Karma: is it no longer fulfilling its intended purpose?

[Beethoven]

I just put in my karma review request. Fingers crossed! I want to request my account notes as well, but I want to see my notes on my current character in particular and I don't think they show them to you until they're dead/stored, so I'll probably hold off until this PC is out of the picture.

[Desertman]

To add to the discussion after perusing some posts in this thread, the examples given does make it awkwardly apparent that some players are uneven from others, and for seemingly arbitrary reasons that could come across entirely as favoritism.  I suppose if I cared, I would find some complaint in it.  Specific reference = Dman:Valeria.

Eh, it's not fair to make this comparison.

I may have been around twice as long, but you have to remember that for the first half of my "career" here I was a complete and total shitbag on the GDB and I own up to that now.

I haven't been in many years now, but this is a small community and to pretend it doesn't leave a lasting affect is to pretend we aren't all human.

Valeria was never a shitbag.

Call it OOC politics, or whatever you want to call it, but I absolutely sabotaged myself on that front.

[SuchDragonWow]

To add to the discussion after perusing some posts in this thread, the examples given does make it awkwardly apparent that some players are uneven from others, and for seemingly arbitrary reasons that could come across entirely as favoritism.  I suppose if I cared, I would find some complaint in it.  Specific reference = Dman:Valeria.

I'm pretty sure he admitted he never asks for karma reviews, and I basically asked for them every chance I got. That's not arbitrary, that's a case of "if you don't ask they won't answer yes."

Ah, I see.  But ...

I've never once asked for my account notes. Not ever. It makes me feel uncomfortable to think of being observed.

Call it OOC politics, or whatever you want to call it, but I absolutely sabotaged myself on that front.

You are just the example I pruned from these texts.  I found out one of the best players I've ever interacted with on this game has only 4 karma.  He also never asks for it, but wound up with half the karma of Delirium, for instance.

[valeria]

That "arbitrary" comment is really grinding my gears. I think a lot of people from the old school just expect that they should get karma for being a good player.

But people don't just get "noticed" anymore. Shortly after I started playing, like maybe five years ago, there was an announcement that tied it to account notes requests. And now there's a separate karma review option. I don't think staff just hand out karma anymore except maybe the longevity one, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Delirium almost certainly got her karma before the new system and hasn't put in a request since.

These days, you have to put in the request. The staff discusses the request. The responses and reasoning all get stored like other requests. There's a paper trail. It's actually a lot less arbitrary than just staff just handing it out when they feel like it.

(And I am lucky that I spent my teenage shit bag years in AIM chats and on other MUDs, I'll admit.)

[SuchDragonWow]

I did say seemingly arbitrary, and I make that distinction because I don't have the details.  What seems apparent now is that the difference between you and Desertman is that he was once a problematic player many years ago, and you are the gold standard when it comes to staff-player relations.

[Delirium]

Delirium almost certainly got her karma before the new system and hasn't put in a request since.

I've been playing for 14 years. So I probably did.

[Desertman]

I did say seemingly arbitrary, and I make that distinction because I don't have the details.  What seems apparent is that the difference between you and Desertman is that he was once a problematic player many years ago, and you are the gold standard when it comes to staff-player relations.

I was a problematic GDB personality.

I was never a problematic player and have gotten multiple comments from staff over the years about my ability to empathize with, sympathize with, and give OOC consideration to other players. (In the game.)

But the fact remains, completely OOC and unrelated issues will follow you into the game world even you aren't the one who takes them there.

That's just part of being in a small online community for a long time. People can and will remember you.

I'm sure ten years from now as a 40 year old man I will staff have people/staff who think of me as 19-Year-Old-Desertman-Shitbag. *shrug*

[SuchDragonWow]

What is this, a religion?  I don't know how I managed to get annoyed by this subject, but I have.

[Desertman]

What is this, a religion?

We have a lot of aspects here that you would expect to find in a cult.

Disturbingly, a lot of them remind me of Scientology.

Take that as you will.

[valeria]

Delirium almost certainly got her karma before the new system and hasn't put in a request since.

I've been playing for 14 years. So I probably did.

Yeah, this happened back in 2011:

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,42023.0.html

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,42141.0.html

It was kind of a big deal at the time.

[Desertman]

I had completely forgot about that.

