They might have value if karma decay were introduced. Maybe.

If we had a karma system that allowed karma from specific sources to decay, and we made t.m.o posts[1] one of those "decaying sources" due the posts' here-and-gone nature, then it might be worthwhile to recognize certain posts as being more "timeless"[2] in nature. These would be the posts that attract so many thanks that their value to the community must be greater than would be reflected by the normal waxing and waning of post and thanks karma. The "gold post" karma bonus would boost the peak from that contribution a bit higher and therefore, longer.

Obviously, this is all theoretical, and I don't completely buy into it myself, but it's the best argument for "gold posts" I've been able to concoct.

[1] Blog posts would likely be good candidates for this process also. Mailing list posts too, if only there were some mechanism by which they could be rated.
[2] As in "maintaining usefulness over a long period of time", not "written by that Mozilla developer guy".

These are now implemented and waiting for X-Fade to roll them out to maemo.org. Then recalculating everybody's karma will take a couple of days to roll through.

Expect lower but hopefully a lot more balanced karma scores

Thanks to everyone involved for making this happen.

On a related yet bit-of-a-side note, would it be possible to finally get some explanations regarding what the very obscure categories are? I have noticed that a lot of people in the Community are only involved in a single kind of activity (for example, in my case I'm mostly involved in TMO and IRC. Very few bugzilla, blog, wiki or brainstorm points).

Maybe we could try to lure those kind of profiles into more widespread activities? I don't know how, but if karma is going to be useful, this could definitely be one of the routes it might take: Now that karma is more balanced, an inbalance in a user's profile will be a lot easier to spot.

Another request I would have is in the high-score , could we a/ make the categories more explicit, and b/ add a thanks/posts one?

I've never been so happy to lose so much karma. How refreshing.

Agreed, that one should be improved on. Now the names come from the names of the karma modules that are used.

Quick explanations:

• Comments: comments to Extras Testing packages, Maemo Downloads apps or on-site announcements
• Favourites: giving thumbs up to a news item or brainstorm solution (thumbs down gives karma too)
• Blogs: blog entries based on their rating in the Social News
• Products: apps in Maemo Downloads based on their star rating
• Discussion: posts to maemo mailing lists that are imported to maemo.org community section
• Bugzilla_reported: new bugs reported to Maemo Bugzilla
• Bugzilla_comments: bug comments on Maemo Bugzilla
• Brainstorm: ideas and solutions being voted on or implemented
• Packagetesting: participating in the Extras QA process with thumbs up/down
• Itt_thanks: thanks received here on Talk
• Itt_posts: posts here on Talk
• Mediawiki_edits: editing the Maemo Wiki
• Groups: membership in Garage projects

Darn, this version is even more embarrassing than the last. The only consolation is that I'm no longer on page 3.

Holy cow! Why am I ranked so high? Is it a bug?

Is this why my karma has suddenly jumped by almost 100 overnight ? I'd been wondering :-)

I think the fractional numbers are a bit overdone however:
Favourites 1.62019
Comments 9.79796

Maybe two decimals would be enough ? :-)

I'm happy to see you lose it too!

See how much of a buddy I can be.

I'm pretty sure that nobody lost as much as I did: 1646 of hard earned karma points! I demand a recount!