What is karma?
Karma is vita.mn's scoring system for users. The more you contribute, and the more others respond to your contributions, the higher your karma score. Tagging something, writing a review, submitting a photo, responding to a list ... these are some of the many ways to up your karma. And if you create something other users really dig, your score will skyrocket.
FAQs about karma
What do I get for accumulating karma? The warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from making the Twin Cities' user-powered arts-and-entertainment site that much better. Also, we'll have regular contests rewarding those users who are really rocking the karma. From time to time, our top users might find themselves on special invite-only guest lists. And I hear the shortlist of winners for the Nobel Peace Prize this year are being pulled exclusively from the upper echelons of vita.mn's member pool.
Why isn't my karma increasing? If you make a contribution and you don't see it reflected in your total, our army of karma gnomes might not have granted you your points yet. Wait a little while and look again. Also, not everything you do on vita.mn increases your karma. Tag something a zillion times, and your score will not magically increase by a zillion. This is totally on purpose.
I've totally done more stuff than lame-o user X. Why am I not beating him/her? Quality beats quantity, my friend. Check out what the user has contributed. Perhaps folks are really responding to it? Maybe it's been saved a ton of times? While contributing a lot is a reliable way to get more karma, contributing skillfully is the most efficient way to get lots of karma. Try this: think of a guide that will be really useful to a lot of people, on a subject you know a lot about, and write it up with wit and style. We will feature it, others will save it, and you will earn mucho karma.
Why did my karma decrease? The karma gnomes giveth, and the gnomes taketh away. If you violate any of vita.mn's terms of use (see online conduct), or if you dump a truckload of meaningless content all over the site just to increase your score, the gnomes tendeth to get angry.
Also, the karma that any other user gives you begins to degrade if that user starts getting extremely affectionate with your content. If someone rates up a ton of your comments in quick succession, for example, your karma will be recalculated at irregular intervals, and their actions will count for less. For more information, read this thread.
I haven't done anything for a while. How come my karma keeps increasing? One of your long-ago contributions might still be popular. See how users are responding to the stuff you created; that's probably what's doing it. Also, remember that part about how the karma gnomes giveth? From time to time, we'll designate a particular item as a "bonus" item. If you responded to that item in the past, you may now find yourself with extra karma points as a result.
Would it be cheating if I told all my friends to sign up for vita.mn and add their responses to my lists? No.*
*Of course, if your friends start maniacally saving, voting on, and responding to your content in bulk, the gnomes may tend to discount their actions.
