Plurk Karma Secrets Unraveled
Plurk Karma is an interesting little creature. We constantly tell ourselves it isn’t really important, yet we can’t wait to see the next update. Many of our peers and fellow Plurkers say not to worry about it because Karma is designed to benefit those without motive of personal reward.
Ignoring Karma would be easy to do, if it actually worked the way real Karma should… but it doesn’t. Let’s take a look at the Wikipedia entry for the word Karma.
Through the law of karma, the effects of all deeds actively create past, present, and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one’s own life, and the pain and joy it brings to him/her and others.
The flaw of Plurk Karma is that it has rules. If you don’t follow these rules, your Karma drops. Traditional Karma operates in a random manner that rewards good deeds that do not have selfish motive, yet Plurk Karma does the complete opposite. In fact, most, if not all Plurkers take actions that bring Karma because they know it will bring Karma. And if we as Plurkers do not follow the rules set forth by the Karma gods, our Karma will fall.
So it’s important to note up front that Plurk Karma in no way operates like real Karma. It never has, and it likely never will.
If Karma is not important to you, and you see no need to work on keeping it on the upward slope, the rest of this post will probably not be for you. If you do, however, wish to succeed in Karma, read on.
How to be Successful With the Current Plurk Karma ALGO
1) Plurk Has Rules
You must always remember this. Plurk has advantages over all other social networks that are extraordinary in design. The system combines the powers of sites such as Twitter, Digg, Chat rooms, instant message and discussion forums.
Because this is new and unchartered territory, Plurk is working to ensure the site isn’t abused and/or spammed. The problem is that the route taken so far is to limit the true ideas of social networking, and place rules on the community. If you’re to thrive in this community, you have to follow the rules.
For example, Plurk discourages you from befriending new Plurkers by penalizing you if your friend request is denied. The idea behind this is to keep Plurk from becoming a hot bed of “power users”, which makes sense. But, by doing this, Plurk has cut out the ability to find new people and build online friendships. If I see someone who I have similar interest in, I want to extend an offer of friendship and begin following their Plurks. This doesn’t make me a “fan”, so why would I become a fan? I want friendship, not to be a fan. Yet, if I’m denied for whatever reason, my Karma drops.
Rules, Plurkers… they do exist.
2) Plurk Hard… Every Day
Unfortunately, Plurk has taken the stance that the more active you become, the more time you’re expected to be Plurking. If you want your Karma to continue climbing, you simply cannot miss a day, period. It doesn’t matter if you have a wedding, church, family vacation… whatever.. you MUST log in and Plurk every single day.
3) Gain Fans and Referrals
The fan part is kind of crappy in my opinion. Over the past week I’ve added a lot of “fans” that actually requested friendship. Why? Because gaining fans helps raise your Karma. And losing friends drops it. So even though you might wish to be a friend and not a fan, chances are you’re going to end up a fan of mine if you request friendship. I know it sounds terrible, but this is the way the Plurkers in charge wanted it, so we have to deal with it.
The rule of thumb is simple… add people as fans.
Referrals also help quite a bit, so be sure and link to your referral URL as often as possible. Link to it from your blog, your social networks, your email… everything.
4) If Plurkers Won’t Respond to it… Don’t Plurk It
I know I know.. but you thought you were just here to share your life right? Wrong. Not if you care about Karma anyway.
Responses to Plurks raise your karma. If you truly want to succeed Karma wise, you have to think about what you’re Plurking, and you have to make sure that every single Plurk has the ability to provoke a response. Therefor, each Plurk has to be crafted to create discussion. the idea that you can just randomly Plurk whatever comes to mind is not a good one when it comes to successful Karma trends.
5) Don’t Plurk Too Much
Plurk recommends you keep your Plurks under 30 per day. Even if you have a busy day and want to share more of your life, you need to zip it to make the Karma gods happy.
This is likely set up to keep spammers from loading the timeline with useless Plurks, but unfortunately the blanketed attempt hurts veteran users who have proven themselves legit.
6) Update Your Profile
This one is simple… upload a pic, edit your profile, etc. it really does help.
These are the basics, Plurkers. You may not like it, but it is what it is. If you’re constantly mindful of Plurk Karma, you’ll want to keep the above items on your mind at all times.
My Opinion on the Karma ALGO
Now, real quick, I would like to say that I think the ALGO is good for new Plurkers, but I think it stinks for more entrenched Plurkers. I think one of the advantages of reaching a certain level of Karma should be a new karma ALGO.
I mean, why should I be penalized if I need to take a day off, when I’ve been Plurking every day for a week straight? Why should I fear asking someone to be a friend? Why can’t I Plurk more than 30 times if I want to? Have I not, as a regular and loyal Plurker, proven myself to not be a spammer?
That’s my two. Do you have anything to add?
Plurk Hard,
-Eric Odom
I hate people who ask simple black/white questions all day just to game the system…
I am just having fun, a lot more fun then on twitter, and my karma is raising as a side reward.
54degress… I fully agree. Can’t stand the “What’s your favorite color?” type Plurks.
Great article. I think you should be able to take a Plurk holiday, that is you should be able to put your Karma on hold for a day or two or a week or two.
Thanks very much for your great tips
awflasher’s last blog post..File/Universal Uploader???????Firefox3??????????
