Devs' blog: Article Karma beta testing

Comments systems can be tough places to hang around. The noise, the arguments, the sheer number of people - it can get a bit much. That’s why we’re rolling out a new feature for the comments system: Karma.

What is Karma?

Karma is a way of expressing your love or disdain for posts. Take a look at a comments page, and you’ll spot a little box on the right, next to each post. If you like the post, click the positive button. If you don’t like it, click negative, and the post will shrink down, so you never have to read it again.

Each positive or negative click adjusts the score by one point, either up, or down. If a comment keeps getting scored as negative, and reaches a certain threshold, it will be hidden from the default view, leaving the insightful, witty, and informative comments to shine.

How can I help test the Karma system?

Karma is not available on the live site yet, but we do have a beta site running. Feel free to explore the new system, and give it a test. The beta site is like the regular one in every other way.

Any scores you give to comments on the beta site will carry over to the live site once the test is over.

Adjusting your personal Karma settings

If you decide you’d quite like to see every comment, no matter how low the scores, you can adjust your threshold using the dropdown at the top of the comments list.

A few notes

• Moderators and staff members are immune to Karma.
• You can't give your own posts a Karma score.
• If you are logged out, posts with a score of -10 or under are automatically hidden. This number may change depending on how testing goes.

What if I find a bug?

If you encounter any bugs, please tell us in the comment section below. We’ll post updates here when any bugs are fixed, so you can keep up with developments.

Our plan is to test the beta site for the rest of the week, and then transfer the Karma system to the live site early next week.

Thanks for joining in!