Every time I log on a server I don't see the use of looking the TM-Karma scale. It's almost always dead set in the middle with a very small standard deviation. Only occasionally do I see it at another point, I can't figure out for the life of me why (unless it's really, really, really bad). It's not a measure of quality, it's a measure of central tendency. I don't see how it's positive in any way for the community. If you gave me access to the data pool behind TM-Karma, I guarantee I could back up all these points through statistical analysis.

Ideally TM-Karma should be used as a way to prune out really bad tracks. But that's not how it works. It's a testament to how arbitrary and divided opinions in the community can be. It's a system that is used on different levels by people of different temperaments. People cannot be objective when they use the system. They just don't want to play what they don't like.

Not only is it redundant, but it creates a very negative culture. Either a track is driveable or it isn't; if enough people don't think so, then skip it. But if it's only one or two people who don't like something, then learn a bit of tolerance. If you're at a party, you don't go over and skip the ipod track if other people are enjoying it. If you can't get your own way, you don't protest and make a show out of yourself. I'm so sick of "---" this, "Worst track ever". A lot of effort gets put into each track, a lot more effort than it takes you to drive it a couple of times. I understand if it's something that was thrown together fast, but a lot of brilliant tracks are skewed negatively because there's a bit here or there that people lose time on. It provides no constructive criticism, and gives people an excuse to be negative on a whim. This is a negative culture for trackbuilders. If someone was just starting up and their track somehow got online, and they saw all these negative votes, how do you think they would feel? We should be facilitating new builders and helping them get better, not throwing their work into the ring for people to stone, and not facilitating picky and intolerant drivers.

TM-Karma doesn't have the same merit or consideration that an award on MX/TMX has, yet it has a lot more outreach than awards do. MX/TMX awards are purely positive, which is the way it should be, democracy cannot work with negative votes. There is a reason why when we elect heads of state, we're not allowed to vote negatively, so other people can't get in. That way an election would come down to nothing. People things want are offset by things people don't want. What we actually have in elections is a system where people vote positively for things people want, so everyone has a voice. And that's how it should be for TM. If enough people like something, then it should reap the benefits. Offering people the option to be negative only offsets the benefits of this system.

So I would like to get a discussion going. Trackbuilders, how do you feel? Server owners, do you feel there is any real benefit to using the TM-Karma plugin?

I think you're right. Most tracks end up being dead center after a while.

What would have been a nice addition I think is some sort of award plugin.
Most people just does and leave it at that anyways, so some sort of quick award system could maybe have been a good idea. No idea if that is in any way possible to do tho.

Actually, this is a very good point.

I must admit, I myself have written 'worst ever' once and felt quite bad about it afterwards. The track idea was quite nice, but ill calculated, so I guess I wrote that negative comment out of anger because I kept crashing every time I got too fast at some jump.

We should/could think of other means of measurement, imho there could be more useful data to extract from a set of personal lap times, i.e. how close do drivers get to their personal best, how is the learning curve, are there big random factors (strange jumps, lol crash) etc.
Then, if there still is some karma-rating to be included in some statistic function, that would be nice.

I think the main problem of TM-Karma is, that it's global. Take a well-calculated transitional fullspeed track with "creative" scenery.

Put this track on a 80k Time-Attack Server and it'll mostly receive positive to very positive votes.
Put the same track on a 60k Server for beginner, heck make it rounds mode with no warm-up, and it'll probably get downvoted to hell, just because no-one is able to finish it without crashing the first 3-4 times.

So, as irondragons said, you'll always get something in the middle. I know that TM-Karma has global and local votings. Still, if you -- the track on a beginner server, as it is just not suitable for those guys playing there most of the time*, your +++ vote on the TA-Server will change aswell.

So, I think TM-Karma is a nice idea, but it'll be better if you could vote for the same track differently on every server. That said, i don't see online karma as a measurement of how good a track is, but more of a measurement of how good it fits the guys playing on this server.

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*I do that quite often to help admins sort through the tracks and even downvoted some of my tracks when they are not suitable for this server.

I agree with the previous posts.

The integration of a rating system (instead of awards) has been discussed over and over again. In the end, awards were the best/fairest way for "rating" a track.
The online-rating seems to me like integrating another system through the backdoor.
MX should rely on the system that seems most useful. And only this one. Several systems undermine each others value (I don't mean it in a technical sense, but in the perception of players).

So much has been said about this topic in the last years, I don't want to repeat all the arguments...
But I won't get tired of asking for implementing an online-award system (write an award online and it'll appear on MX).

Stay positive!
Hans

In my eyes awards maybe does work for offline racing, but it is not good criteria for online tracks.
When you drive track offline you have as much time as you want to make good time.
But online is little different, there is few minutes for you to figure out the right way and then make decent time.
So online rating does not stand tracks that are not fit for it, which is good and healthy for online racing.