Why does my karma suddenly jump up and down so quickly?

[lactea]

Hi there,

I have a question concerning the karma system.

Having checked my profile today, I realized this:

From How are karma points determined? - #2 by manj_k I have learned that +15 are awarded for an accepted answer, whereas 5 points are substracted for an “un-accepted” answer.

As there was little to no activity at that point, I wonder what might have caused the gain of 35 points for an accepted answer.

Thanks in advance.

[manj_k]

That’s caused by repeated clicks on the check mark “mark this answer as correct (click again to undo)”.

Sometimes, there’s a short delay between the click on the check mark (= accepted = +15 points) and the modified view of the check mark. A second click on the check mark in this period will undo the first click (= not accepted = –5 points), etc.¹⁾

How to avoid this behavior: Be patient, wait a second…

See also: Askbot: Accepting a previously unaccepted answer should not grant additional karma to author.

__

_{1) See also: shake0’s karma change log.}

[lactea]

I suppose the same happend for this very question. +10, -10, +10. Looks weird.

[manj_k]

No, that’s different – mouseover “x hours ago” displays the exact timestamp.

I suppose that “someone” has tried to test the behavior for upvote/downvote/upvote.
You have received 10 points for 1 upvote at last, and that’s correct.

[lactea]

@manj_k, you are right. The +15 action took less than a second whereas the +10 took about ten seconds. Looks like someone has played around.

However, it is still strange. I suppose these 5 votes within a single second were made for one intended(!) vote. I do not see any potential for a misuse here, but this “feature” should be fixed.

[dajare]

I see it a lot, too. And have done it myself. Askbot is quite sluggish at this. (It’s much slower/less responsive than the StackExchange software, unfortunately. I think it’s a wee shame AskLibO made the platform choice it did, but … it’s not so bad!)

[lactea]

I have just tested it myself by awarding @manj_k 10 karma and changing the answer back to unaccepted. Penalty should be -15 to avoid karma boosts. Still unlikely someone will exploit that, though.

[manj_k]

@lactea – Well, -5 is the default value for Loss for author whose answer was “un-accepted”. I suppose that’s intended, maybe a protection for older, formerly correct but meanwhile outdated answers?

In reality, there are more correct answers which are not marked as “accepted answers” than “accepted answers” with additional karma points.

I’ve noticed only a single really dubious case (with 8 x +15, and 8 x -5, at last “un-accepted”); date: 2014-04-28).

As a moderator, I can remove wrongly added karma points manually. Starting from now (beginning with my own karma points, see above), for the future, I’ll clear these karma points.

Any objection?

[lactea]

Everything is fine with me. I just wanted to help improving this platform.

Maybe there is a better way than looking for those occurences and correcting them manually. That aside, I agree that there are too many correct answers that have not been accepted yet.

[AlexKemp]

Hi lactea

manj_k’s answer is correct but it also misses out a vital bit of information: the coding that highlight’s the () or activates the ∧ is far from bulletproof; it is sometimes OFF when it should be ON.

I tested this myself: a Q that had an obviously-correct A did not have any A selected. It was from 3 years ago, so I selected the correct A (then the was lit). But here is the point:- I accessed the Q from a listing page. In that listing page the Q showed that an A was already selected. However, when I got to the actual Q the only A on the page was–apparently–NOT selected. Checking the record, ask.libo had first de-selected the Answer then Re-selected the same Answer.

So, a credible scenario for what is happening:

1. shake0 (lactea’s Questioner) clicks on lactea’s Answer [+15 Karma points]

2. At some later point shake0 looks again at the page & lactea’s Answer appears to be no-longer selected.
3. shake0 clicks on the again
   (the system de-selects the Answer [-5 Karma points])
   (then the system immediately re-selects the Answer [+15 Karma points])
4. Again shake0 comes back to the page (perhaps immediately) & again goes through exactly the same process
   (another -5 then +15 Karma points)
5. Perhaps the page still looks wrong, but shake0 now leaves in disgust.

Here is the tick:- (yes, I awarded myself the correct Answer!). However, you will not find the URL anywhere within the source:
(https://ask.libreoffice.org/m/default/media/images/vote-accepted-on.png). It is coded & can accept a parameter as a URL.

The coding is flaky and sometimes goes bad, making it appear to be switched OFF when in fact it is ON. Hence the strange extra Karma.

PS
The Karma awarded today has changed from before. Now, if switched from ON to OFF the identical amount is removed as added (boo, hiss).

If this helps then please tick the answer ()

…and/or show you like it with an uptick (∧)