You've got karma!

[live627]

Several people still want to use the karma feature, which was removed from 2.1. Rather than leave those users in the dark (and I don't think they'd like to use the Likes feature (pun unintended), I decided to rebuild it as a mod.

Screenshots attached below.

This mod does not edit any files, partly due to the use of custom profile fields, but also because SMF 2.1 introduces hundreds of new hooks (haven't counted).

Open sourced under the MIT license. Link to project on GitHub: https://github.com/live627/smf-karma

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Win a free cookie (not provided by me) if you can guess the reference in the title!!

[CountryLady]

Very considerate of you to do that. Way to Go!

[Acans]

You've got mail.

-.-

It's not SPAM



Or something like that . Thanks Live!

[Antes]

Okay, this probably will be asked by other people in the future (especially people actively using Karma on their forum), what will happen to existing karma?

First of all we added option NOT to delete karma data from upgrade process so you are safe to upgrade, now question to OP, will your modification converts current data into its own? or just use the existing data?

Thanks for the modification

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

I like this. If I ever upgrade to 2.1 then I think I'm gonna download it

[Dragooon]

Oh yay . And it's a reference to the AOL mail client's mail notification

[live627]

Someone younger than me got the old reference

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Okay, this probably will be asked by other people in the future (especially people actively using Karma on their forum), what will happen to existing karma?

First of all we added option NOT to delete karma data from upgrade process so you are safe to upgrade, now question to OP, will your modification converts current data into its own? or just use the existing data?

Thanks for the modification

You missed it

[live627]

Ah yes. I'll write a converter soon.

[Arantor]

It'll take two weeks, amirite? (ba dum tish)

[live627]

lol

[Biology Forums]

Why was Karma feature removed?

[Arantor]

Uncharacteristically I asked the users about it and explained my reasoning in the thread.

[Kindred]

and do note, as SMF moves along, We're going to be doing that with several "features"

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Uncharacteristically I asked the users about it and explained my reasoning in the thread.

There are hundreds of thousands members and 33 people voted 

[Arantor]

There might be hundreds of thousands of members but they're not all active, nor do they all go into the Chit Chat board. Most members only come here when they need help.

[Kindred]

besides - we're the ones making the system...   although we consider what the users want, as Arantor has pointed out before, we are also users... and we have ideas on what WE want as well. And with the mod system, removal of a feature like Karma or the Calendar is not an end to the functionality

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Yeah but I don't really consider it a poll with 33 votes anyway D: it's *way* too low. If it was like 100 at least but 33 no .-.
Next time could it be a good idea to make the topic global or something like that? At least a lot more people would vote

besides - we're the ones making the system...   although we consider what the users want, as Arantor has pointed out before, we are also users... and we have ideas on what WE want as well. And with the mod system, removal of a feature like Karma or the Calendar is not an end to the functionality

Indeed no one ever said you can't vote in your own poll

[Arantor]

Things like the calendar are particularly fiercely debated. There are many communities that do not use one. There are some that do - and invariably the ones that do, also rely on it quite heavily.

Breaking it out of the core has consequences for them. More importantly, it has all kinds of other consequences. It means you absolutely ensure your modding functionality is up to scratch. It has performance consequences. And probably most compelling of all, you can add to its functionality separately from the main core, meaning you can turn around updates to it separately of the forum - adding in functionality that users want without waiting for another major release of SMF.

On the other hand it also encourages doing things previously unheard of. Right now the calendar depends on SMF's posting routine; adding a new calendar entry with a topic ties them together and if so doing, it means every time you view a topic you end up looking for whether or not there's a related calendar entry. This is a non-trivial performance problem.

If you were to decouple calendar events from main posting, you would avoid that performance hit while still being able to do what you want to do with calendar stuff.

[Kindred]

the poll was offered as a pancea, not a binding agreement.... to get an idea - and the choice was fairly clearly represented.

and, if 33 people voted, then that's 33 people who cared enough to vote...
As for global topics... nope. Those who care can view the development threads and comment - those who don't care enough will take what we make and go from there.


As for the calendar... as arantor says... there are VERY good reasons for decoupling it

[Haren]

This may be one of the worst decisions made by SMF. Not the karma functionality, but the calender. My forum uses it very heavily, and if there are no immediate plugins with up-to-date upgrades as new SMF versions are released, it renders SMF useless to us.

[Arantor]

Not being funny but you clearly didn't read the thread.

2.1 has not removed the calendar. It is still a core feature.

The point being made was that it has been fiercely debated both ways to remove it in a future version and make it a plugin - and at the same time make the plugin system much more reliable so it would be much saner to actually make it a plugin if it were actually done (and it would be available with 3.0 for that reason).

The calendar is a strange beast. It is used by a tiny percentage of the SMF userbase... but those that do, make heavy use of it. It is a maintenance nightmare, it has a number of bugs in it, it is also a performance hog (more than it needs to be) and a plugin with proper importer would make a lot of sense for various reasons.