explain Karma to me

A couple of people mentioned they wanted karma on the forum... tell me if this is right:

- user A can give user B karma, one per post
- the karma A gives will be either a +1 or -1 to B's total

questions...
- should they only be able to give +/-1? Or can they give +/-2 or even more?
- how slowly should karma return to 0?
- next to each post, does it say the total karma just for that post or total for that user?
- should it list who voted up or down underneath that post?

From how inactive the forum is, temporary karma wouldn't do very much, but what we're talking about here sounds like a karma system and a thanks/kudos system at the same time, which are different depending on how they're implemented. Karma as I see it is mostly a forum wide thing and is completely unrelated to posts, whereas kudos are post individually but the total may be shown on the user's profile. Kudos probably shouldn't expire, but karma could. This is really probably just a matter of semantics or splitting hairs, but I think the described kudos system would work better than a positive/negative karma system. A community as small as this one would do well with as little negativity as possible.

As for the questions, they're mostly answered, but I'll give some clear answers if you do the kudos thing.

One kudos from a user per post
Shouldn't return to 0 in this case
Bottom of post would show how many/what users gave kudos
Yes
Additional note: total kudos could be present in user's profile.

Kudos system as explained and answered by Somagu sounds like what the CaravelNet forum uses, except it does not list who gave out kudos, which is good for larger forums as then users are less tempted to have kudos grudge matches. It may not matter for a small forum like ours, though.

I now recall better what CaravelNet does with their system: Users get rank and mod points through cool posts they make, and they can then spend their mod points on upping other cool posts. I can't recall if new users start with some karma or not, but if you don't get points from someone else for a post you make you can't spend any on other posts. You can up a post more than once, but it costs anyone who wants to up something past the first point more than just the + number (in other words, it costs only 1 point to give a +1/-1 boost but it costs 4 to give a +2/-2, for example). Total rank points gained is present in the profile and also determines the automated rank thingy (as opposed to just the post count).

It may be inappropriate to do so, but I'll ask -

What for?

I second that. there are only probably 15 people actively posting as it is.

PS my wife gave birth to twins last Wednesday, so the minute amount of time I have to play IVAN just got a bajillion times more minute.

PPS I told my wife I wanted to name them Rondol and Sherry, she said no.

Examples Somagu gave in IRC: Al's guide, win posts.

It might not exactly make the forum livelier or cause the devs to come back and bring in the real .60, but it would be a nice feature.

Same here. I told my girlfriend our firstborn shall be named Urist, but for some reason she didn't want that

Silly way to go about it. You should have suggested something nice and casual, like "Ron". Once the thumbs-up is given, then you write the full name on the official papers.

Wife: Rondol?
Batman?: That's right, you said you liked Ron.
Wife: I thought you meant Ron as in Ronald.
Batman?: Nope, Ron as in Rondol.

=D Batman just proved what we need Karma for, that post right there. Congratulations!

Congratulations Batman?! You want your daughter to become a mistress queen?

If it is easy to implement this kudos system, why not? I think there will be some fun with it. (The simple one, with one +1 per post always available, one with +1s to give as rewards for +1 received might be too much trouble.)