Why isn't karma game specific?

[cranesflyhigh]

I am fairly certain this has come up in other games too, but I have not found an appropriate answer in my quick search, so I gotta ask: why isn't karma game specific?

I ask mostly because a player (not gonna name names) has recently been hit with a pretty big karma penalty due to behaving really poorly, falling below the 65% karma required to play Arena. Said player then promptly started playing 30 seconds 2-player games of Backgammon with an alt account or a friend and raised their karma back to the proper level. Terraforming Mars generally lasts around 40+ minutes. Any player getting a karma hit can therefore circumvent the penalty fairly easily without actually suffering much of the consequences.

This feels utterly wrong. An easy fix would be to make karma game specific - but I am sure there could be other solutions that could work. So why isn't one implemented? Why is BGA letting players easily circumvent their toxicity?

[Jellby]

Because karma is supposed to "measure" something that's not game-specific.

The suggested solution is not a solution, because it's not addressing the problem. The problem you see is that you can easily raise your karma by playing short or fake games. Making karma game-specific doesn't help, because you can still play fake games (e.g. with a dummy account and making sure you end the game as quickly as possible), and what if someone behaves badly in backgammon? they could still easily raise their karma.

[cranesflyhigh]

Then make game specific karma + disable short / fake games somehow. Or I dunno, I am not that well-versed in the nitty-gritty of this system and I am open to any solutions really. The current system is just way too exploitable and needs to change.

[Jellby]

My personal opinion: just ignore the karma and use red thumbs to avoid "bad" people.

[cranesflyhigh]

I already have. But that is a patchwork solution, not a real one. The current system makes Karma basically not much of a thing :/ I dunno, I guess I am just a bit frustrated about how unjust this feels :/

[SkippyClem]

i feel you, and have also started to use the red thumbs for everyone who drops out of a game. it's a game of whack-a-mole though, but still, I hope every premium player does those few clicks to block people who abandon games on purpose. it's really frustratig!