Superman Through the Ages! Forum

maybe it's been there for a while, but I just noticed....what's this karma rating?

Forgive me, but I only just noticed "karma: 0" beside my name and picture.

Please explain.

I have no idea. ???

It looks like a software feature that Rao turned on, I've seen it on other forums.  Users can click on plus or minus and raise or lower other users' "karma".  It usually turns into a contest of raising or lowering folks' numbers based on whether you agree with them or not.  Personally, I'd rather the posts just stand for themselves, its all just opinion anyways.

I've added a poll at the top of this thread to see what the overall feelings are about karma.  If you're not sure, I suggest waiting a while before voting - and you can also change your vote if you change your mind.

Yes, this is an option in the forum software which I just turned on.  Currently, only members with at least 100 posts can effect other's karmas.  You can effect another member's karma once per hour.  This is configurable, it could be once per day, once per minute, etc.

I don't see karma as being used for posts you agree with or disagree with, but for whether or not someone is a constructive contributer to the forum.  ie, if someone posts really good posts, s/he would get karma points for it.

But ultimately, how - or even whether - karma gets used is up to you guys.

Seems reasonable, I've just seen it abused on other forums, but those had many members and were often political in nature.  Aside from a very few users over the years, I find this place full of people who post interesting ideas whether I agree with them on the quality of Bronze Age writing, comics philosophy, or how good Superboy was in the 80s or not.. 8)

OK, I say keep it for now as an experiment.

Esteemed moderator, as I distinctly remember starting this thread, and giving it the name "Instant Karma?", how did jamespup become the thread starter and make a posting that's ahead of mine?

 ???

A neat trick.

I didn't even post my message on this thread !   It was another one !

and I'm going around giving people (+1)s because as MatterEaterLad implied, I'm more interested in what others think (regardless of whether I agree or not) than what others think of me

How does one go about giving people karma? How can I achieve this godlike power over the destiny of mortals? Is it somewhere on their profile?

Seems like a time waster to me, I vote 'no'.

Also: voted no to keep "Double Header" out of LSH.

Permanus, there's a [+1] [-1] underneath where it says karma (under the poster's name)

move your pointer to that area and you'll see, then click plus or minus

(only on someone else's, not your own)

I cleared my internet cookies and gave five + 's in a row for Dream Girl...

Two threads were merged.  I kept your Subject for the new one.

What is this Double Header/LSH poll you guys are talking about?

I think Kalr was just comparing the karma system to Legion try-outs... 8)

I thought you meant "Double Heather" from the Garbage Pail Kids

I think they are from the same planet.

ME Lad is right. And I've cleaned my cookies for Dream Girl too - boy is she ever ...dreamy!

Eyeful Ethel, on the other hand, is neither an eyeful nor dreamy. ;)

Ah, gotcha. How could I not have noticed this before? Well, I'll just plus everybody then.

We'd do this thing at work back in the 80s where if there was a Garbage Pail Kid card and it was your name
(like if your name was Janet and there was a Janet Planet card) then someone would give it to you and you'd have to keep it prominently displayed at your desk

Garbage Pail Kids... It's amazing just how much talent went into creating something so gross and funny :)

 

Good to know there's a feature up that measures how much you agree with everybody else on things.

Yeah, I just don't dig it.  A strong contrary opinion shouldn't result in a - vote, I'd prefer the posts make the point.

Don't really see the point of this myself, but there's a certain entertainment value in trying to bring Julian's score to positive figures.

LOL.  Good luck with that; I'm betting Julian will make it his life's mission to drive the numbers in the opposite direction, just out of spite.

"Karma" is a pretty hippy-dippy notion to me, so to stay in the vernacular, I'll say I don't get a "good vibe" from the feature.  To me it smacks of high school cliques, and other exclusionary groups.  I'd like to think people here have the freedom to say what they like, without worrying about being ostracized, or trying to curry favor by going along with the crowd.

Besides, why make it easy for new members to spot Julian as a crackpot right off the bat?  The rest of us had to figure it out the hard way. :D

Most of us are far too old to be in high school :P

I wouldn't take this feature too seriously.

I'm playing a DEADLY GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE with someone: I got Julian up to zero with some patience yesterday, but he was back to minus one this morning. It's like playing The Sims or something.

I like the "Mean Girls" movie a lot. 

