CmdrTaco's Journal: Karma Obfuscation

Nothing gets users more riled up than alterations to the karma system. Well, some of them anyway. Most of them know not to care. And that really is the point of this change. Instead of users seeing an integer from min to max karma on their user page, they see a text label from Terrible to Excellent. This was a relatively minor change so it didn't warrant a full blown story post, but I figured I'd let people vent about it in an ontopic area, but first a little explanation.

As with any feature change on Slashdot, this was met with trolls, flames, misinformation, support, rejection, hostile email, praising email, and hilariously inflamatory speculation. Some of you missed the point entirely: the point was to reduce the gaming aspect a bit by fuzzing the values a bit. Many of you got it just fine.

No, I'm not going to tell you what the numerical values for each of the labels are. And we'll most likely change the numbers around a bit internally until we feel that they are representative of their meaning.

No, this will not stop people from trying to game the system. But hopefully they won't bitch any more about the minimum or maximum value. Instead they will bitch about not knowing the exact value of an int field in a database far away that has no real affect on their lives.

If you would like to discuss karma obfuscation, I've created a discussion for just that. I'll try to keep up today as time permits, but this has been a hairy week for me so forgive me if I'm not replying to every comment. I'll update this journal with major notes if any arise from the discussions.