Instant Karma Police - revisited

A few weeks ago, when I was still involved in my attempts to educate parts of the Trainz community, I wrote a blog entry on the trainzdev site about karma.

The staff of the developement site in question: www.trainzdev.com didn't find it very interesting apparently because none of the usual spokesmen spoke. The Karma system was also not changed and my numbers kept dropping ... I don't know how far actually. The last time I noticed it the score was something like -69. Two days ago something peculiar happened. A young kid, Tyler Bishop, started complaining on the forum of tranzdev that his karma was negatively influenced by other members. Not me of course as I was already banned for some time and I would lower this kid's karma anyway because he is apparently the only other person on the entire suck-up board that dares to speak up a bit about the ridiculous "look how popular I am within the community vote".

Anyway ... Chris "I am always right and you are not" Bergmann must have thought he had another Zwab on his hands an warned Tyler in an interesting way:

"Just a quick word of warning. We won't tolerate repeated troll/spam posts on these forums. Everyone here is welcome to their own opinions, and are welcome to express them, but repeated posts which are off topic and inflammatory will result in a ban. I've only had to do that once so far, and it's not something I particularly like to do because it removes someone who may otherwise be quite a nice or helpful person from the community information source which is trainzdev.com, which hurts everyone.

Please have a think about this before you start down the same road. It's also worth thinking about why your karma is low. Several people have obviously disagreed with your previous comments or tone enough to mark you down. Like I said, you're welcome to have whatever opinion you want and to express disagreement with other peoples opinions. Just stay away from the ad hominum attacks, especially something like this where you don't even have a point to make."

In a later instance I might invest some more time in analysing this piece of wonderful prose by dear old Chris. For now I just advice him to stick to code writing because any other writing from his hand is ... hmmm ... shitty?

Very well. This wasn't the full end though because a day later Tyler actually requested the disabling of the karma system and to my utter suprise Chris "ad hominum" Bergmann replied:

"Done. I'd like to keep a karma system because they can be useful, but I agree that the fireboard one is pretty pointless. Will reenable it if/when the web guys have a chance to clean it up.

I've also toggled a few other options while I was at it.

chris"

HE ACTUALLY DISABLED IT! ... but also: "... they can be useful," WHAT? For what is this kiddies popularity vote useful? Can somebody answer that for me please, because I don't have a fucking clue.

I did find a picture of Chris Almighty however:




What my thoughts were, and still are, on the subject can be read here:

Instant Karma Police

The powers that are have humoured us with a whole new popularity voting system here on Trainzdev.com: Karma! It is not easy to explain the concept of Karma and without an explanation from the site owner it is quite possible that lots of people here mis-understand it and start treating Karma like, what I like to call, Chimp food.

Chimp food is the reward you get when you do exactly that what is expected from you, and what is withheld when you don't.

Example?

The moment the CEO posts a poll on the Auran forum all the chimps flock to the topic and start 'voting', again and again and again. They keep pushing that button until their faces turn green. People push that button because they [i]hope and or expect[/i] their reward will be part of the new product.

They however forget that the info they give is used by the CEO to figure out what part of the product he needs to emphasize to the public in order to make the most money out of it ... not because he likes the people on the forum's opinion that much. The result is that many people will be disappointed because they assumed they increased their Karma by pushing the button but instead didn't receive their Chimp food when the new product is finally released.

Complex indeed.

Whole libraries are filled with books about Karma and its meaning. I don't expect anybody to read all of that ( I also don't expect this from myself ) but I feel that the following definition from "Thesaurus" covers the basics of Karma pretty good:

karma - (Hinduism and Buddhism)

the effects of a person's actions that determine his destiny in his next incarnation.

Hinduism:

a body of religious and philosophical beliefs and cultural practices native to India and based on a caste system; it is characterized by a belief in reincarnation, by a belief in a supreme being of many forms and natures, by the view that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth, and by a desire for liberation from earthly evils.

Buddhism:

the teaching of Buddha that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, that suffering ceases when desire ceases, and that enlightenment obtained through right conduct and wisdom and meditation releases one from desire and suffering and rebirth.

I am afraid that when the "karma" system here on this forum was installed with the software it didn't come to mind of the owner that Karma is this difficult a concept. I am afraid that the Karma points sytem, as it has been implemented here, is just a "fun" way to see who is popular among the masses and who is not. The powers that are have apparently overseen how blatantly insulting this is for people of the Hinduism religion and or Buddhist teachings.

I wonder what would happen if the popularity of members were to be determined by, lets say, an in- or decreasing number of Hail Mary's or at which level of Hell your posts will get you. So far it seems there aren't even enough levels of Hell to put me in because of my minus twelve karma points, although I do not know how many karma's points you need for one of the seven heavens of levels of hell. Perhaps the CEO can explain the exchange rate between levels of Hell and Karma points?

It becomes even more difficult because there are actually two popularity system installed here on this site. One is the karma system and a second Chimp food system is used for these blogs ... you can press a "favourite" button. Again it is not explained how many favourite are needed for one Karma point. I would like to trade my four favourites from my "Tony Hilliam, I want my money back"-entry for some minus karma points i collected in the forum.

Another thing that alludes me is the reason why this sytem hasn't been implemented on the, far larger, Auran Trainz forum. It could spark a true Karma Fest and the karma economy will blossom into full bloom and everybody will gather around the camp fire and sing Kumbaya ... and TRS2009 will be ALL we ever wanted from a train simulator [i]because[/i] we have given karma to the right people many times already. Haven't we?

Many of us have given Instant Karma when TRS2004 was released and again when TRS2006 hit the shelves. Then quite a few people gave even more Karma to add SP1 to their TRS2006 Karma. Yet again we gave Karma with TC1+2 and very recently TC3 ... but it is not enough.

We all keep hitting the Karma button that is Auran's bank-account ( me included ) with the expectation that our hard-earned Karma points have been worth investing and that the order of the Universe is balancing out, but it isn't. We chimps are fooled ... fooled into believeing we live in a righteous world where a business CEO spreads the gospel of Instant Karma for all of us, when in reality he only spreads the gospel of greed.
I think that all buyers of the before mentioned Trainz versions should have a free ride into the next incarnation ... because THAT is what Karma is about and people have paid enough Karma already. Karma is about the balance of choices and behaviour. We do have an influence on the Karma of Auran but have not left the trees yet for the promises that the plains offer.

Let us ALL climb down the trees and conquer the plains and be again like those first apes that took that road. We, as customers, can decide how much Karma Auran deserves. Spend it well.


Instant Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, hes like a detuned radio
Instant Karma police, arrest this girl, her hitler hairdo, is making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party
This is what you get, this is what you get
This is what you get, when you mess with us
Instant Karma Police's gonna get you, gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together, pretty soon youre gonna be dead

Instant karma Police's gonna get you, gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin, join the human race
How in the world you gonna see, laughin at fools like me
Who in the hell dyou think you are
A super star
Well, right you are



Zwab