Why, hello there. I am so happy to meet you!
Allow me to introduce myself. I am the new Worth1000. Is this your first time meeting the new me? We should get reacquainted then. So many things are different about me now. Come and learn more :).
- Topics & Arenas
- # All
- # Effects
- # Illustration
- # Multimedia
- # Photography
- # Writing
- # Community
- bots Strips
- crit Critics
- comm General
- aww Sugar
- tech Tech
- jail Dungeon
- hello Welcome
- # Corporate
- Recently visited
- comm General
- fx Adv. Effects
JaxomLOTUS
said 5 months ago 11/3/2009 11:22:40 AM EDT
Since we first implemented the karma system in Worth's first year, it has been an example of one of the few voting engines on the web that was fairly difficult to game. The basic premise was that the more similar your votes were to the statistical average on an entry (and therefore the more aligned your vote was with a majority of people using the voting scale), the more power we wanted your vote to hold in future contests. And so, the less your vote deviated from the statistical norm, the more karma points you would earn (and thus, the more powerful your vote would be).
It effectively boiled down to an automated way of granting extra power to people whose voting was more inline with the voting scale on a regular basis. This was a GREAT system, but there was always one loophole:
People could vote 4,5,6 consistently and still be statistically close to the average score of an entry (in any direction). Therefore, regardless of whether a 4-6 were merited, people could still gain karma rewards by sticking to those numbers. The community coined the term "Karma Humping", for the curious hump shaped curve that would tend to appear on a plot graph if someone was plotting out a Karma Humper's votes in a contest.
Now, I try to be very much trusting of human nature. I prefer to think that no one would take steps to learn this consciously and attempt to use it to their advantage, but after running countless tests on our backend, we saw that this was being done, more often than I'd hoped.
Obviously we needed to address it going forwards. And as we wanted W3K to be more transparent than the previous website, I wanted to make sure that we were open with exactly how the new system would calculate karma.
And so in addition to the current checks on voting deviation I explained above, we have also added a new layer of security that will reward users for using more of the voting scale regularly. And at the same time, make sure that karma cannot be gained by using less of the scale.
You can now receive up to 6 karma points per contest you vote fairly in provided you are using more of the voting scale. That makes it twice as easy to power up in each arena if you are voting fairly, and using more of the voting scale. You will not receive negative karma for karma humping. You simply won't receive as much of a karma reward, if any at all.
Now regardless of whether you gain karma in a particular contest, we do have one more treat in store for those of you who vote 100% in a contest: We will be adding a new trophy to the upcoming bling / trophy mantles that tracks your achievement in rating 100% of all entries in a contest. The only exception to this is if you received negative karma in that contest, (which should not happen if you have followed the voting scale) in order to make sure people strive to vote seriously when trying to receive a voting trophy.
Here's a neat summary of the changes:
* Receive up to 6 Karma points (up from 3 max) per contest you vote in for not karma humping (using more of the voting scale than the middle numbers).
* Receive 0 karma points if you karma hump (NOTE: you will not receive negative karma unless you do something malicious like give out all 2's. Otherwise the only real difference is that karma humping will just not benefit anyone anymore).
* Receive a new bling award for rating 100% of all entries in a contest (provided the voting isn't deliberately malicious).
Anticipated FAQs:
Q: Why are you making me vote like everyone else?
A: We're not. We're rewarding voters whose votes reflect the broad range of expertise that exists here.
Q: Won't great voters sometimes experience no gain in karma, or even a decrease?
A: We expect decreases in karma by experienced voters to be very, very rare. No gain may happen more often, but don't worry about it. Think of karma as a reward, not an entitlement.
Q: What if entries in a contest only deserve 4, 5, and 6 votes?
A: This is statistically rare. Really, really, rare--especially in contests with more than the 10 entries that are required to reward karma. When it does happen, folks who vote accurately may not receive a karma increment for that contest. That's OK though!
Q: Won't top scores get higher as a result of this new incentive?
A: Possibly. We do know that lots of truly excellent entries have had their scores pulled down by middle of the road voters. If entries like these get higher scores, we all benefit!
tldr; Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an AWESOME game and should be a part of any serious gamer's library.
I think the sliding karma scale is a great idea, nice to have such a friendly and workable solution to humping! Can a user gain karma by voting on less than 100% of entries? If not, the bling award seems a little redundant to me (as a user's karma level would serve to reflect that fact, albeit indirectly).. Also and as an aside, while I know incredible amounts of thought and effort went into the new changes with W3K, I wonder how people are liking genre-specific karma levels. Truthfully, I miss the simplicity of an overall karma level, and think a bling award for that instead would be both much more pertinent and useful. Maybe the 100% entry voting stat could be broken down by genre though..?
/just a few random thoughts
Wow! This is really exciting for me!
In just about every contest I vote the entire scale, sometimes even voting the dreaded "1". I would ponder if even Ansel Adams would earn a 10 for his work. And recently I began thinking about how my 'radical' voting style was almost too far off the average. A few times I was really concerned about getting a negative karma.
Thanks, Jax, for taking the time to work on this! Now I can continue to vote fairly, as I see it.
