Let there be karma

September 17, 2001 10:40 AM

A Karma (voting) system for thread quality coupled to a front page ranking/filtering method. Karma to be weighted by the degree of enlightenment of the voting MeFi (using join date as proxy). Selected MeFi luminaries accorded Budda status, capable of bestowing Big Karma. [more]
posted by RichLyon to Feature Requests at 10:40 AM (11 comments total)

I'm guessing this is (1) often recommended (2) against the MetaFilter aesthetic. But I can't help feeling the dynamics of this place are not going to scale well and you'll need to provide the aesthetes with a means of keeping the hoi polloi at bay.
posted by RichLyon at 10:48 AM on September 17, 2001

1 and 2. Also, inexperienced users might vote based on wether or not they agree; and giving extra voting power to selected luminaries (while possibly revoking the voting points of selected jackasses) could result in an overemphasized divide between even somewhat ok and somewhat not-ok threads. It would also mean a lot of extra work for Matt.
posted by skyline at 10:55 AM on September 17, 2001

Merde. Should this have been a comment to this? It's so hard to know....
posted by RichLyon at 10:55 AM on September 17, 2001

If you want karmatic charm, there's always Kuro5hin and Slashdot...
posted by fooljay at 2:01 PM on September 17, 2001

My karma ran over my blog-ma?

(that was bad. I'm sorry.)
posted by jpoulos at 4:54 PM on September 17, 2001

It seems to me that while Karma-based systems have their advantages (I read /. with my filter set at 4), MetaFilter's whole purpose is to have total involvement, and when you end up as a newbie say, just for example, at Plastic and you're starting at zero and there are people with 932 points, it discourages involvement. Besides, if we're going to make this place elitist, we at least need a reading list.
posted by j.edwards at 9:48 PM on September 17, 2001

actually, jpoulos, your joke was not bad at all. The feeling I have in my sinuses after having nose-sprayed beer all over my keyboard...that's bad.
posted by Optamystic at 5:09 AM on September 18, 2001

if we're going to make this place elitist

I thought we'd already made this place elitist. Hey! If we aren't elitist then I can't be one of the elite. OH NOOOO!!!
posted by daveadams at 12:59 PM on September 18, 2001

Hey! If we aren't elitist then I can't be one of the elite. OH NOOOO!!!

Well, maybe if you make mathowie some pancakes...
posted by lia at 10:55 AM on September 19, 2001

Thats odd. I just popped in here to check what the Worthies had said on voting systems before responding to the post on AntiDaily, and it disappeared. Xfiles like.

Matt (and I feel like the Pet Creature in Black and White here talking to his Master here) - why can't compare and contrast conversations be held. Might be good for MeFi.
posted by RichLyon at 1:54 AM on September 22, 2001

I'm a bit confused too, arriving at MetaFilter from Web Intersections in search of the AntiDaily post. Eventually I found RL's comment here. It's not the usual sort of thing to be deleted by Matt in my experience.

Is something playing up? The front page is back to static, and still not always loading, so maybe.
posted by southisup at 6:42 AM on September 22, 2001