Crap - I’ve obviously missed too much while out this week - I’ve not only lost my emotes but now I must be careful to not be considered a spammer
Hawksdomain’s last blog post..Puffy Pink Clouds
Yes I agree good article, Jason I just made that request to Plurk yesterday… http://www.plurk.com/p/j785
I’m going on vacation and gonna lose Karma…
LOL
Jay
Jayson’s last blog post..Download Wednesday - You can copy a website directly to your hard drive.
i think we shouldn’t be penalized if we take a break from Plurking. we do have lives you know!
i stay away from those “what is your favorite color” plurks because i feed my plurks into Twitter. it may work on Plurk because the replies are contained, but it certainly looks stupid on Twitter.
i’ve been adding fans, too, simply because i’m already following too many people as friends and i am worried i can’t keep up. even though on Plurk, you don’t have to reply to everything. just reply to what you’re interested in.
my mantra is, if it becomes work, then it’s no longer fun. and Plurking is all about having fun!
daysies’s last blog post..twittered on 2008-06-18
What if I respond to my own plurks? Will the karma gods notice that? or they just see the plurk/response ratio?
btw, that’s my plurk profile on my name
Good question, LL. I don’t have a definitive answer. I would, however, place my bets on the idea that responses to your own plurks do not carry near as much weight as responses from other plurkers.
Hi, Eric. I’m curious. You state the above with the voice of authority. Is this your assumption or do you have deep insight into the algo? It seems there are a lot of variables here that could come into play and it may not be as simplistic as you’ve made it. I’m in the dark except for what I’ve read on the Plurk blog, so was just wondering.
Anyway, thanks for your focus on this stuff (Facebook, etc.). Keep it up!
Herb, it’s all spelled out on the blog. And we here at plurkable have tested every aspect of the ALGO.
http://blog.plurk.com/2008/06/15/we-haz-new-karma/
I’ve noticed that your karma get reduced 0.16 each karma cycle that you do not plurk - and those cycles are happening more than once a day, so I have both gained and lost karma in the same day, i.e. you will lose Karma even if you DO plurk every day. If you go a full day without plurking, you will be reduced several times. Can anyone tell exactly how many cycles they run a day? It appears, at 1st glance, to be 3 or 4 a day.
faerie’s last blog post..Second Life is a Post-Gender environment
faerie, I heard someone say, the other day, that they thought it was about every four hours. I’m not sure this holds any truth, but it seems to somewhat make sense.
Really nice consolidation of all those tips which plurk keeps displaying alongwith my karma..
But, in my opinion the karma system is far from perfect. But, it is moving in the right direction…and I love my karma…
so..http://plurk.com/redeemByURL?from_uid=14165&check=-2031486301&s=1 lol….
Thunderror’s last blog post..Firefox 3 reviewed
Well, I’m a 35.78 right now, and though I raised over 1.5 yesterday, last cycle I did drop 0.16. I’m going to remain mute on plurk for 24 h and see how many cycles of loss I go through.
faerie’s last blog post..Second Life is a Post-Gender environment
… and while I do agree that freshness of content == higher ‘relevancy/karma’, reducing someone’s karma for not posting every 6 hours is perceived badly (at least by me), and in fact could encourage bots/spamming. I’m tempted to write a plurk-delayer, so that my choice plurks go out every 4 hours around the clock, rather than the natural 2 times a day bursts that happen when I’m at the computer.
It does seem a bit “well, you might have been an excellent plurker last night, but baby, what have you done for me lately?”
faerie’s last blog post..Second Life is a Post-Gender environment
I’ve noted that once I moved past 50 karma points, my karma accumulation slowed down considerably, no matter what I do. If I’m active, I get 0.19 points. If I’m sleeping (but people are still responding to older plurks of mine) I get 0.09 points. I’ve tried different approaches in different karma cycles — still getting my 0.19 points per cycle!
WendyKnits’s last blog post..I Can Haz Banana
[...] Plurk Karma Secrets Unraveled at Plurkable (tags: plurk billet) [...]
[...] Plurk Karma Secrets Unraveled [...]
… and the answer is indeed 6 cycles, for those following along. Yes, Plurk Karma cycles every 4 hours, so if you’re not above 60, it appears you can get up to 1.5 Karma for a good post with lots of feedback but you will lose that in 1.5 days if you don’t continue plurking.
faerie’s last blog post..Second Life is a Post-Gender environment
[...] throwing these thoughts out there. I’m personally not a huge fan of Plurk (they encourage addictiveness by virally spreading “karma” and expressing “emo-ness” after all) and am [...]
If plurk changes the karma algo will it make it easier for newer plurkers? I shout “foul” cause I’ve worked to hard at getting the karma I have now and there’s nothing more important in life than being greedy about karma.
David Temple’s last blog post..Chris Winfield scores a hat trick; twittering, blogging and presenting
The Plurking every day thing is kinda harsh… its good to take a breather from the online world every now and then
Some of the Karma rules make it seem like grinding in World of Warcraft lol
Lipton of Starfeeder’s last blog post..Ask Vir
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[...] Plurk Karma Secrets Unraveled at Plurkable (tags: plurk) [...]
[...] the other hand, takes it the true blue Singaporean way. They incentivise the conversation. “Karma” points are awarded to every plurk entry that spurs responses. So, if you are a [...]
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[...] of earning Plurk Karma, I went out and worked on my real karma. I spent last weekend with my family. I spent this week [...]
I’m glad that with gateways like phplurk, I can still plurk when i’m on vacation… heheh
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I plurk all the time. It’s addictive! You must follow the rules though - so this blog is giving sound advice!
I wonder if by way of remedying this awkward situation plurk could make it a karma based incentive to allow some of these penalizations to be lifted the greater karma you have.
For example, dropping the plurk flood rule once you reach “Nirvana.”
I also believe one should be able to recieve an algorithm change once a certain level of Karma is achieved. It’s only fair, what if you have a family emergency? Even the most demanding jobs allow a day off now and then.
wow exploits
Nice post. I love plurk.
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