
On Karma: Top-line Lessons on User Reputation Design - ALee
http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2010/02/on_karma.html
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nick-dap
I am currently trying to develop a karma system in our community and can
attest to the "leaderboards are bad" observation from personal experience.

"The typical thought-process goes something like this: there's an activity on
your site that you'd like to promote; a number of people engaged in that
activity who should be recognized; and a whole buncha other people who need a
kick in the pants to jump in. Leaderboards seem like the perfect solution."

...were my thoughts exactly. However, virtually the same day that I introduced
a leaderboard into the mix, contributions plummeted and have stayed low since.
This was a couple of weeks ago. I suspect that the top contributors got their
recognition and now have little incentive to continue contributing, while
people who found it confusing or did not want to contribute continue staying
still. In other words, I got exactly the opposite effect of what I wanted.

"Do not display negative karma." I can attest to that as well. One user is
quite controversial in the community and was voted down badly for
contributing. Controversial or not, having negative points for trying is
really discouraging.

I suppose I should now go and undo those mistakes. A hundred nights more and
we'll have our overnight success.

~~~
DenisM
Take a look at "Game dynamics" interview won Mixergy.

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necrecious
The simple public karma system used by Reddit/HN is pretty bad. HN even lump
comment and submit karma contexts.

I think an algorithm like PageRank would be better. Each user has an authority
rank and voting up or down content produced by another user confers authority
to the other user.

Of course you also need to detect people gaming the system through things like
link farms, but there are years of experience on how to do that from search
engines. The incentive to have top karma is also worth much less money, so
users wouldn't spend too much time gaming it.

~~~
pmichaud
Bad maybe, but there is something powerful about the inconsistent reward when
posting then waiting to see how much karma the comment gathered. It's
addictive in the same sense that checking e-mail is addictive.

