What do you guys think of having a Karma/reputation system on the forum?
I think it would be good idea to favor those members who help out in the forum.
Karma/rep systems typically just breed hostility at worst, and are worthless at best. I judge posts on the quality of their content, and the quality of the person’s past posts. A random number near someone’s name just doesn’t matter, and doesn’t really fit on a game-engine support forum.
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While I agree it has no place on a games development forum, I am curious as to how it causes hostility.
- People with negative ratings are automatically perceived negatively no matter the content of their post
- It encourages rating people of different opinions negatively
- It encourages rating whoring, not really a hostility but still a bad thing
- It separates people by popularity, personal views and other statuses
- It encourages bias, which can result in a flame war or similar
- It can make some people feel left out
Right now unity forums is more or less neutral ground, some form of ratings can easily overturn it into good vs evil battleground.
I encourage someone to present a list of positive things a karma/rating system could bring.
I think it’s a great idea. You have a lot of haters, it appears though. Maybe just a positive-only karma system would address both concerns.
All of the things you list are really the same thing said differently. The advantage of a karma system is that you can downrate the scammers and thieves that still lurk around in the forums, and the people who don’t want to do any work, but demand that you do it for them.
Still, it’s an easy system to game, unless you put in a bunch of checks and balances. But I still kind of like it.
Why? What benefits will anyone gain from a (positive only) karma system? We’ve been doing fine without such a system so far.
It encourages people to help others. That’s the number one benefit. Also, a lot of conflicting advice is given here. It’s easier to trust the advice of a “1000” karma person with a “Guru” tag than one with 0 karma and a “Neophyte” tag, for example.
This is not the kind of forum where trust matters, unless it’s about collab forum, but in that case actual skill showcase is more important than some “guru” title on a forum. Other than that I don’t see what kind of trust based things we are doing here.
Encouragement is probably the only reason, though I am not sure how I feel about that.
Maybe not for you, but for someone who just joins, they don’t know anyone yet. There’s a lot of good and bad advice given to newbies, this would help with that.
What kind of bad advice are you talking about?
See this will also discourage the less reputable people from trying to help which is not good.
Note I am neither for or against the system, I just want to know what other people have to say.
I hope it’s intentionally ironic that everyone is giving +1 points to the guy saying that a “+1 point” forum system is bad. If it’s not intentional… /facepalm.
My common sense tells me it’s on purpose while my experience tells me it could be either way.
I can’t speak for carking, but mine was on purpose. I was hoping somebody would get the joke.
Nah. There will always be people with attitude, and they will be hammered down in the bliss of sycophancy that is a rated forum. Doesn’t mean they are wrong behind the attitude.
I like the “like” or “dislike” functionality. Or simply a thanks button.