It makes sense that I'm pretty sure I got all of my karma before that and I'm pretty sure none since. Hmm.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm the type of player who is not some paragon for roleplay. All 4 of my Karma has been earned under the new system, and honestly it only took a little work to get. I've made plenty of mistakes. Even recently for suiciding. I would say I've always played a little twinkish, or at the very least I put an emphasis on skilling-up when my character is new. But there's always roleplay in there, so I don't think staff has ever minded much. I originally had 3 karma under the old system, but lost it all for double-accounting. They didn't officially strip me of Karma, just kept me with the account that had none and deleted the other. I was okay with it.

I received my new first Karma for Longevity. This one is the easiest to get. Just stay around for a little while and then send in a karma review. The second Karma was for Communication. This just had 1 some-what long lived leader-type (2 IC years?). I sent in updates and questions for about a month or so, requested notes/karma review, and received the karma. Now I don't communicate a ton, because mostly my PC's are low-impact and I don't see much need.  The second Karma I got was for roleplay. I think I got this one for hating on magickers in-game, but I'm not entirely sure on this one, it could have been for Scowler, the warrior/slipknife I played for a while. Last point was my second RP karma. I got it for playing a Gith. That Gith rolecall gave me so much faith in staff. They bent over backwards to accommodate us, flesh out the tablelands and the lore and make the world come alive. I felt like I was under staff eyes 100% of the time so I just cranked my shit up to eleven and roleplayed my heart out. After my Gith died I got the Karma pt.

I feel like these 4 Karma required very little work my part, every time I was sending in reports, or roleplaying my heart out it was because I was genuinely enjoying myself and my character at the time. It wasn't something I did 100% of the time or felt obligated to do, so none of it felt like work. I feel like anyone who does some of the things I did WILL get karma. Send reports, roleplay your heart out, live for a long enough time for players/staff to notice your character, and most importantly TRY OUT FOR A SPONSORED ROLE OR STEP INTO A LEADERSHIP POSITION! They are by far the quickest way to get staff attention, and thus karma.

As for the GDB... You don't have to be careful. I'm not careful, I have very little filter and post a fuck-ton(even post on the other forum infrequently without staff coming down on me, so...). Just don't get into ridiculous shit-slinging contests with staff or other players. In general show staff appreciation when they do things right. I criticize them, I sometime bitch at them and have even thrown a number childish fits in the past. But you know what? They make this game what it is. They are the reason we're able to play it, and they absolutely deserve recognition for that. So send staff Kudos when they deserve it. Show them appreciation and they WILL be more inclined to show you some in return, that's just how humans work.

[Vwest]

I'm mostly afraid I'm going to see stuff in there that's way off base or is super judge-y, because, let's face it, I don't often feel like staff is always there to support my fun, I feel like they're there to judge me.

I got my notes at one point and almost dropped the game over it.

It isn't even that there are negative things there, I anticipated there would be some based on the things I enjoy about the game. However, some of the things there were incredibly petty and absolutely smacked of someone spending all of three seconds observing a scene, or a situation, having no real understanding of it and making a knee-jerk assumption and subsequent judgement.

The worst part about the account notes / karma system is that it is silent. There are people who can spend a few seconds passing through a room, see something and damn you for years without your ever knowing about it or giving you a chance to explain yourself. There is never an inquiry about 'hey, why is your PC doing X, could you explain it?', it goes directly to notes and you would never know about it without asking to see them.

There is every chance you won't see the worst of them, either, as they're subject to pruning before the player receives them.

It's like some kind of neckbeard gestapo bullshit.

What is this, a religion?  I don't know how I managed to get annoyed by this subject, but I have.

Log in, we'll ride kanks and kill mans, it'll be great.

[SuchDragonWow]

I'll put it out there that karma is still subjective. They made a push with those rules to make it a more objective tool, but elsewhere staff have repeated that most players will not exceed the karma cap, which I believe was 5-6.  There is no objective reason why some players are allowed to exceed that cap and others are not.  Not to mention the reviews can be declined.  There will always be a subjective decision made, and after thinking on it, I'm not sure that can be done purely without favoritism.  The system is flawed.

[SuchDragonWow]

What is this, a religion?  I don't know how I managed to get annoyed by this subject, but I have.

Log in, we'll ride kanks and kill mans, it'll be great.

I'm all outta bubblegum.

