Karma - Abused or Used?

[I LUV JESS~!!]

yes definetely but cant say i dont love it~!! 

-Brenda

[Marian...]

Funny, until I read it here I had not noticed that karma had been disabled.

Heidi, I support your decision. Community points brought too much trouble and I bet they made your life bitter (okay not your life, but the time you spend here  ).

  SO HERE HERE FOR A NEW, RENOVATED, KARMA ISSUES FREE FORUM!!  

[louise]

  SO HERE HERE FOR A NEW, RENOVATED, KARMA ISSUES FREE FORUM!!

Amen sister.

I'm glad the karma are gone too, it's so much better this way.

[kilverstone]

I'll take a pretty stick Janich

All night long...

I think that calls for a "Dirty!!"

LMAO, seriously too funny! 

[GilmoreLover4ever]

 Why was the Karma things taken away?

[gilmore-girl]

Why was the Karma things taken away?

They were taken down because people were abusing them and Hedi (one of the mods) kept getting complaints from people about getting negative points. So she got sick of it and took them down.

[GilmoreLover4ever]

Thanks I didn't know why they were gone.
 What were we suppose to give somebody one for and why were we suppose to take them away?

[White Onyx]

Thanks Heidi for removing the karma. I kinda liked karma and the ability to prettystick people, but like you said a small group of karma abusers (they know who they are and should be ashamed) ruined it for the rest of us. And made it more trouble then it's worth. It's to bad we don't know how the other members feel about a members posts, but it's a price we have to pay for piece, I guess. 

[Poptartpm]

Thanks Heidi for removing the karma. I kinda liked karma and the ability to prettystick people, but like you said a small group of karma abusers (they know who they are and should be ashamed) ruined it for the rest of us. And made it more trouble then it's worth. It's to bad we don't know how the other members feel about a members posts, but it's a price we have to pay for piece, I guess. 

Oh....it's gone....I thought the computer was acting weird (i'm sorta slow today...)

[Lapis Lazuli]

That's kinda sad. I liked having the ability to prettystick people. I think it encouraged a nice, friendly atmosphere. I know a lot of people, even myself, have wondered about why they were snarked, though. And that would be an issue forever and a day. Someone else pointed out that perhaps if it does return it should just be the positive karma/community points, and no one could take them away. That would sort out a lot of this, I think. I don't think people would get mad at being prettysticked night and day 

[sternen-nest]

The thing is, the system wan´t just in a way abused, that people were snarked, or rather mass-snarked, because to me snarking people isn´t abusing  the system, it´s using  it. But the biggest abuse we had was by misuse of the pretty-stick option.

I am sad that the CP are gone, because it was a usefull system, I liked to be able to reward people when their posts were helpfull, full of information or when they simply made me smile. I often find my curser searching for the 'pretty-stick' still.

And it was also useful to tell people that they are doing something wrong when words alone were insufficient for that. Just last week I found myself talking through PMs with a new user that kept breaking the rules repeatedly. Even after I told her where to look for them, and what to do, she just wouldn´t stop. There was no mod around, only myself and other helpful users, and we posted in all the duplicate threads, and I think I wasn´t the only one sending PMs to her, yet with no succes. So then the CP option is usefull, because I did snark the user and I was not the only one. And when these people find that their CP go towards ten points in the negative, they will at least realize that their actions have more consequences then a few old users being pissed. Because the negative CP are there for everyone to see, they are some kind of mark that they obviously did something wrong.

And with that I have to contradict Jaredloverforever´s second post here, the idea behind the system was, that one should be bothered when the points go down, and take action to correct one´s behaviour so that they´ll go up again. And I have seen it work often, users asking what they did wrong, and people telling them, so that they could do better. It worked.

Yes, we had a few mass-snark attacs, that coincidentally occured around the same time that the misuse of the pretty-stick appeared.
Of course that was unpleasant, but I think we users handled it well in the way, that we all just pretty-sticked the people it hit, till they were back up. Because everyone just knows that people like MasBYUgal don´t deserve to be snarked in this way. I don´t think that the problem was big enough to have to remove the option completly.

And with the other abuses, I think it´s unfair that we all have to suffer now, for that which so few peole did.

[gilmore_guy]

i want my community points back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lozman]

thats a nice contribution gilmore guy LOL and yes i want mine back to! LOL

and yes sternen-nest, i agree completely well said i must say!! i agree 100%

i would pretty stick, but well,you know the sentiment is there anyway *pretty stick in essence*

but its like society isnt it, the mass get punished for the minorities actions, we can only hope that if they are introduced, people will not abuse the system, but i dont know, there will always be someone...

[gilmore-girl]

Thanks I didn't know why they were gone.
 What were we suppose to give somebody one for and why were we suppose to take them away?

You pretty stick people if you like a comment they said or something positive and you take them away if you don't agree with something they said or they do something that is not acceptable (i.e. diss GG or something)

[BodhiG]

Honestly, I didn't even notice the karma was gone until I came here and saw everyone talking about it.