I think "karma" is an effective tool to generate message board traffic, quality or not, but pinside is long past needing message counts boosted, it is probably a fair time to retire it.

Or just move it over to each persons profile page.

Ok, how about a temporary lock? When someone posts something for sale or trade they can choose to put a lock on it. A lock for say a 3 day period to at least give them a chance before the post becomes cluttered. After 3 days (or whatever time period) the post is unlocked and the blitzkrieg can now take place... at least give the post a fighting chance!

So then the OP gets his time and then the post opens up and everyone gets a chance to post their opinions, advice etc. and everyone should be happy. No, it won't stop all the crap but i can see where this could be a happy median...

Why not, especially if optional. Duration to be determined.

I like this suggestion a lot. I've posted several machines in the market in the last year and would have liked to list them in the forum as well. However, since such forum "ads" seem to turn out so badly at times, I didn't want the bother with the headache.

"Karma" is not only not a pinball term, it has religious connotations. Since religion is off limits, it seems out of place to use that word.

How about "Credits"?

If it were my site, you'd get nothing for simply posting. That's what we're here to do, why is a reward necessary? I'd just give a point for each thumbs up, and scale the amounts for filling in your profile, etc. waaaay back.

I might even have time to read more threads if they weren't all packed with "me too" karma collecting responses...

LOL, me too! (sorry, couldn't be helped Dan, just demonstrating absurdity by being absurd)

I post a lot I guess. I like to be involved in conversations with people who share my interests, and I like to argue, debate and critique. This isn't a professional forum and I don't think people should be discouraged from posting for fun.

I guess what I'm saying is, right now, for me? Karma points act as an inhibitor to my posting frequency. Honestly. I've had responses typed out, and erased them because I didn't want to rack up 15 meaningless karma points. I'd actually post more without them. I might be in the minority, but I really don't think anyone sits around laughing manically watching their karma total go up. I mean, seriously! Why would they?

However, I DO think that some people are naturally much more chatty, and just like in real life, that really rubs some people the wrong way. The same people who post, "Yep", or, (funny .gif) are probably the same people who will talk someone ears off at a party and they do so without being "awarded" karma points. The same people who are driven up the wall by that, probably hate it here too. There's an ignore feature if you think someone doesn't add anything to the forum and it's a lot easier to do than excusing yourself from an awkward Chatty Cathy.

I think it should either be stuffed, or, simply based on thumbs. I don't mind the conversational posters much. Sometimes I roll my eyes, but I never thumb those posts. I don't see anyone else doing so either. Vid's priceless technical posts? Some of gambit's more hilarious biting rebuffs? The occasional gif from Ted that's actually especially clever? I thumb those. I think at that point they've contributed more to the forum than is base line. I don't mind recognizing those people for such.

A lot of guys I've talked to have taken their stuff else where to sell because of this. I don't see why this would not help. I mean if the OP gets his/her time and then everyone else can jump in a little later there should be no bitching... it won't eliminate all of it of course but its worth a try!

Teekee, please bear in mind I've never tried to sell anything here, and I don't ask rhetorical questions. Do the price police and hobby arguments ever sabotage what would otherwise be a sale? The pattern in the threads that I have lurked seems to be:

1) Initial post.
2) Wish I was closer.
3) Price argument.
4) Condition argument.
5) Price argument.
6) Sale anyway.

I have no doubt that as a seller, steps 2-5 could be very annoying, but they are bumps for your thread. Is that not the case though? Are sales actually derailed?

I don't think there is any way to be sure of this. I do know that some of the price police post misinformation that can definitely hinder a sale. Some don't understand the difference between a HEP MM and a routed MM so they claim the price is way too high when its actually right in line. The misinformation and the clutter I think can definitely hinder a sale and I think that is EXACTLY what some of the guys here are intending to do unfortunately.

Still, the biggest problem in these post is just how nasty and personal it can get whether its pricing arguments or whatever. You can post something for sale/trade and 10 minutes later its a cluttered thread with arguing and off topic stuff.

