Yeah, that's a problem with the proposal. I've been quite surprised that you don't already do that; since I have several systems, I account for 3-5 of the install count on each of my scripts. Don't count installs by the script's writer (or any IP the scriptwright has recently logged in on), and keep install counts unique per IP (or maybe a /29 CIDR IP block if you're worried about computer labs and aggressive DHCP renewals). Limiting the karma from the install count to unique user accounts is fair too, but it might make for seriously low numbers. Due to gaming the system, Slashdot decided to remove the karma points from a user's settings (they replaced it with descriptors like good, poor, excellent, etc ... I don't know them because I was already maxed out), and they never published the actual karma thresholds, though it could be figured out given one's points. I highly recommend not showing a user his/her score and following Slashdot's model here. Just tell users that they get rewarded for good posts and good scripts, and give a vague indicator somewhere (so maybe the green/junior/veteran levels have sub-levels that hint at one's progress towards veterans). Anybody who really digs will find this topic in the forums and can guess based on what was said here. Further reading: <a href="http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?KarmaWhore">Karma Whoring</a> (another form of gaming the system that is <i>much</i> harder to regulate) and <a href="http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm700">karma on Slashdot's FAQ</a>. (I updated my earlier post to reflect that there must be an upper limit to karma or else there's too much padding for free trash talking and spam, and I created a new topic to talk about <a href="http://userscripts.org/forums/3/topics/9335">a bug that inflates install counts</a>.) <p>Yeah, that's a problem with the proposal. I've been quite surprised that you don't already do that; since I have several systems, I account for 3-5 of the install count on each of my scripts. Don't count installs by the script's writer (or any IP the scriptwright has recently logged in on), and keep install counts unique per IP (or maybe a /29 CIDR IP block if you're worried about computer labs and aggressive DHCP renewals). Limiting the karma from the install count to unique user accounts is fair too, but it might make for seriously low numbers.</p> <p>Due to gaming the system, Slashdot decided to remove the karma points from a user's settings (they replaced it with descriptors like good, poor, excellent, etc ... I don't know them because I was already maxed out), and they never published the actual karma thresholds, though it could be figured out given one's points.</p> <p>I highly recommend not showing a user his/her score and following Slashdot's model here. Just tell users that they get rewarded for good posts and good scripts, and give a vague indicator somewhere (so maybe the green/junior/veteran levels have sub-levels that hint at one's progress towards veterans). Anybody who really digs will find this topic in the forums and can guess based on what was said here.</p> <p>Further reading: <a href="http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?KarmaWhore">Karma Whoring</a> (another form of gaming the system that is <i>much</i> harder to regulate) and <a href="http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm700">karma on Slashdot's FAQ</a>. (I updated my earlier post to reflect that there must be an upper limit to karma or else there's too much padding for free trash talking and spam, and I created a new topic to talk about <a href="http://userscripts.org/forums/3/topics/9335">a bug that inflates install counts</a>.)</p> 2008-10-08T15:08:25Z 3 Forum 15906 9264 2008-10-09T15:02:47Z 41779