Calmer Karma

New tools for controlling user comments.

You may have noticed a new voting tool for rating a user's 'karma' has recently appeared under individual comments.

It is now possible for logged-in users to rate other user's karma by either voting up (thumbs up), or down (thumbs down). In the context of the site, a users karma is a weighting calculation based the amount of 'good' behaviour versus 'bad' as perceived by other users.

The effect of other users' votes will influence certain privileges on the site, for example the ability to post comments directly. A user's karma returns to zero after time, but can increase with positive votes from other users along with other positive site activity, posting new content for example.

For example, you may give a thumbs up to a user's comment you find useful. This may increase that users karma enough to be entrusted with approving anonymous submissions.

Conversely, you may find another users comments offensive or just plain annoying. In which case you could give a thumbs down, which may cause that user to lose the ability to post without approval.

An individual's karma can be viewed on their profile page by using the link on their username.

The exact nature of the privileges, roles and time limits are still being tweaked and are likely to change as we begin understand the dynamics. Please accept our apologies in advance for any potential confusion this may cause.

We have also taken the opportunity to trail a new layout for comments that hopefully increases clarity, and we'll soon be launching another new feature to help convey a user's mood at the time of posting.

Comments

w00t!

I can't vote for karma!

Sorry, you're right. Slight misconfiguration there.

Should be OK now. I've given you a thumbs up for your trouble.

(we're also aware of minor layout problems with Microsoft Internet Explorer)

Surbiton.com webmaster

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