Karma Bonus
A karma bonus is a gift of more then one karma in a single day. They can happen in any amount: sometimes the same bonus is given to everyone, while other times the user receives a percentage of their previous karma.
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Karma Boost
A karma boost is a yearly percentage-based increase of a user's karma, usually occurring on GameFAQ's birthday. Traditionally, the percentage the karma was boosted by the age of the site.
2004
The boost in 2004, however, took place on December 20th and only for users who upgraded to a Universal Account (after the boards merger with GameSpot). For the long wait, CJayC gave a much larger 10%.
It was under much fire, controversy, and complaints. Some users wanted their karma boost now. It got so bad that whiz kid threatened to take karma on MBH and Deathjester made an obnoxious "You will get your karma boost on the 20th" (repeated three times in the topic post). A search for "karma boost" yielded over 50 topics on MBH.
2005
The boost in 2005 occurred on November 7th. All users level 15 and above that logged in since November 1st received a 6% boost to their karma.
2006
The boost in 2006 took place on November 7th. Only users, level 20 or higher, who logged in since November 5th received a 7% karma boost.
2007
The boost in 2007 took place on November 7th. Users received an 8% karma boost. Only users level 15 and higher received the boost.
2008
The boost was different in 2008 [1], with getting a default 0.9% for levels 11 and higher and an extra 1% for the following things:
- Last Visit divisible by 9
- User ID divisible by 9
- 9 marked messages that were deleted
- 9 favourited boards
- 9 active messages
- 9 Answers questions/replies/votes
- 9 posted contributions
- 9 tracked games using My Games
- 9 games rated
The maximum karma one could get regardless of their percentage was 99.
2009
The boost in 2009 took place on November 9th. Users in good standing received an 10% karma boost. SBAllen announced that this would be the final Karma Boost ever, although new ways of getting extra Karma will be possible in the future (which is now known to be through GameFAQs Competitions) [2].
GameFAQs Competitions
GameFAQs Competitions are small contests where users get a chance to win a karma bonus in a set amount. Unlike previous karma bonuses where everyone receives Karma, only the people who win the contests gain the Karma bonus.
Fix-a-Day
Under this program, every day the administration did not make a change to the site, such as a bug fix or a new feature, every user would be awarded one karma. This only applied on non-weekend, non-holiday workdays when both CJayC and Sailor Bacon were working. Fix-a-Day only lasted through 2006.
Zero-Queues
On May 18th, 2006, Zero-Queues began. Similar to Fix-a-Days, every day the administration doesn't empty each contribution and feedback queue, every user will receive bonus karma. Like Fix-a-Day, Zero-Queues only continued through 2006.
Downtime Bonus
On October 22nd, 2012, GameFAQs experienced about ten hours of downtime and users got no karma, so the next day everyone who visited the boards received 2 karma.
12/12/12
On December 12th, 2012, SBAllen's son was born. To celebrate the occasion, all accounts in good standing that were created before December 12th, 2012 and had logged in between December 12th and December 18th received 12 bonus karma on December 18th.
GameFAQs T-Shirts
During May 2013, SBAllen offered karma bonuses for purchasing GameFAQs t-shirts, at the rate of 100 karma per shirt with a limit of 10 shirts.
See Also
Karma Calculator - A website used to determine how much karma you could have had and could have gained with the karma boosts, etc.