Many here don't like the 'cheerleading' aspect of these posts as well. (GLWS, wish I was closer, Greta Price, etc.) An OP being able to have a temporary lock would eliminate this side of things as well.

Bingo!

Hey Robin, one thing I would love to see is a "Draft" type thread. Similar to the concept of a draft email. It would let people interested in posting "How-To" style threads spend the time to get them right and not have to rapidly try to edit and post and edit and grab two or three more post spots to try to make their thread.

It would only be visible to the thread starter until they actually submitted it from the draft folder.

Me too! I can't tell you how many times I started replies, and wound up not posting for one reason or another, but wished I could go back later and revise and post.

One problem with this that would have to be addressed is that if the thread is locked it will fall off the forum main page within a couple of hours. It would last much longer in the marketplace subforum, but I'm not sure how many people go direct to that subforum. Maybe more people do than I think? I don't know for sure. All I know is that I never go directly to the subforums. I suspect many others use Pinside the same way.

Robin's idea of having a paid membership for commercial pin sellers might help with this since they would have the ability to post announcements, but that doesn't necessarily take care of Joe Six-Pack trying to sell his pin.

Some of the ideas in this thread are a good place to start. Hopefully we'll see the for sale post evolve in a positive way here at Pinside.

The temporary lock would not include the OP. The OP could still 'bump' the post or add anything relevant...

Bonus Points
Reputation
Bumper Points
Special
Extra Balls

How long do they get to bump it for? Forever?

That could be a pain point too.

Edit: Maybe once a day for up to two weeks (or until it is sold/de-listed within those two weeks)?

That's pretty good.

Teekee said "just my 2 cents."

Dude! That is way too much for your opinion!!

There has be a lot of "Tag" abuse lately too.

That turns Pinside into a classified ad. Or Craigs List. No thanks. If people want to sell something here without comment they can do it in the Pinside marketplace. Or Craigslist. Or eBay. Or make a website. What gives anyone the right to sell anything without some kind of feedback in a free market? Specially on a public pinball forum!?!

I think the thumbs up/down thing is fantastic and I would like that to be the majority or all of the karma calculation.

Plus it saves me from posting a ton of frivolous "+1" or "agreed" or "that was comical" type responses that add nothing but 15 points to my karma.

Two semi-OT things since Robin is reading this post .. I agreed with the earlier post about the search feature. It was better with the previous search that only lasted a short while (I think it was using google?). A few times I've actually had to go to google to search pinside for something because the pinside search engine results weren't returning what I needed. And also I would like more emoticons

We're just offering suggestions here. Just trying to make Pinside a little less chaotic. I don't see why anyone should be afraid of a seller or trader having a day or two of peace before the onslaught comes. most of the noise that comes into these FS/FT posts is just worthless, off topic crap that just ends up creating trouble. I know some of you guys here live for this chaos so maybe taking some of this away would leave you with nothing to do... we couldn't do that!

If that's what Pinside is - a place for buyers and sellers to come together - than I wouldn't weigh in. Rather, it allows buying and selling...within a forum concept. No lockouts, no holds, no grace periods. Sell your pin, if you can. If you can't, maybe its priced too high. But there's no such thing as "too high" for people's whose main interest in Pinside is to sell.

It was just a suggestion to prevent some of the nonsense here. Obviously you seem to be one of the ones that feeds on that. No big deal to me. It won't stop me from posting FS/FT posts its just a shame some of the guys here like the RGP approach better.

Karma for just posting is... pointless. All such reputation systems always fall down when the community grows. Just throw it out. The only systems that seem to be of value are 'answer' systems and to a lesser extent.. 'like' systems. 'Like' systems still tend to be clique.. but anything that just encourages posting just to post needs to be nuked.

