a reward system have been mentally noted. Considering all of you seem to feel that way, you must be onto something.

You're misunderstanding my position somewhat again. The jist of it is this. Any poster reacts and adapts to his environment. In a certain environment, a poster may be productive and friendly. In a different environment, that same poster may be disruptive and hostile.

I'm not saying that people are not inherently interested in making this place the kind of place they want to be part of. That is a strawman argument. What I'm saying is that it is possible to change the environment of the site so that it discourages bad behaviour and encourages good behaviour. It is possible to change the environment so that people behave better. The mods becoming more strict is a means to that end.

If the environment discourages people being nice, it is hard to be the change. Imagine a forum full of bastards and you're the only one trying to be nice. You'd be eaten alive. If there are no mods, then perhaps taking the high road in a conflict only results in you not defending yourself while your opposition heckle you. You would be less inclined to do it because there is little reward on your part. If mods could protect you against such heckling, it would be easier.

Every forum feature, every member, every mod, every bit of layout and how things work can potentially add positively or negatively to the environment. Just to illustrate with a bizarre example, imagine the users of a forum getting ever so slightly nicer to eachother as a result of changing the background colour from red to green. You know, possibly that could be a miniscule effect - perhaps not even measurable - but it could be there.

In an environment which discourages or even punishes people rising above conflict and looking the other way, being nice and taking the high road will be done by conscious effort despite the negative consequences doing so will have for a member. If that environment doesn't change, how do you expect people to keep it up? But if the environment encourages niceness and taking the high road when conflict arises, people won't need to take the high road out of conscious effort. It's just the natural way to behave in that situation, in that environment.

To use another analogy, you should treat the disease rather than the symptoms. If someone has a fever, you can take a pill to get the temperature down, but it's better to remove the cause of the fever. I admit asking people to be the change is valid, but if it's the only thing done and the environment doesn't change sufficiently and the only real consequence is that they stop to defend themselves from heckling, then they won't keep it up. The forum will inevitably go back into its old shape.

I don't have to imagine, I actually belong to such a site, although I wouldn't say I was the only one trying to be nice. Maybe one of the one of the reasons I never fully quit the site is just to show them I haven't been eaten alive.

Here's another stupid idea from the people who brought you BEER MILKSHAKES! (Red Dwarf in-joke)

Few people want a karma/reward system, and mostly I agree as that can be totally abused. But how about a sort of "member of the week or month" thing, where a member is recognised for the good they have done over the last week/month in promoting a healthy atmosphere in the forum, staying out of drama, sorting things out, creating decent threads etc etc, like a sort of example of the sort of person we want here? It could have its own thread and when people check and see who's been voted (presumably by a panel, maybe not just mods, maybe a PM vote system but the votes would have to say why they're being cast for that person) others might then want to aspire to that sort of behaviour and it might promote, you know, good vibrations?

No? Then I hope you all die in a train crash! :rofl:
Oh for the love of ... anyone who doesn't realise that's a joke needs to go into hospital now and have a sense of humour implant. It's a simple procedure and your medical insurance will cover it.