I was browsing through Slashdot’s FAQ, and discovered that, far from just being a boring list of hows, whys and wherefores, it was actually a set of rules for a Slashdot metagame. This game is based entirely on improving your karma – which is, in short, the likelihood that articles and comments you write will be seen by other people, or lost in the hundreds of low-karma posts nobody but the moderators read.
Since I have been reading /., my karma has been ‘positive’. So I get to moderate occasionally, and meta-moderate daily. But there are other levels; you karma can improve to excellent.
Those who post only to improve their score in the /. metagame, the ones who strive to max their karma and have their every post seen by everyone, are karma whores.
I… am selling myself for a karma score….
/. discourages this, but not too much, since the best way of increasing karma is by posting comments that advance the discussion. There are other ways for SERIOUS players… some of which are mentioned in the FAQ as things not to do…
I’ll be tracking my karma score here. /. recently changed their site to include more optional stories on their front page, and now I have all the gaming news on /. SCREAMING at me… I can comment on gaming… and my karma, it is rising…
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Fanguard starts tonight. More afterward….
