4.7: Karma

What is karma?
Your karma is a reference that primarily represents your level of contribution to GotPoetry.com. News submissions, other content contributions, forum posts and news comments that have been moderated. Karma is a number. If a news comment you post is moderated up, your karma will rise. Consequently, if you post a comment that has been moderated down, your karma will fall. In addition to moderation, other things factor into karma as well. You can get some karma by submitting a story that we decide to post. Also, moderation itself can cause your karma to change. This encourages good moderators, and ideally removes moderator access from bad ones.

If you submit a news story and we publish it, you get a +5 karma boost.
Submit a download. Have it approved. +3 karma for you.
Submit a mod request with the info to fix a download, have it approved, +3 karma for you.
Submit a web link. Have it approved. +2 karma for you.
Comment on a poem. Get karma points based on how many people have already commented.

Registered members can give you or take away from you 1 karma point at a time. Once that user affects your karma either positivly or negatively, they have to wait until at least 3 other members affect your karma before they can then again affect your karma. This throttle is in place to keep things honest.

What does "Good", "Bad" Karma give me?
Karma is the sum of your activity on Gotpoetry. This means posting, moderation, story submissions, etc. It's just an integer in a database. If your karma is above 35 and the news story was posted that day, you can moderate comments in the news and articles section of the site. People will most likely see you as a positive contributer to the site and want to read more of your poems, short stories, listen to the MP3's you post and other info you've contributed to the site. Please note that if the news article is over 1 day old, normal users cannot moderate.

If your karma is real low, meaning a high negative number, then the system admins will probably be taking a look at what you've been up to. If you're being a troll and messing with people, then you'll probably get talked to about it. If warranted you could get suspended from the site.

Karma is an arbitrary number, I AM NOT A NUMBER!
People like to treat their Gotpoetry Karma like some sort of video game, with a numeric integer representing their score in the game. People who do this simply are missing the point. The karma label is just a way we've decided to emphasize those who contribute to the site in a way that helps everyone.

Is there a limit to how much karma you can accumulate?
No.

What is karma good for?
Karma is used to determine who moderates and who doesn't. Extremely bad karma usually indicates a user account that is being used to spam the discussion board.

Why is my karma not what I expect?
If you've been moderating or posting, your karma will likely fluctuate a little as you are moderated or usermoderated. Don't worry about it; this is normal. Please remember that this is just a number in a database that helps us determine who gets selected as a moderator. It doesn't determine your IQ or your value as a human being. It's simply not a big deal.

My Karma: How low can it go?
The lowest your karma can go is REAL LOW. Ha ha. If you think your karma is too low and you don't 'deserve it' then Private Message someone on the staff about it.

What is the Swag or Goods for Karma stuff?

Here are the current items you can use your karma to buy.
GotPoetry Sticker - 100 karma points.
1 month site subscription - 200 karma points.
1 year site subscription - 1000 karma points.
GotPoetry T-Shirt - 1500 karma points.

The amounts needed are set where they are so that purchasing swag is a thank you for people's hard work in contributing to this site. Make sure your mailing address is filled in on your profile and once you purchase an item we will mail it to you. We have a normal store that accepts credit cards, so this is just how to get free GotPoetry.com items.