I just want to see how this Karma thing works out on this forum. It may be removed at some point, or it might prove to serve as a valuable tool for members on this forum.

I don't know what it will lead to, but it is always worth trying to tweak the forum in various ways to improve upon the community and so on, right?

Currently you can only give out 1 applaud/smite per hour. It is also restricted to administrators/moderators.

I figure this might be a good way for members to realize what others think of their forum behavior, posts, personality, etc... might work well for credibility also.

There are no consequences for high or low karma . Would love to hear what others think of this idea.

Also.. I think it is anonymous to others... but I am not 100% sure - someone give me a karma rating of some sort to see if I get any notification of who has rated me.

It is also restricted to administrators/moderators.

Nope. I just gave you a point, bumped you up to 4.

ah, I mean - I cannot sit there and give someone many consecutive +1 or -1 in a row -- I can only give you or anyone else a such a rating every hour.

You can receive tons of ratings in an hour - but they would all have to be from different users. This is good because you cannot have one user ruin another users rating easily - since it would take them hours just to add a few ratings - and normally people cool down and forget about such trivial stuff at that point.

It is pretty much just to express what the members as a whole think of the member.

I thought this might cause some very slight behavioral change. People might, for whatever reason, decide to post more useful content, references, better posts, etc in light of possibly getting more +1 - and more ideally and the main reason I implemented it is to not flame/make demeaning remarks to other members.

See, say I called you a jackass - you'd (and rightly so) give me bad karma - other members would also see how I was rude, and also give me bad karma.
I'd probably start to realize the trend, and try to be nicer, more understanding, and so on.

Additionally I came to the realization that even not so good posts - ones with flawed ideas, etc are probably more helpful then they first seem - as they can be conducive to creative discussion and helping the community think laterally to come up with new and innovative ways to obtain and produce precursor chemicals - as well as help the individual who posted it understand the issues within his idea. Over all those posts I think have a positive net effect on the forum and aid in all the members learning from one another.

While I still expect everyone to try to do so with good posts - I.e references, detailed description, attempted understanding of reactions,  etc -- I don't want the idea or ideas in general to be shunned or instantly dismissed by demeaning comments by other members.

So I figured this +1/-1 thing might help - you get +1 by members for good posts, following rules (adding references, being detailed) and -1 for lousy posts (i.e no references, vague idea, hard to understand) or by being a jerk to other members.

In a way, I guess it hopes to lower the need for moderation by me or moderators while also hopefully creating a more pleasant atmosphere.

It also might have the reverse effect -- the only way to find out is to try it for a few months (or something) and if it has any negative consequences or seems mostly neutral, then I might do away with it. Hopefully it has a positive impact on the forum though.

That all make sense?

Yeah - there are a lot of little things that could be tweaked and stuff - but I am fairly limited to my ability.
Perhaps in time other things will be changed and something like that might be added -- but it is all a work in progress and I generally only make changes when I think there is an issue that can be fixed. Other then that, I figure minimal changes are best -  why fix it if it ain't broke?

Yeah, well - I mean, how long did the hive exist?
Maybe this site will be comparable in certain ways when it gets a bit more aged.

I never saw the hive, live anyways, so really I don't know much of it.

Cool - I thought this would have gotten more... disagreement but I guess not.

And as always, despite me maybe not willing to do it, or having the ability to do such -- I'm all ears and open to ideas on how to improve this forum/community/movement (however you might like to see it)

smite...lol

Honey vs sting is kinda neat IMO

The karma could also be named something else, any other word.

I'll think about the honey vs sting option. Even if wasps don't make honey.