Karma (Slashdot)

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Karma is a moderation system used on the technology website Slashdot.

To prevent abusive comments, a moderation system has been implemented whereby every comment posted (including those posted anonymously) can be "moderated" up or down by semi-randomly chosen moderators, changing the post's score likewise. Moderation points added to a comment are also added to a user's karma score. Having high karma gives added bonuses to users, such as the ability to autopost at higher starting values. Conversely, users with low karma have penalties imposed on them. People that post comments designed to get more karma, for example mirroring a linked article or presenting a banal groupthink opinion or lame joke, are referred to as karma whores. Those who can moderate are selected by their karma score and number of meta moderations (and maybe other criteria). Slashdot editors, including Rob Malda ("CmdrTaco"), can moderate limitlessly. Moderator access for non-editors is time limited (to a few days) and the number of 'mod points' one gets is limited (to a max of 5 points at the time of this writing).

A given comment can have any integer score from −1 to +5, and Slashdot users can set a personal threshold where no comments with a lesser score are displayed. A person browsing the comments at a threshold of 1 will not see comments with a score of −1 or 0 but will see all others. A meta-moderation system was implemented to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses.

Karma is implemented in the Slash Content management system and hence is generally used by all the sites that use this software.

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