[little chicken woman]

I feel like a karma review kind of pressures staff when you haven't gotten low-level karma in years, but reading all these makes me think its okay, and honestly I -have- been playing good witches and dwarves, in my opinion. I used to play such meh dwarves. I didn't really understand what a focus was supposed to be and thought of it in human terms. I still inject a little human into my elves and that bothers me, but at least I'm aware of it.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'll put it out there that karma is still subjective. They made a push with those rules to make it a more objective tool, but elsewhere staff have repeated that most players will not exceed the karma cap, which I believe was 5-6.  There is no objective reason why some players are allowed to exceed that cap and others are not.  Not to mention the reviews can be declined.  There will always be a subjective decision made, and after thinking on it, I'm not sure that can be done purely without favoritism.  The system is flawed.

Can you explain yourself here a bit?  What do you mean staff have said most don't get past 5-6 karma? What instances can a karma review can be declined? Only one I can think of is if you've played for less than 6 months.

[BadSkeelz]

I think you're all worrying about it too much.

If you want karma, play to the docs and communicate with staff. Giving staff a good sense of who your character is and why they might act like they do will also mitigate any "neckbeard gestapo" bad account notes since staff will now have additional context on your character.

I've rarely found hyperbole to work very well in staff communication either, incidentally.

I try not to worry about karma (which is admittedly easy to say when I've worked my way up to 4). I try to judge my success not over how many karmas or kudos I've gotten for a role, but how much fun I'm having playing it.

[little chicken woman]

I had like three neutral account notes but I already deleted the email. See if I can remember them.

* Spent time in jail completely AFK until released, right through a Templar interrogation. The exact words used were 'Kind of lame!'
* Had vnpcs in her tdesc. (This was the blind chick.)
* Great thinks and feels. (the character Col, who I believe was in the Byn)

Nothing recent, I think. I did like playing unmanifested witches in clans in the past but those didn't have any notes on them, although I bet they were still watched more.

[Bogre]

I try not to worry about karma (which is admittedly easy to say when I've worked my way up to 4). I try to judge my success not over how many karmas or kudos I've gotten for a role, but how much fun I'm having playing it.

Yeah- once you get a certain amount karma is really more about time-saving than anything.

[BadSkeelz]

I suppose. Personally I've had the most fun on 0 karma, non-spec app characters. Everything else has been a hassle or a disappointment (or both).

[MeTekillot]

I'll put it out there that karma is still subjective. They made a push with those rules to make it a more objective tool, but elsewhere staff have repeated that most players will not exceed the karma cap, which I believe was 5-6.  There is no objective reason why some players are allowed to exceed that cap and others are not.  Not to mention the reviews can be declined.  There will always be a subjective decision made, and after thinking on it, I'm not sure that can be done purely without favoritism.  The system is flawed.

Can you explain yourself here a bit?  What do you mean staff have said most don't get past 5-6 karma? What instances can a karma review can be declined? Only one I can think of is if you've played for less than 6 months.

Request Granted:

Ralken,

Sorry this took so long. You are currently assessed at 4 points of karma, points beyond 4 become harder to earn and so the scrutiny is tougher and the points are not 'equal' to those at 4 and below.

You were granted your 4th point in November and we feel that was relatively recent and that for now 4 points is a fair assessment for your karma level.

[Beethoven]

To me karma is about getting my work recognized. So if staff responds to my karma review request with, "We think we're going to hold off on giving you your next karma point, but you're definitely on the right track and we think you're doing a great job," I'll be pleased with that.

[Nergal]

You are just the example I pruned from these texts.  I found out one of the best players I've ever interacted with on this game has only 4 karma.  He also never asks for it, but wound up with half the karma of Delirium, for instance.

Though the following statement may seem obvious, the staff of 10 years ago are different from the staff of today.

Some people have gotten their 8th karma point back before there were karma reviews, or even a specific standard on how players earn karma. That's not to say they all don't still deserve their karma today. However, they got their 8th karma from being noticed, subjectively, by a given staff member - and that staff member subjectively deciding that that player deserved extra karma.

Today, we ask players to put in a request if they want more karma. There are specific criteria in the karma process, and players don't have to meet all of them to max out their karma. Multiple staff get input on the request, and get to put in their own recommendations. The system is as objective as it can be while still being run by humans with opinions.

[Norcal]

I have full karma, and I do feel like I deserve it, because I've never done anything that makes me feel like I don't - but I still constantly feel like I'm being judged on if I'm worthy of keeping it.

Karma is supposed to be about trust.  Do you feel that you can be trusted to play an 8 karma roll? Would you keep to the docs, make the world come alive, tell a good story and do your best rp? Would it be FUN for all?

I reckon it would be all of those things, so I reckon you do deserve it.