We are minutes away from launching a massive update to the Karma system on the site. You guys had pointed out some flaws in the system, and thusly we dug deep to try and figure out a few issues.
We did uncover a bunch of issues that were throwing off what was a 'good' Newschoolers member, as well as discovered a few people who had figured out some ways to game the old system. It may not have been on purpose, but it wasn't reflective of who should be a top Karma member.
Note that there are going to be lots more changes that we'll make to the system over the rest of the winter and summer as we have lots of cool ideas to implement. So this will be a big one, but expect it to change a lot as we go. As always, the Karma calculations are kept secret, but note that being a good overall member of NS is what gets you points.
Please also note (and this is VERY important) that Karma is not an accumulated value. Each day, your Karma is completely re-calculated based on our scoring system, and therefore when we make changes expect drastic fluctuations in your Karma score. This is the same for everyone, and some people might jump all the way from the bottom or the other way around.
The current "Top 100" members list is based on an "all time" account. So it is the top 100 members by every contribution they have ever made to the site. When you think about changes, note that we're going to add a few new lists in the coming months like, blue/pink names only, over the last 30 days, recently active... etc.
Finally, I'll take this moment to announce something that we are extremely excited about, which is the return of Member of the Month! We have been wanting to bring this back for quite some time, and the kind folks at Evo Gear approached us about helping us do something just like that. With their support, we were able to get this cool feature back, and as well put some prizing on the table for each month's winner.
The winner of Member of the Month is picked by our staff out of the top 10 positive Karma movers in the last 30 days. We're proud of it, and are excited to see this coming back. So definitely +K to the folks over at Evo. Look out for the super official announcement (and the first winner) in the next day or two.
Thanks everyone, questions welcome.
