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I watch a lot more ESPN than Sci-fi/Comedy Central/Cartoon Network. And I absolutely love football, nothing better in the world

Hey, you're on the wrong slash-based site. And we even posted this story before /. did (but well after plastic).

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I remember an interview with Hemos and CmdrTaco where they admitted to messing with someone's karma who was trying to sell their Slashdot account on eBay. Cmdr's opinion was (at the time of the interview that is) that karma doesn't matter, that it's not THAT important.

I remember reading that... I believe it was a log of an IRC chat. Can you post a link to it? I don't remember where it was. I don't think it was an article on Slashdot.

If I remember correctly, the owner of the account "FascDot Killed My Pr" was selling his account on eBay because he didn't want to post on Slashdot anymore, and given the account's high karma (above the karma cap) and low user number, he considered it marketable. He advertised it by continuing to post regularly, but with "Bid on me! (Serious offers only)" as his signature with a link to the auction page on eBay.

Well, CmdrTaco found out, and, right at the exact minute the auction ended (and the winning bidder was chosen), he reset the account's karma to zero. When questioned about it in the IRC chat you mentioned, his justification for his action was, "Virtual property is stupid."

I do remember Taco and co. talking about people trying to sell their EverQuest accounts on eBay last spring on Geeks In Space. I don't remember exactly what they were saying, but I think basically they were making fun of the idea.

Anyway, it's quite clear that for better or for worse, karma has become a sort of pissing game that has affected a lot of people. Heck, I'm kind of annoyed that I only had about +35 karma when the karma cap was put in place. I think it would have been cool to have "excessive karma", even if only for a short time.

I've been a Slashdot reader since early 1999, and I got my account in January 2000. I don't remember too well, but checking the archives suggests that CmdrTaco and co. used to regularly participate in the discussions and post news stories about various changes and amendments to the Slashdot rules. These days, of course, they don't. Today, Taco seems more like an enigmatic figure behind the curtain, secretly manipulating Slashdot (bitchslapping people, instituting karma caps, adding lameness filters, etc.) from behind the scenes. I think if he came out into the open again and had a regular dialogue with the readers, people would understand his actions and be a lot less critical of him. He could do all the things he's doing now, and people would understand. Perhaps Slashdot's huge userbase or Andover.Net's control prevents him from doing so.

That said (just had to get it off my chest), some earlier posts in the discussion pointed out that Sony has a clause in the EverQuest enduser licence that forbids selling characters.

As for more Slashdot accounts going on sale, I believe at least one other account was sold on eBay, but secretly. I'm not too sure about that. I also know Signal11's account was given to a troll to "burn off the karma". Basically, someone was using Signal11's high karma to flame and insult people with the score +1 bonus. It was great fun to read, just because of the extreme rudeness "Signal11" exhibited. Eventually, he trolled one of Michael's (jellicle's) stories and Michael changed the password, effectively banning "Signal11".

Anyway, if Slashdot doesn't explicitly forbid the trade of user accounts, karma and all, they shouldn't object to it when people do it. But, to be safe, if you're going to auction or sell your Slashdot account, don't let Taco and co. know. Advertise it on Kuro5hin, or better yet, WonkoSlice or Plastic.

Thanks for mentioning this. I was hoping someone would.

Hey, this is Michael the CTO at Automatic Media (parent co. of FEED , Suck , AltCulture and PLASTIC )!
We're very proud to be a part of the slash community. We've carefully considered the GPL and believe we're upholding it properly. We're also committed to sharing what we have learned during this project. The slash code lived up to our expectations and we hope that our site is an indication of the power and flexibility of /.

For those who haven't seen Plastic, it's at least worth a visit to see the new moderations. I think we need more posts with a (Score:0, Bullshit).

Too bad Plastic requires your date of birth and zip code... :(

Walt