I'm thankful to be seeing some useful feedback.

On a side note, this dialog has made me realize I need to create a general brainstorming tutorial. The activity requires a different sort of participation than, say, bug reporting or political debate.

I fear such idea would bring karma inflation in exchange of no much community value.

And there is an ethical virtue in the fact of not being rewarded whenever you thank the work of someone. In real life, would you like a rule like this: every time someone tells you Thanks! he is getting a lollypop for free.

I think some of the concerns that may be tied to this brainstorm (noobs unaware of Thank buttons, people lazy engaging in thanking activities) can and should be addressed in a different manner... like a better introduction\orientation program for new members and maybe a some visual changes to the thank button to improve its visibility (change the color or make it bold, but something subtle).

Even if the Thanks button design is not inspired in Las Vegas city lights, the effects of using it couldn't be more visible to all Talk users:

"The Following n Users Say Thank You to xxxx For This Useful Post:"

I personally the whole Thanks thing works well, fits the purpose and I wouldn't touch it.

In fact, as one of the persons that pushed the idea of maemo.org karma a couple of years ago I feel we are investing too much time discussing it.

Alright, I wasn't too invested in this one anyway (the visitor routing one is much more important to me). I'll withdraw it.

take a look at solution i made second ago. tell me what you think about it.

I, for one, am feeling very generous. Feel free to give me thanks and I will, in return, offer you much karma.

Tim

My girlfriend is doing a research on how data management programs influence on the actual work getting done. Because the data defines the efficiency of the worker, the workers start to do tasks that give them more "efficiency points" - no matter if these tasks are the most important ones or not. And some important task are neglected, because the program doesn't value them (ie. "invisible work").

Just saying, that while this Karma exits, it can't be neclected. It will have an influence on peoples behavior. It's purpose just has to be clear: to indicate the activity (and usefulness) of the member to the community. If giving thanks to someone can be considered as a meaningful activity and therefore something we want to substain, then it should be rewarded with karma. But the amount oh the karma should be in pair with the importance and effort.

But I agree with qgil: the importance of Karma should not be emphasized - you should not start doing things that give you karma, you should be doing useful things and GET Karma. IMHO the amount of thanks on the site is now quite good (they are given, but not for every post), and giving thanks should remain sincere: "I thank you for writing this" and not "I thank myself for reading this".

Sorry, but I do not see why it is needed. Also, it pretty much encourages people to cheat.

It'll be just too easy to open a long thread and click 'Thank' on every posting.

You can of course try to introduce some metrics to restrict, this, e.g. that you can't thank someone else until such-and-such etc. But that has been tried before, elsewhere: Brighthand used to have a complex 'reputation' system, where you at all times had a certain amount of 'reputation points' that you could handle out to someone. This resource could increase and wax after certain rules.

It was very difficult to artificially increase someone's reputation, and you could only hand out a certain amount at any time. In many ways a person's reputation on Brighthand seemed to be a more accurate 'karma' measure (a kind of Thanks+Karma integrated into one) than our system here (except that our Karma also takes into account more than Thanks), but in the end it was disbanded anyway. It was explained why here: http://forum.brighthand.com/showpost...55&postcount=1