^ Yes all rateable entries.
seabie: given the nature of different voting schemas for different media types it just made more sense to calculate karma on a per arena basis. I understand the point though - maybe there is a way to address this. I'll think on it.
This definitely is a great leap forward to combat the poor voting, I have a question though:
-Does a voter get the new voting bling after 1 contest of 100% rated entries or after a certain amount?
seabie said
I miss the simplicity of an overall karma level
It used to be simpler, but I think it is actually more fair broken into arenas. Let's say most of your experience is in photography. Then you decide to vote in a writing contest, but have never written anything in your life. It really wouldn't be fair to the writers to have your vote possibly worth more than those who know what good writing is. Just my opinion.
seabie: given the nature of different voting schemas for different media types it just made more sense to calculate karma on a per arena basis. I understand the point though - maybe there is a way to address this. I'll think on it.
Maybe an average can replace the overall karma number.
JaxomLOTUS said
we do have one more treat in store for those of you who vote 100% in a contest
Is there any way around this if you actually can't vote 100% entries?
I'm thinking about the implication of 'friendly' voting, here. From experience, voting on entries you know are by friends is discouraged; there are sometimes entries within contests I try to avoid voting on as a result.
This can be particularly irritating if I'm in the same contest as a friend. If i'm going to have a 'black mark' on my stats for not voting 100% in a contest I may be choose not to vote at all?
But it's not just an overall in photography, or fx, or in writing - it's different for fx fxb fhx, foto fotob fotoh etc.
My opinion is that it should be separated by topic, all foto, all fx, all writing, all MM, all illo.
I do think it should be separated by topic, if your experience is in photography then your say shouldnt be the same in text where you have no experience... but each arena is a bit much.
I understand that there comes a time when users can create their own arena - I asked Jax about it before and said he doesnt want those who vote in an iphone photo contest to have much say in an advanced contest...I get that and I agree. But what if it were the 3 main lumped together, ex: fx fxb fxh - then when new arenas got added they'd have their own karma to build up.
seabie said
I wonder how people are liking genre-specific karma levels.
one word ILOVEIT!
as a mainly photo based worthian, the past karma system has kept me from voting in FX contest and EVEN More so in contests like text, and multimedia, and well ok, for the most part, I keep to my precious photo contests!
why?
for one, because I am not a skilled photoshopper and I may say WOW and give an FX entry an 8, while I may totally MISS something obvious that an experienced FX person sees, that makes that entry a 5.
Text? forget about it. Unless its a rhyming jingle, I cant tell you why one is better than the other.
You think I was willing to spend my karma to learn how to vote in these genres? I did, every now and then, if I felt I could do a decent job and be fair.
But to be fair to the people entering the contests, I don't have the same voting ability in text as a jingle writer, and once I start voting and my karma crashes to reflect that, it will take me awhile to LEARN what makes one good and one bad.
In a way this is actually how I LEARNED photography. Partially through learning why one entry scored well over another. Eventually I learned to photograph what scores well, and to avoid, those things that get commented on, like flash shadows. :D
So now that I know I will be voting fairly and not bring anyone down by my own lack of knowledge, and elevated karma I will be MORE inclined to vote in other genres.
Also, I can compete and not fear bringing my photo score down cause I suck at photoshop. yay! I like arenas.
That's the more than one word reason I love the new voting system.
He didn't say there's a black mark for not voting 100%.
He said there's a treat for those who vote 100%.
He didn't say there's a black mark for not voting 100%.
He said there's a treat for those who vote 100%.
Ddallas said
My opinion is that it should be separated by topic, all foto, all fx, all writing, all MM, all illo.
Yes, that makes sense. Especially if you have high karma in an advanced arena, you should probably keep that karma in a beginner arena of the same topic.
BonnySaintAndrew said
This can be particularly irritating if I'm in the same contest as a friend.
As far as I understood, the only contests you are not supposed to vote in 100% are head2head. I think even if you know its your friends entry you are supposed to vote? You can still vote fairly on your friends entry. In fact not voting for your friend is like giving them a 0 maybe I am wrong
As far as treats go, I like Caramello's. Just putting it out there...
I really like this new system. I was having a hard time building Karma because I'd vote across the scale and it made me feel like I had to vote 4,5,6 just to build karma even though I wasn't interested in Karma Humping.
Bottom line-I like it-alot.
When will this be put into action, or is it already up?
looks great though! :D
You never did have to vote 4,5,6 to build karma. Simply following the voting guidelines allowed you to use the whole voting scale and to increase your karma.
JaxomLOTUS said
tldr; Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an AWESOME game and should be a part of any serious gamer's library.
You got that right! I'm MsgtBob on this in multiplayer too (for anyone that is interested - ha)!
We did a test run on a couple of contests. I'll be opening it up wider once we have the bling reward in place.
Sorry, I phrased that badly... I know you won't get a skull and crossbones or something horrid on your mantle if you don't vote 100%. ;)
All I meant to ask was that if your achievment is being tracked voting 100% of a contest, is there any way a procedure could be put in place for the odd occasion it isn't possible?
