My initial reaction was a sort of "but the balanced system!" But after
reading your arguments, I think this is a good idea to shake things up.
On 7/3/2020 7:32 PM, omd via agora-business wrote:
Proposal: Upvotes (AI=1)
{
Multiply all positive Karma values by 3 (to compensate existing Karma
holders
for expected inflation). Replace all negative Karma values with 0 (because
Karma will become a currency).
Amend Rule 2510 (Such is Karma) to read:
Karma is a currency tracked by the Herald.
Up to once per week, each player CAN grant a specified other
player 1 Karma by announcement. A player CAN also transfer any
amount of eir own Karma to another player by announcement. In
both cases, for this to be effective, e must give a reason why
the other player should gain Karma.
At the beginning of each quarter, the Karma of every
Unregistered person is halved (rounding towards 0).
Karma cannot otherwise be transferred or destroyed.
[Basically, I want an easy way to congratulate people on things, from the
author of a well-written proposal or judgement to the perpetrator of a
clever
scam. Karma almost fits the bill, but it feels too expensive, in multiple
ways:
- You have to name someone to lose karma, which has social overhead, so to
speak. You can avoid that by naming yourself, but you still have to
give a
reason why you should lose karma, and...
- Karma values are really low, making each transfer carry too much weight.
Most players have to avoid transferring karma values from themselves
on a
regular basis, as they could easily end up the Honourless Worm that
way. (As
of the last Herald's report, the lowest Karma value is -4, while only 3
players have Karma above +3 – though the Shogun is at +7.)
- The once-per-week limit seems about right as an average rate of
transfer, but
it creates an opportunity cost: before sending a NoH, you have to
consider
the likelihood that someone will perform an even-more-laudable action
later
in the week. And laudable actions tend to come in bunches, as part
of bursts
of game activity.
With this proposal, in contrast (in reverse order of points):
- There's a once-per-week limit for free karma awards, but you can transfer
your own karma to others with no limits, and you don't have to come
up with a
reason why you should lose karma. Most players should end up with a
reserve
of karma they can spend during bursts of activity.
- Since karma awards are free, the supply of karma will significantly
increase,
making each point less valuable. That does mean that an individual
transfer
will be less dramatic. But there's a reason I called the proposal
"Upvotes".
Whereas currently an action is considered sufficiently rewarded if a
single
player decides to award karma for it, under this proposal I expect
multiple
players will award karma for the same action. Instead of a single award
being dramatic, it will be dramatic when you see a long chain of "me
too"s.
(That does create more work for the Herald.)
- The ability to take away others' karma is removed. I didn't want to
do this,
since I think the 'balanced karma' system is a quite interesting
mechanic.
But for karma transfers to feel cheap, I think you have to be able to
perform
them without penalizing someone else, at least sometimes. Penalties
could be
kept as optional, but I think that would make them even more socially
awkward
than they already are.
In particular, one alternative I thought of is requiring you to first
penalize someone's karma, which would grant you N tokens, each of
which could
then be spent to award karma. That would make it so you still have to
penalize people, but not as frequently as you reward them. However,
it would
also create a separation between penalty and reward, which I think
would make
the penalty part feel more like an attack.
An interesting possibility for a different medium would be making it
random:
you award karma, then roll a dice to see if you're required to penalize
someone else. But neither randomness nor unexpected obligations work
well in
mailing lists.
Overall, as much as I like the 'balanced karma' system, I think it just
doesn't fit well with what I have in mind. Of course, that might be
a good
reason to vote against this proposal, if you like it better than what
I came
up with. But we've had Karma for around three years, and it had several
predecessors before that. There's a benefit to shaking things up.]
}
--
ATMunn
friendly neighborhood notary here :)
