Alteration in the karma system

general
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1

I think there should be a review of the karma system. I was browsing through the top contributors page and it turns out someone whose best comment is on the lines of please vote for me because I need karma to ask a question is on the first page for top contributors for discussions. This is unfair to those contributors who write editorials and tutorials and occasionally get fewer points than people requesting upvotes on their comments so that they can ask a question.

I think that the following system should be implemented

  1. Give all users the minimum basic karma required to ask a question

  2. Divide comments into categories like tutorials/editorials, helpful links, opinions and irrelevant comments/spam.

  3. Give the highest karma to users who write well written tutorials/editorials and point to helpful tutorials and a reduced form karma to opinion based comments

  4. Block people from further posting if they post irrelevant comments and spam.

5 Likes
2

It is actually annoying when people ask for karma on other posts but even they don’t have another way to gain karma. So, I think everyone must be able to post questions.

1 Like
3

I agree that the current system makes it difficult (impossible?) for a new user or beginner to ask for karma. There’s a difficult way to gain karma though: writing editorials for the easier problems from contests. The better method in my opinion, however, is to provide the minimum karma required to ask a question in the beginning itself.

1 Like
4

Agreed … Many people post unofficial editorials and tutorials to help others out get same or less points as contributor than people asking for upvote. But we can’t blame then for asking for upvote as for most beginners it is quite diddicult to post a proper answer to questions. Please write regarding this to [email protected] …

5

I have to disagree on the questions to all from the start. This is to avoid question spam. Say you want to post randomly stupid questions to take up space in the discuss panel. Make a bot that does this :

  1. Create account

  2. Spam Questions

  3. If banned, GOTO 1

Now, the current system does not allow this and makes a person ANSWER something good in order to post questions. Something that we need a human for, and need to work for it. I myself am a new user,and cannot post questions yet. But I see the need for this and thus am writing answers in the new question section so that I can earn karma.

That is the problem with blocking people. I can easily create 2 accounts, 1 main for taking part in contests etc, and 1 to voice my opinion in the discuss section, making blocks useless.

I completely agree with the other 2 points though(dividing comments and giving more karma for tutorials)

6

I think a good solution to this will be a ASK ME ANYTHING session held once in a month where the top coders will be answering doubts and questions. Through this I think beginners can benefit a lot. We can do live discussion on problems from the long challenge,cookoffs etc whose editorials were confusing or missing. What do you think guys?

7

Guys what do you think about my suggestion? Please take a look.