On FS/FT threads - the solution is community standards. No automation, tools, etc will ever keep things highly functional and clean simultaneously. FS/FT threads simply aren't about discussion - their purpose is to faciliate a transaction. If you aren't part of it, or contributing to making it happen.. stay the F out. How many of you go into every House you see for sale and then critique them on every tidbit about their house? If it's not contrustive.. get rid of it and penalize the repeat offenders. The problem will clear up soon enough.

I honestly find it hard to read pinside with any regularity.. the signal to noise ratio here is abysmal most of the time and it's very off-putting. Its ashame because Pins are my #1 hobby - yet I can't get plugged into this site.

Id like a way to make entire threads disappear from my view. Having to wade though the endless new threads on things I may not be interested in to locate the things I like takes time. Blowing away the threads I don't care for will make the interface so much cleaner and easy to navigate.

Why is no one talking about this right here! I LOVE the thought of this feature. Not for the Karma points, but so I could easily find the answer to a tech problem. Some of those tech threads get long (I know mine have) and in the process contain a lot of extraneous or wrong information, would be great to find the solution right away.

Yeah, It would be great having something for each machine. For example: Scared Stiff...the problems and solutions. Mods, etc. Something to be able to print out and keep in a book.

The thing with karma points is it's A SCORE. We all play pinball here and love to rack up a nice score. Some of us love to compete for high scores. Some of us play with the glass off by posting tons of "wish I was closer, 10k by Christmas"

I could go for that if Robin can make it look like score reels/digits.

It is a great idea. Unfortunately I think it would only get used 1% of the time.

Being a relatively new pinsider I see the following...

1. Negative Thread (500 Posts) <----flogging a dead horse
2. Duplicate Negative Thread (100 Posts)
3. FS thread (Doesn't matter what it is) <----Insert price police here.
4. Another Negative Thread complaining about Negative Thread from last week (200 more useless negative whiny posts)
5. Thread starts out good (Gets way OT and full of BS and witty sarcasm.)

6. You
7. Get
8. The
9. Idea

10. Helpful Post / Hey look at the hard to find pin I got / Look at this neat resto I did! I want to give kudos for great transaction or help. (posts I want to see)

So basically what I see is for every good helpful topic or positive contribution there are 9 other topics that are negative. What I am saying is if you don't have something to contribute in a nice manner then don't say it or take it to a private PM. There are nice ways to be helpful when it comes to communicating a proper price when you feel the OP may have grand hopes for an over priced item. I know personally I would rather have a nice PM explaining as to why that person feels such and such pinball should be priced at 5k instead of 6k. Heck maybe there is someone out there helpful enough to privately PM me if I under priced an item by 1k. "Hey you know that CV you have priced for 6k? Well you may consider.....(etc)"

I treat this forum as if I am front of the people talking face to face.

I am one of the few but I greatly enjoy the beefed up moderation and I am with Robin...If you want anarchy then go to other forums.

I would do away with karma points altogether. Some people are obsessed with them. Pinball is a hobby, anyone can participate, we are all equals here. I would leave thumbs up and down alone so people can easily spot quality posts but there's no reason to reward people for posting. We are here because we want to be, not to be rewarded.

Karma for posting is a horrible idea--it encourages people to post for no contribution. Tracking 'thumbs' might be a good idea, but even then I wouldn't be keen on making it very prominent. Just on your homepage a little score for you to see how many people like your stuff would be fine. (And on people's infopages, I suppose. No need for it on every post, though.)

I also like stack-style replies for technical or otherwise questioning threads, complete with rewards for being useful.

If people want to chat with other pinsiders, they should do so in the OT area. I'd support wholesale moving of posts to a 'chit chat' thread when topics are derailed. Posts like "oh hey, how are you doing" do not_ belong on a topical thread on a public forum.

I would also support auto-hiding posts with a certain number of thumbsdown.

