Disabling Beer Karma

I really hope it is temporary. It was fun to seek out those point milestones. Made me try new styles, see new places, and just contribute to the site overall.

 

Thanks for creating this thread.
I personally enjoyed Beer Karma. On the whole I saw it as rather innocuous & also at times it could serve as a motivator to contribute more to the site (posts, reviews, etc.)
In addition - at least for me - Beer Karma was just good, plain fun. An example would be receiving points for being a site member for a year - that's the sort of little thing that puts a smile on my face :-)

 

I've enjoyed the beer karma and would like to see it come back. It was a quick and easy way to see how involved individuals are in the BA community and a fun way to keep track of your own involvement.

Also miss seeing the home state of the people posting.

Cheers!

 

While it was totally meaningless, I actually liked having the "Poobah" under my name. With beer being such a big hobby for me, it was good to see that I was evolving in my knowledge and experience.

 

I greatly enjoyed the beer karma system and would love to see it come back, even if it was altered (albeit with existing points returning to each user).

It's a cool system that kept me seeking out new things, it's almost like a game. i could see maybe if people abused it just to rack up points (ex: by simply ticking, lying about visiting a place/trying a beer, etc).

i enjoyed it and would like to see it back

 

Agreed. While I don't think site traffic will suffer as a result, gamification is a great way to keep people engaged. A little friendly competition between members never hurts..

 

I'd have to say yes for the karma points. Not only is it something to personally strive for, for lack of a better phrase, it also helps me figure out who's been around craft beer a while and know their shit and people who are relatively new to the arena and know shit.

 

I concur with my fellow BA's. Beer Karma was a very cool feature of this site and I would like to see it return.

 

I'm not heartbroken, when I first joined BA it was to trade and I've met some great advocates and enjoy the entire site, cheers!

 

Being newer to this board I actually thought it was a very cool idea. It keeps me involved more and it also helps show who has been around more and contributes more, I think its a great system and should stay.

 

I like the Beer Karma, its silly, but it motivated me to try new beers, places, and get involved in general on the forums. I enjoy all the other aspects of the site, but those little milestones were nice.

 

The karma was mostly meaningless, too many times I have seen threads where some poster just "Liked" every comment in the thread. But, having said that, some of the awarded karma points stats did give me a snapshot of how other BA's perceived the contributions of posters - a reality check of people who have different backgrounds, experiences, preferences than mine and I did find that useful information.

So, unless the calculation of these karma stats is harming the website/forum in some way, please find a way to bring back at least some parts of the karma system we have enjoyed.

 

I have a thought about the beer karma feature. Let's assume first that the system-overhead issue won't be a factor, and also that beer karma points genuinely do drive site contribution and growth.

Just before reading this I was playing some Call of Duty Black Ops 3 (and having a Jack's Abby Leisure Time Lager), where they also have a point/prestige system to strive for, and to show off your big antlers. Their points accrue in the context of player-performance, just like the BA beer-karma point system did, and presumably they add to game participation and franchise growth.

The only additional benefit they have over the beer karma system, is the occasional special point-earning period (e.g., double experience-point [XP] weekend!). This is the time for hardcore gamers to jump in and earn big points and prestige.

The old beer karma feature already thoroughly covered the contextual point-earning opportunities to drive site-content contribution and add to the fun. If it could possibly be improved upon, it might be to offer the occasional double beer-karma weekend for completing, for example, x-number of reviews, or adding beers or places. It might bring in the diehard BA's in droves, just like COD does. After all, who doesn't want to be a Poobah?

TL;DR: Add double beer-karma weekends!

 

I think that BeerKarma was a great feature. I found it weird though that one could not earn points for important contributions like full beer reviews or adding photos (of beers that lack one). All in all I think that BeerKarma should be brought back but perhaps the way points are awarded should be reviewed.

 

Like everyone else so far I enjoyed the karma feature. Was close to shedding advocate status . Also liked seeing where fellow BAs are from. bring it back

 

Besides the reasons listed above, beer karma encouraged BAs to try new breweries and beer styles; it rewarded all of us for stepping out of our comfort zones and drinking more than just the same 5 styles all the time. I want to echo one previous poster and suggest that karma reward full-length reviews if you brink it back. If not karma, I've long said that something should be done to encourage BAs to submit full reviews rather than mere numerical ratings.

 

I have only been on the site for 10 months, about the time I've been into craft. For the first six months, I didn't pay that much attention to karma but eventually realized that I could add places, add beers, actually do reviews (which I had pretty much done in WBAYDN and NBS), etc. Then I got more into discussions. I was on target to move to poobah by the end of the year - then poof - gone. I know it doesn't mean much to some, but I value feedback from the more senior members known as poobahs.

Taking it away seems like what it would if you were working on your degree and then they close the school suddenly and your records still exist but you can't access them so can't get credit for them. Yes I know it's just a website, but it's also a community with karma being the indicator of community standing. Now we can only guess about seniority based on posts, likes, and years of membership. I find myself less enthused about the site. Sure would have been nice if karma could have been kept until it is evolved or replaced. Please bring it back until it is evolved - I will gladly tolerate the performance hit!

 

Beer Karma was a major reason why ive also enjoyed this site. @Wiffler27 said and i agree it was like a game. My goal was to reach poobah and im sad that it is gone. Ill continue to use this site but i really enjoyed the tiny achievements you got in your progress.

 

There's been a couple versions of BK, so I think it should come back in some modified form. There's a lot of folks who just go "like fishing" by posting in a lot threads, even if that doesn't really move that conversation. One thing that bugged me a little is seeing how quickly some folks were getting high numbers of karma points. I've been reviewing, adding places & beers, and posting for almost 9 years now, and there were folks who had near my number of points without many reviews or adds. When you post in WBAYDN 5-6 times a day, and get a bunch of Likes each post, the points added up quickly. In one of the previous versions, you got some decimal point of a karma point with each post, and there was a poster (Hi Shogo, if you're out there) who would post in every thread, just to move his number up. That's not really contributing anything. So I'd like to see it come back (personally, I miss watching all my different glassware fill up, I'd like to see that back), but perhaps with a bit more reward for solid contributions, and bit less for for the fluffier stuff.

Plus, whatever form it takes when it returns, I suggest @jesskidden be at the head of the class. Give him a 50,000 point lead over the rest of us. No single member of BA has contributed more genuine knowledge and information than Jess, and I think he deserves an acknowledgement of that.