alright, so here's my deal. I kinda knew that this whole karma rating system existed before but didn't really look at it until about a month ago. When I did look at this karma rating system I realized that somehow I had an absurd amount of karma (well, nothing compared to Doug and his million karma points), and I was like wtf? I come on and post random stuff in the forums, I wouldn't exactly say that the majority of my posts are useful... more just my opinion on a subject (which is just an opinion) or a random sentence about nothing in particular. Other than that my only contribution to this site is my blog. But be honest here people, my blog has no pictures or videos and most of you probably don't even bother reading that shit, even if you may learn something.
To move on with the point of this thread, I somehow managed to get 140000 or so karma points for what? being a member on this site for a long time? For the most part I really didn't care how my karma got so high, and as of right now I still don't really care what my karma level is at. I have lots of friends (real friends, not people I have never met before via internet) in the skiing world and even if I'm the most hated person on this site, I'll still come here and I'll still post what I'm thinking. But over the past two weeks or so I've been involved in some controversial threads: namely the thread where I debated about the morality of stealing, and currently the thread where I'm inquiring about who pays for poles and who doesn't...
where I am getting confused with the whole karma thing is this. my involvement in these threads and my willingness to give my actual opinion on subjects that are being talked about publicly and I lose 20000 karma points. If I am going to open up and have an intelligent debate about the morals of stealing, I'm wondering, is that really a reason to drop my karma? We are living in a very very fragile time (I'm mostly referring to North America, but the entire developed world can fit into the same slot) where independent thought is being taken away from the individual piece by piece. A prime example: right now the American government is trying to make thought crime happen. What that basically means is: If you go and kill someone, you have to prove that you had no intentions to kill said person before the act of killing them or else you get a harsher penalty. That's just one side of thought crime. Just like all laws in existence, thought crime can and will be warped to the needs of the lawyer. So... with that in mind, lets look into why my karma dropped 20000 points. Did I offend any individual? Did I spam the site? Was I an asshole who spammed or treated anyone with disrespect? No. Nothing in this world is set in stone, and stealing is only "bad" because "they" say you "have" to pay for everything, no matter what. Seams a little extreme to me doesn't it? It can all go back to the saying "is it stealing if you take a loaf of bread for your starving family?"
So... I'm not saying that the karma system is bad or it should be taken away. I think the karma system is awesome and it's a great way to weed out idiots who are straight up disrespectful, but as soon as you start dropping someone's karma because you don't agree with their opinion things start to fall apart. When I give my opinion about subjects that are touchy, they are just that - an opinion. I am not saying "this is right, this is wrong" I am exploring other options for doing things. Next time you are raising or dropping someone's karma think about WHY you are doing it, and if it's because of a personal grudge against said person, or if the person is legitimately being an ass and should feel the repercussions.
And if this offends you and you think I'm cocky or whatever emotional trait you think I am and I put a chip on your shoulder - go ahead and lower my karma rating, 'cause as I said - I'm not leaving - I'm a skier who truly loves this sport and lifestyle, so do whatever you want. I just don't want to see this site turn into somewhere where people are scared to voice their opinions simply because they don't want to lose karma. (Most people don't have over 100000 karma points and if they say something that people don't agree with, a big drop in karma could destroy them).
I posted this with intent for a rebuttal. I want to know what everyone thinks about what I said.