Not saying it's me but no one deserves negative karma. :'(

If this was the 1960s and there were LOC still in funny books, old JP would be a Guy Lillian III or Irene Vartanoff and be scoring Flash art for his letters from editor Julie Schwartz. ;)

 

LOL... 8)

True enough...out of 1,000+ posts, I have agreed with a good 3 or 4 that JP has posted, but the guy definitely gets some discussion going here.

Still not digging the karma system...  ;)

I hate to admit this, but I'm rather starting to enjoy this in a disconnected sort of way. I've grown a bit tired of distributing karma points myself (I only ever give plus ones, not for any particular reason, more like a Hare Krishna giving you a flower just for being alive), but I can't help looking at people's scores. MatterEaterLad has an astounding 14! He must be a very nice person. Nightwing has 13 because he is stern and venerable. Rao has 11! Actually, you'd think he should have more than anyone. I myself now weigh in at a respectable 9, which I feel reflects my eagerness to please, general inoffensiveness and bonhommie and joie de vivre and all that sort of thing.

Brought Julian back to 0 this morning. It's like trying to save a cat from drowning.

Wow, live long enough and people call you all kinds of things!  :D  I think I should feel flattered, but instead I just feel old.  "Stern" sure beats "curmudgeonly," but no matter how you slice it, "venerable" makes me sound like that wizened old teacher in "Kung-Fu," telling Grasshopper to snatch the pebble from my hand.

Actually, that reference alone probably confirms my advanced years, doesn't it? Sigh...

Anyway, I retract my objections to the points system.  If I'd known I'd end up in the "popular" crowd, I'd never have made a stink.  You like me! You really like me!

(Aaaaaaaaand the points begin to tick to the negative...)

don't get too excited he only wrote "stern" since "curmudgeonly" was too hard to spell. ;)

Bless you, Klar. Being compared to a cool cat like Guy is the best compliment I've ever gotten as a fan. My brother met Guy at a science fiction convention and described him as a cool, weird guy, like a real-life nutty neighbor.

Irene Vartanoff actually does exist, despite speculation to the contrary in BRAVE AND THE BOLD lettercols. She's all over the comics I truly love in life: she did colorist work for my all-time favorite issue of the Gerber-era DEFENDERS, which has a crossover between the Defenders and the Guardians of the Galaxy (and is the first mention of Starhawk as well as Killraven in the Guardians' timeline). I squealed with delight when I saw a flashback to this story in the recent PARADISE X. She also was the colorist on varied issues of SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP (another favorite).

She also was in charge of cataloguing Jack Kirby's art around the time it hit the fan, if I remember right.

It's a shame she never went pro the way fellow letterhacks Marty Pasko and Bob Rozakis eventually did, but at the same time...it's not hard to go from editor to writer (the way Mark Waid did) but I've never heard of many colorists becoming a writer or artist. The only one I can think of is Bill Mantlo (he did the coloring on the Englehart-era AVENGERS).

I do know how to spell cur... curdgeomnonly!

It's the avatar. Come on, take a look at your avatar. Nobody's going to argue with that. It's stern.

Other than that, I'm hip to the Kung-Fu reference, Daddy-O!

I have no idea why I have 14 karma points, I'm the only one here who dislikes the Bronze Age and really sees a distinction between it and the Silver Age.  8)

On the plus side, I don't really care if anyone agrees with me, LOL... :D

My poor misguided children, you do not have "negative karma" until Great Rao says he does not like your posts and will not read them anymore.


She did the plotting for my favourite Lois Lane comic (which also has my favourite Lois Lane cover), "Who Killed Lucy Lane?" from the early 70s.

I'd still like to get a feel for how the whole Karma thing is playing out.

So if anyone voted in the poll but have since changed your opinion, either one way or the other, please change your vote in the poll.  Just click on "remove vote" and go from there.

I say keep it up.  I appear to be somewhere in the cool guy club - but looks like the more I post, the more I lose the status (gee wonder why, ha ha - actually, not "ha ha").

Not the only one.  I had stopped reading new Superman comics by 73.  Started in 61.  You do the math. ;)

I thought Klar might speak up, I only bought from 66 to 72, but I had my brother's stack from 61 on...  :)

I thought Lana looked pretty dang cute in the Insect Queen costume...

But, back on topic, to me the karma system seems like it could go two ways, everyone who is a regular moves to positive numbers or people who have a contrary opinion go negative or low.  The only negative I would ever award would be for spammers or really angry or abusive people.  I assume the latter would be warned and removed from the site anyways.

Don't get me started on Saturn Girl!

