Friday, October 23, 2009

Karma in the Managed Print Services Association



Upon registering my ELSBlogger profile on the new MPSA website I noticed an interesting profile dynamic:

0
ONLINE
37 minutes ago
Now
33 minutes ago
-
0
-
0
-

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Eastern Philosophical concept, wikipedia says:

Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म Karma.ogg kárma , kárman- "act, action, performance"[1]; Pali: kamma) in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called saṃsāra) originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.[2]. 'Karma' is an Eastern religious concept in contradistinction to 'faith' espoused by Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), which view all human dramas as the will of God as opposed to present - and past - life actions. In Eastern beliefs, the karmic effects of all deeds are viewed as actively shaping past, present, and future experiences. The results or 'fruits' of actions are called karma-phala.

A concept of karma (along with reincarnation, samsara, and moksha) may originate in the shramana tradition of which Buddhism and Jainism are continuations. This tradition influenced the Brahmanic religion in the early Vedantic (Upanishadic) movement of the 1st millennium BC. Reincarnation was adopted from this religious culture by Brahmin orthodoxy, and Brahmins wrote the earliest recorded scriptures containing these ideas in the early Upanishads.

I am intrigued to know how the MPSA will dish out "Karma points"

Hopefully by walking the correct path within the temples of MPS I wont suffer reincarnation as a laser printer.

6 comments:

  1. LOL! Karma?

    I will put that on the next meeting Agenda - I too, am curious.

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  2. I think its kinda cool, although, I wonder how you are supposed to get "good karma" from the MPSA.

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  3. Nathan,
    Excellent observations, with a simple one word answer… “Opps”

    The website for the MPSA is being built on a platform designed for Community and Collaboration, and the software tools have features that we most likely won’t use, such as the “Karma.” I didn’t realize this was being shown on the site.

    I believe the software was designed to allow the person who posed a question, to rate the person who answered the question. Hence your Karma rating…

    Unless everyone else feels differently, we’ll seek to eliminate this feature.

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  4. I think that is a neat feature, I say keep it.

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