Karma System (aka pips) Explained

Community
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How Karma system works?

&tl;dr
:medal_sports: In simple terms, the more likes you get, the higher the Karma ranking — but the increase in ranking slows down as likes increase.

Intuitive Explanation:

Think of “likes” as a way to measure how popular a member (or the content they contribute) is. In this formula, the Karma rating is designed to grow slowly as the number of likes increases, but not too slowly. For example:

  • If you have 1 like, your Karma rating is 1 or 2.
  • If you have 100 likes, your Karma rating might be 4.
  • If you have 10,000 likes, your Karma rating might be around 7.

In simple terms, the more likes you get, the higher the Karma ranking — but the increase in ranking slows down as likes increase.

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What This Means:

  • Early on, small increases in likes can give you a noticeable bump in rating.
  • As you get more likes, it becomes harder and harder to increase your Karma. Going from 100 likes to 1,000 won’t make as big a difference in ranking as going from 10 to 100 likes would.

This formula is a way to make sure that getting a very large number of likes doesn’t overly inflate someone’s Karma rating. Instead, it favors smaller, consistent growth.

Update August 2024

The most recent (and hopefully final) update to the Karma system introduces some important changes.

I’d like to provide some insight into this feature. This version is intended to be future-proof.

Based on the number of Likes you receive, you can earn up to 5 dark green pips. If you surpass this, an additional 4 bright pips can be unlocked, each carrying twice the value of a dark pip.

Once you accumulate approximately 80,000 likes, your pips will transform into a bar, which will continue to grow indefinitely.

Please note, the progress for both pips and the bar follows an exponential curve relative to the number of likes. This means each successive pip becomes increasingly more difficult to obtain.

Currently only about 10 members have reach the “bar”.

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Somebody like this so I get 1/1000th of a pip!

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I really like all the work being done here at the website to make it a more enjoyable user experience.

One thing about the pips that I wish would make a comeback from the original Overgrow website is the ability to send negative karma and dislike posts. Sometimes I want to show my disagreement with a particular post but don’t want to get involved in a back and forth squabble. I think this was immensely helpful because members seem less likely to post up some bs or act like a fool when they knew their actions could lead to their karma being affected.

Additionally, back in the day ones viewable accumulated karma pips would also show the karma accumulated as a ratio of grow related topic karma to non grow related karma.

I know that pips aren’t supposed to indicate levels of trust, but I think they can help do that better when negative karma is an option.

Karma used to also be weighted so users with a lot of respect and a lot of positive karma could dole out more or less with their positive or negative clicks compared to members with little to no or negative karma where their clicks didn’t carry as much weight if any at all.

When leaving karma I remember being able to leave little messages as well that the member could read privately about why I did or didn’t like their post.

I think that feature keeps members acting on their best behavior. Many blessings and much love

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AKA: “The Pickle Club”

:cucumber:
:rofl:

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like people

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The issue I found with the karma system was that it is easily abused. I had a stalker on the forums that still pops up once in a while. I joined 2 sites where he and his cohorts totally trashed me with negative karma relentlessly. They would push negative karma on every post I made. Someone would say “welcome to the site,” and I would reply “Thank you,” and they would trash me for it. I am not a fan of something that is so easily abused.

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I think we miss a :rage: emoji for that … :innocent:

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images

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We can use the skunk for that one. Make it the unofficial “your post is shit.”

Skunk it. :skunk:

@DougDawson haters gonna hate!

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I agree 100%. Its not the haters that bother me so much, its their ability to have power over others. That is the problem. A group of people can trash others using the karma system and make their experiences on a site horrible.

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I don’t think we have those kind here, call them “too combative” and they’re out, we stick together and know who is who sufficiently… ejem|nullxnull

giphy|nullxnull

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I would hope thats the case but things can spiral quickly and then the damage is done. Look at the feedback threads. I got a 1 star rating from a user I had never spoken to. They ran around giving 1 star ratings to a bunch of people for whatever reason. This is not fixable even by the mods. I just dont like the idea of people having a tool that can be used to post negativity. Just my opinion.

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Do you care about the opinion from someone you don’t know? Remember karma and likes are not anonymous, it would be a good way to know your enemies… frech|nullxnull

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If they are to be taken seriously, they can use their words. Something the karma system doesn’t require.

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:grinning: agreed in full

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Hey bar-man, give me a beer :grin:
beer2|nullxnull
Thanks …

So you prefer curse language, verbal harassing and quarrels instead of some negative karma or emoji? icon_e_confused|nullxnull

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Yes because then I can judge such a person for what they are and they can’t hide behind a smiley face.

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Yup, sure do. The karma down system is to easily weaponized IMO.

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Doug is too easy an example because I know who he is and what he’s all about but you don’t have to be a Doug to be a good guy. It’s pretty obvious who’s who.

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Fine, who said?

“Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me”

Guess someone from Charlie Brown :grin:, hoping just for a :rage: emoji, us strangers understand more that language … bandit|nullxnull

So you wouldn’t trust a negative reference any kind about him, wouldn’t you? ejem|nullxnull

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