But yes on topic, I think everyone here except bums (spammers, porn-a-mites) is all about positive karma.

Except in my last life, I was a dog.  Now I have a cat.  See how this can go ALL WRONG??!!! :o

You don't have to worry about those idiots, since Rao and myself would get rid of them anyway. Well, actually only Rao can ban members, but I can delete posts and threads if needed.

Anyway, back to poor JP, if all these people were not giving him pity karma points because they felt sorry for him, he would be in the negative hundreds by now. :D

I disagree with nearly everything that he posts, but his posts are at least entertaining and never boring! That has to count for something right?

Yes, exactly.   JP is a dedicated active participant in this forum, and for that I give him points.

They are far from pity points

Yup, I agree too.  JP is fun to post with. 

I also wouldn't use negative points on anyone who simply disagrees with me.

I was refering to these comments:

Oh, mine aren't pity points by any means; it's more of a sort of challenge, like the keeping the remote controlled helicopter I just bought aloft.

I was just failing at being funny, don't mind me. :-[

None of this karma stuff seems in the spirit of Superman.  People like Julian getting picked on is the best reason in the world to ditch karma.  Sure, he's obsessive (or at least, he seems to make time to be obsessive) and I don't always agree with his ideas, but he brings new ideas and discussions to the table and isn't a troll by any stretch.  If I wanted cliques and cults of personality, I'd go somewhere else.  I'm here to share with other people who have genuine "love" for Superman. 

If anyone wants whatever little karma I have to apply toward a negative karma balance and make it a positive, I'd love to somehow give mine away like a penny jar at a cash register.  On that note, the karma thing might be more compelling is if karma points could be used for harmless fun that actually relates to the board itself.  Perhaps there could be a gambling pool on who Superman's next writer is gonna be, or when Lana stops being CEO of Lexcorp?  I dunno. 

And besides, "karma" is a Marvel Super Heroes RPG concept, not DC.  :)

I am still trying to figure out how llozymandias has negative karma.
That doesn't seem right, other than not being able to get his avatar to show up correctly, he seems like a "Jolly Good Chap".

Whoa, everyone, I feel a bit responsible for having contributed to the Karma system, which I really just thought of as a bunch of horseplay; I certainly didn't mean for anyone to get singled out or anything. Could we just keep it as a feature but not take it seriously, know what I mean?

Am I ever late in noticing this.  Seems dumb, and from the above posts, is being used differently from Rao's intent, in essence to punish people we don't agree with instead of rewarding for positive contributions.  It's hard to imagine a time when I click a plus or minus button unconsciously as part of my reading regime.

Karma=thought police.

I still don't like it, all these weeks later.

Just don't think it adds anything to the site and I don't see how it indicates anything meaningful.

And you have the highest score of all!

Help! Im in stasis - holding at a lone number ...lo these many weeks.  Still 13 and stagnating!

And 13 is surely the unluckiest number of ALL!

Unless one of you cuts me down or raises me up~

Oh the enormity of it all! :P

I took away one to make you happy ;)

I hope you are happy now :p  :-*

Thanks Beppo!~

just cross your fingers that no one ever gives you good karma again,

http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Bizarro-Monkey

Maybe if folks keep those peanuts coming I can bypass Durla and go straight to Orando.

I have to say - originally I voted for, but after these few weeks - against.  I actually find myself paying attention to my karma now when I read posts.  It's become annoying.  Like me or hate me, I'm still going to say what's on my mind and I guess I'm not that big on paying attention to my "like meter".

1 is the loneliest number.
 :(

Post more! Start a good thread that gets people thinking and posting and makes this site fun.

I just gave you one, a freebie, but from now on you must earn it!  ;D

So I hear Rao has been keeping track of who has been giving him negatives.....  ;)

Quick we all better give him more! :)

Can this feature be turned off? It means nothing as to the quality of posts and is being abused.

Even people who voted for it, changed their minds. I actually think it lowers the bar on the site.

Julian's like minus ten billion or something. I suspect he signs in under assumed names and gives himself negative karma.

Again, this shows that this "karma" thing is just a race to the bottom.

And the 'Nays' have it.

I think it's a good move (http://smilies.vidahost.com/contrib/ruinkai/batman.gif)

And karma - instant or hot -- is history. ;D

Assumed names?

So you suspect Julian was a Karma Chameleon?   ;)

In that case, perhaps it's best that Karma got kiboshed...  ;)