haha theres a lot of debate about this right now so im not surprised youre confused. when forums are built by the admin, theyre usually given some oppurtunity of members rating posts. on expertfootball people could rate posts as 1-5 stars, on another forum there was exactly the same as here but with exhalt and smite instead of applaud and boo. basically its a way to give feedback on a post and/or the user that made it. the better the karma, the more posts you make that are good or helpful (or thats how its meant to be)
