I've had neutral, bad, and good karma, but I was unaware of excellent. I wonder what I did this time to change it. I also wonder if there might be other karmic levels like 'terrible' or 'transcendent' or 'unknown'. Thanks for the endorsement /. Like my grandmother used to say, "Flattery will get you everywhere."

Well, I just gotta say that in spite of my previous gripe about libelous troll karma, Slashdot is way, way better than most any scalable portal / social network / news and data exaggerator. I realized this as I was slamming AOL and Corporate America's greed and short sightedness, when it occurred to that at least Slashdot keeps it's eye on the ball and continues to deliver real value to the world. A consistency of value and function, while resisting the kind of decay and degradation one can expect once that "upstart" is sold to big business. But Sourceforge isn't AOL or HP. I'm glad that informed perspectives found in top usenet newsgroups or college classrooms are distilled here with the daily news feed. This bloggy convention seems to work for me here, and at Flickr (also acquired by big corporate brother). If its any consolation, I don't pay to subscribe at either place. But the way I figure it, you guys definitely get value from me. I am generally so committed to free stuff that I'll spend the currency of my quality time, instead of fast bucks. It won't pay the bills, but at least it celebrates Slashdot's collaborative process and growth.

Karma: Bad. Screw you pinheads. Your Karma is every bit as bad, so bite me. I'll never subscribe now. In fact I won't submit or comment. Why should I? You pissed me off and now I just want to insult you and put my effort into worthy causes - not your fascist intimidation and conformity imposed by little narrow minds unworthy of the task. Your system is way too loose to start flinging insults at me. So I feel like flinging them back. This is a cure for flame? Interesting choice. I have dozens of posts and yet one "off topic" remark negates my karma score to BAD. This degrades my status, and subsequently, reflects on several hours of GOOD thoughtful prose. You idiots! Oh wait, I guess its BAD when you are the one being called names, isn't it? Now I'm a troll and a flame bait. Just exterminate me. I'm BAD. Clearly people confused by the contrived moderator task thrust upon them will tend to look for fault, and moderate like hard boiled nuns at a catholic girls school. Furthermore, your punitive attack outweighs the positive strokes for "good" behavior. You are all stick and no carrot. That's stupid and annoying, and will never properly motivate an ass like me. Where's the credit where credit is due? Is it all negative score keeping? Is it too complex to find a fair, reasonable system that does not completely tilt the importance of poor content over good? Can't you distinguish blatant spam from a difference of opinion or mild infraction of your divine holier-than-thou standards of humor or rhetoric. Irony, satire, allegory and other literary devices confuse the common 'dork denominator' or perhaps elude them altogether. Like Nurse Ratchett in Kesey's "...Cuckoo's Nest", you want to break Murphy down, and squash the 'unconventional' or the 'misunderstood' like a bug. A BAD Karma flame bait troll bug. If it ain't GOOD, middle-of-the-road homogenized view, then it must be BAD KARMA and we must stamp out BAD KARMA immediately before it spreads. You like that snap! whacking yardstick, don't you Sister Sadist? That's a pretty nasty habit and spanking, from the short end of your stick. Dick. Well, you just suck out loud. Fix your own shit. Your Karma is an insulting label. Its asinine. You're just being a dick. Just like me, right now. How do you like it? Dick for dick, tit for tat. Just like any racist, prejudicial, fuck wad, Nazi, scumbag, n-word exploitation.... this is your BAD karma when you crap on my karma and call me BAD - after all of the mostly GOOD efforts and results I have contributed here. DON'T BE A DICK. KARMA NEEDS TO BE FIXED. Just ask Earl.