Karma karma karma chameleon is a line in a know song. Why am I citing this on the front page? Because karma is now an implemented feature on the forum. “But what is this all about?”, I hear you wonder out loud. Wonder no more, because explanations are forthcoming! Exciting, isn’t it?
Anyhow, the karma system is a pretty simple tool. Those of you who have been here long enough can view it as a primitive substitute for GYAP points. Karma is supposed to give you the same sort of inkling of how you’re doing. Unfortunately, you can’t buy karma, whammy people, or play the lottery with it. It’s just there. If you understood nothing of that, don't worry. It's not very relevant, but if you're interested use the forum search tool and look for our old GYAP thread.
You receive 1 point of karma when someone applauds your post. In a similar fashion you lose one point when someone smites your post. There’s no way for you to know who has given you karma, nor is there a way to know exactly why. But if your karma starts sinking, you’re probably annoying people. Karma handouts are somewhat restricted. You can only modify a person’s karma by one point every 24 hours. And you need to have made at least 30 posts before you start dishing out karma. This way, only semi-established posters will have a say in this.
The karma system has been put in place as a test of sorts. It’s our hope that you’ll use it to applaud particularly good posts, and smite bad ones. In a few weeks, we’ll do a review and see how it’s doing. If we notice that people are misusing it (by say smiting someone every day just for the sake of it), we’ll turn it off. If it seems to be working alright, we’ll leave it on. So it’s now up to you to make use of the system and make it useful. Don’t just dole out points, think before you do so.
The other exciting news is that we now have a calendar. Right now the only thing in it is birthdays, but it might turn out useful in the future. At the very least, we’ll be posting the tournament dates in there (assuming there are any more tournaments). If you’ve got any other exciting ideas, let us know how you think it could be best utilized!