Like many people here, I came from being a frequent reader/poster on RGP. Compared to what is happening there lately, Pinside is much more civil/organized, and helpful all around. I go to RGP less and less. Often there is hacker spam for selling products and promoting porn sites. Lots of negative posts full of cursing (do we we really need this in our lives?) and generally, less informative/useful information. There are even anti-Pinside threads. Is there room for improvement here on Pinside? I'd say yes, seems to be a consensus building that karma for posting is not nessesary, but thumbs up/down is useful. I really enjoy the positive atmosphere here on Pinside and applaud the efforts of the founders/moderators and helpful posters for making it that way!

Well, like anything...ask 10 people for an opinion and you'll get 10 different opinions. Robin, that's why you have to go by what YOU want this site to be.

The karma points system doesn't bother me at all. If you've been coming here long enough you know who are getting points for useful (technical) advise and who for posting in a chatbox kind of way.
There's people enjoying (or not) both kinds of posts so let them have their points.

That would be pretty sweet, but I was just stating the problem with the karma system being like a score. I think the system needs a bit of tweaking to cut back on some useless posts.

The Karma points are neat, but I really don't care about them too much. I use Pinside mostly for tech advice and hopefully to give some good advice too. I do spend a little time just chatting too.

The karma points don't really seem to be a good indicator of experience though. Maybe because this forum is relatively new with the bulk of its growth coming only recently. There are highly experienced pinball hobbyists who offer great advice and insight with very few karma points and also pinsiders with TONS of karma points who offer very little tech advice, but maybe they are a blast to chat with!

Not sure how you could change it to reflect "good advice" points or "Great Story" points. I'd say leave it alone. We are all used to it and more importantly, we already know who we like for their advice and conversation.

I understand that it would be nice for someone new to be able to look at someones karma points and it meant something. Just not sure how that works unless you break the points up into categories?

That's exactly right, if it ain't broke don't fix it!

Do what ya want. I agree that there are very few people here, unlike on one arcade board I can thnk of, are farming Karma just to boost a number. I'll post the same amount regardless of it. A big chunk of mine was from when upvotes added a whole lot more than just posting, but that's not the case anymore.

I have stopped posting as much, trying to get off of the "front page"! I don't want it obvious how much time I waste here.

I am getting there. C'mon guys, you can do it!!

I agree, adding a lock to a FS post in the market place sub forum is not required. You can do the same thing by posting it in the market place, not the market place forum. Basically it is already there.

I agree it sucks to post something and get discussion on it, but it has positive notes as well. Don't want discussion, put it in the free market place. Buyers will go there.

Yup!

People should also be able to lose points by getting a thumbs down. You bring good karma, you earn points. You bring bad karma, you lose points. I rarely use the thumbs up or down, but I would use it a lot more if a person was able to gain or lose points. The act of making a post should not be rewarded with points. It may have been needed when the site was slower to encourage folks to post, but there's no need to reward people for posting now.

Also, take the for sale posts off of the main page. There would be a lot less problems with those threads if they weren't on the main page. Allow people to comment all they want, but move it off the main page.

LOL at Karma seriously what is it good for anyway? all it realy shows is you made posts i think people are taking it way too serious i couldnt care less about Karma is it getting you discounts at the pinball stores?? lol
And ok i see people want manditory donations or selling on pinside ok why not just sell it on Ebay then then you get by far more advertizing and a 100 fold larger market exposure.

Exactly - the site has zero negative feedback loop. The tilt warnings are only for NSFW type stuff.. not 'bad community' stuff and what's the point of 'karma' that is ONLY positive karma? Basically what you are saying is 'this is a metric of how busy someone is here...' and nothing more. It does not convey community value or community insight into the poster.

The only way a poster will get negative feedback is by crossing a moderator.. of course in that kind of environment the nasty ones will feel entitled to their nastiness and the problem snowballs.

There was a brief period when karma pts were removed for a thumbs down. Technically it was a pop bumper not a thumb at the time but it was a similar idea. As you might imagine a vocal minority got hard feelings when the scores for their posts dropped slightly so it was removed.