Karma ratings don't seem accurate/helpful?

[LukeTheOrange]

I routinely see people who have dozens of time penalties in the last 60 days, but still have 100% karma. I personally prefer to play with players who honor the time limits. Why don't karma ratings account for time penalties? Why should someone who basically NEVER runs out of time have the exact same karma as someone who routinely runs out of time? I'm not asking for the karma "formula" because I know I can probably find that in the FAQs; I'm asking for the logic behind it. I think people who honor time limits should be enabled to play with others who do the same, but how are they supposed to do that? You can give players who run out of time a red thumb, but that's only after they've already joined the game and you've found out that their karma is misleading, and the community is just too large to reliably filter players that way.

I have a player who constantly pushed the 24-hour time limit and ran out a few times, and I tried to give this player a red thumb. I didn't want to just say "personal opinion" because that doesn't help anyone else avoid players who don't honor time limits, and I think it's perfectly fair to say players like that should have slightly lower karma. Some people might not like that, but if they think it's okay to run out of time occasionally (or often), then they should have no complaints whatsoever about a mechanism that requires them to play with others who do the same. It's nothing personal, just a perfectly reasonable preference. Anyway, the system said "it's this player's first game and you can't give them a red thumb" but the player has played the game 20 times, with 4 victories! What is going on here? I have had a premium membership before and am considering one again, but seeing how the karma ratings work makes me reluctant to do so. I looked through the forums to see if there was any enlightening discussion on this, but after a few pages of threads, I realized it would be hard to sift through them, even with search terms. If anyone can direct me to an existing thread that can shed some light on this, I would appreciate it.

I'm not going to kick the player out because it would be unfair to the other player. I also prefer to finish a game, unless it just started and someone is already running out of time before anybody is really even invested in the game.

[King Hrothbeort]

Many players run out of time and/or quit games frequently when they are new to BGA. The way the karma system works allows these players to regain their karma by playing full games within the time limit. Personally, I think this is good: players aren't penalized in the long term if it took them a few games before they figured out how the BGA system works.

Clearly there was some kind of bug if you were unable to give someone a red thumb "because it was their first game" when they had 20 plays of that game in their history.

[qwertasdfg]

The message about it's being someone's first game comes up if you try to public red thumb a player before your game is over. Yes, it's a completely wrong error message. And yes, it also doesn't make sense at all to only be able to red thumb someone until after the game is done. But that's the way it works.

You can try again with the public red thumb when you've finished the game

[LukeTheOrange]

Many players run out of time and/or quit games frequently when they are new to BGA. The way the karma system works allows these players to regain their karma by playing full games within the time limit. Personally, I think this is good: players aren't penalized in the long term if it took them a few games before they figured out how the BGA system works.

Clearly there was some kind of bug if you were unable to give someone a red thumb "because it was their first game" when they had 20 plays of that game in their history.

Yes, but it made it clear that I have encountered many players with dozens of time penalties, so clearly these players are not "new" at all. In fact, some of them are playing over 100 games at any given time. They shouldn't be joining that many games if they can't honor time penalties. But every game they finish gives them a +1, whereas they only lose karma if someone actually kicks them out when they run out of time. And since players like to finish a game even when someone has not had the consideration or respect to only join games if they intend to honor the time limit, particularly since it's unfair to the other players to cancel a game in session, there is a built-in mechanism preventing karma from being anything but a total fluff rating. There needs to be a little lost karma for every time penalty. It's not unfair or unreasonable. People who generally honor time limits, but occasionally have stuff happen and miss a few, will still have very good karma. But this business with people not honoring time limits and still having perfect karma is nonsense.

[LukeTheOrange]

The message about it's being someone's first game comes up if you try to public red thumb a player before your game is over. Yes, it's a completely wrong error message. And yes, it also doesn't make sense at all to only be able to red thumb someone until after the game is done. But that's the way it works.

You can try again with the public red thumb when you've finished the game

Thanks for the explanation! I will do that.

And now this forum is saying I can't make another post so soon after my last. Huh? Never heard of such a thing, and it blocked me on 5 or 6 consecutive attempts.

[Meeplelowda]

And now this forum is saying I can't make another post so soon after my last. Huh? Never heard of such a thing, and it blocked me on 5 or 6 consecutive attempts.

It is an anti-spam feature and I've seen it other places besides BGA.

As for the karma system, perhaps it should be more difficult to regain karma than just playing a bunch of quick games that take under 5 minutes to complete. It would probably be better to have to regain karma by completing games of the same average length as the ones you were expelled from or timed out of to more accurately reflect the amount of other people's time you wasted.

[JoysJoy]

I totally agree with this post! I can name long-time members/ players who have dozens and dozens of over times but still 100% Karma. I agree we need Karma to count with those who go over time. I do thumbs down these players after the game but it should not be this way. There should be some warning this is a bad time players and they should have to play others like them. How do we get BGA to read this and make changes?

[Ze Monstah]

[darkmatter]

I routinely see people who have dozens of time penalties in the last 60 days, but still have 100% karma. I personally prefer to play with players who honor the time limits. Why don't karma ratings account for time penalties

If a you play a lot of tournaments you can easily run into time penalties for various reasons. The tournament game usually has a separate total time limit. In most of those game players don't kick a player for running out of time they let the game timer decide if needed. So you can have what looks like a lot of time penalties but none that would have effected your karma.

[LukeTheOrange]

Perhaps the Public Red Thumbs you give to... "this kind of players", are not enough.

I think that regardless of what mistake a player does (quitting/running out of time) and regardless of his/her sorrow and desire to go back on track with the reputation, he/she should never be let to go back to 100% in order to be able to play with perfect players like you. I mean, this is so unfair to you...

I suggest that the Karma for an individual who gets expelled or runs out of time, should be restricted to 0% for 2 years (in order to teach them a well-deserved lesson).

Or better yet, they should be gathered and sent to Pluto; this way, they won't even inhale the same air you guys do.

I don't know... 'hope something harsher will be inflicted, because it's such a tragedy what you have to go through.

Your sarcasm is really inappropriate. If you have nothing insightful or thoughtful to add, stay out of it. This post is really kind of pathetic. Do you hear yourself? I clearly suggested that people who run out of time regularly should lose a few points of karma, and then you act like I said they did something horrible and should be severely punished. Every other reply in this thread is thoughtful, whether they fully agree or not. What entitles you to reply like this?

I have an honest question for you, and I want you to really think about it carefully instead of replying reactively. Why would it bother you if people who occasionally run out of time aren't allowed to have perfect karma? Why would it bother you if your karma can't be higher than 90 if you run out of time in 10% of your games? You would still have access to lots of games, and would only be prevented from joining games with people who never (or almost never) run out of time and who choose to play with others who do the same. Why is that a problem for you, or anyone? If you think it's okay for you to run out of time, then why would you have a problem with occasionally being restricted to playing with other players who do the same? Seems pretty hypocritical, doesn't it?

Don't reply if you can't be mature about it. Nobody acted anything like you're pretending they acted here, and it's really not appreciated.