Really?

As one of the initial promoters of the user karma concept I must say that I'm not so sure about translating it to meego.com. I wonder if it hasn't created more trouble than benefit, and if the benefits couldn't be achieved through other ways.

Ranking user "experience" is useful and many community tools do that. The problem comes (and we have got looong discussions) when comparing karma values for different actions.

For instance, GNOME's bugzilla has a rating system which is very useful (and Andre scores at above-the-sky levels there). There is Ohloh for open source developers, also with a system to get public scores. In forums you have that combination of registered date + posts + thanks that actually works most of the times. There are ways to rate news and comments. There are ways to rate apps. I'm sure it is trivial to rank wiki editors, etc...

So really, before thinking of pushing the concept of karma to meego.com I invite the Maemo community to think if we really want to do this, and for what reasons.

I still see it as valid, warts and all. Yes there is an inherent stumbling block with quantifying various activities but I believe we were making good progress toward finding solutions.

We will never get 100% consensus but really all we need is "good enough" combined with sound judgment to deal with those areas where karma falls short or breaks down. In fact Quim I feel you did a very good job in that regard when it became a sticking point for developer devices.

I would like to see a karma working group formed for MeeGo and nominate my good buddy VDVsx for a slot based on his excellent work and keen understanding of the issues.

EDIT: funny-- I was *just* about to start this topic on the maemo community mailing list.

Why not just a poll about it and let the members decide?
No need for groups, brainstorming, etc - just vote.

It has some value. Not too much, but some. (And if there's no karma, we'd probably have distinct rating systems for variuous parts of the MeeGo ecosystem... so why not have karma in the first place?)

Another thing... We got used to it. It's one of the few things we could take with us when we lose name, logo, design of the site,... who knows what else. A tradition. If seen as such, we don't have to evaluate practical usefulness.

it's good to discuss before making a decision. i don't believe in the quick decisions that the internet allows us to make.

1) "name, logo, design of the site" - are all rather insignificant things that I'm even surprised you bring up. I think Texrat put it well when he somewhere wrote that the forum is not the community (or something to that effect).

2) "A tradition. If seen as such, we don't have to evaluate practical usefulness." I think I had to read that three times Do you really mean it?

Although I favor karma, and have quite a bit accumulated, I'm not in favor of bringing it over in toto to the new playground. That winds up being unfair to Moblin folks.

On the other hand it isn't exactly fair for people who have built up karma to see it go with no compensation (personally I don't mind starting over though; it will motivate me to work harder).

I think an equitable solution would be to erase current karma values but "seed" transferred Moblin and Maemo accounts with a one-time gift. Base it on time of organization membership-- say, 1 karma point for every 10 days with an active maemo.org or Moblin account or somesuch.

I do grant the stickiness of that suggestion though.

Discussion = definition. Best to define the poll parameters thoughtfully.

I see some issues with that;
- Moblin/current MeeGo is developer oriented, if you want to attract Moblin users (MeeGo users coming 'from Moblin') wouldn't you end up in a situation where they come through the door and see all these people with a lot of 'internet rep' already accumulated from 'some other site'?

- is there an equivalence to maemo.org account on the moblin side?

Sorry, that might be a misunderstanding. I'm not talking about the actual karma each of us has accumulated. I simply assume we'd all start from zero with the new site.

I was talking about bringing the concept of karma over to MeeGo.