• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, August 13, 2012

If there’s one thing human beings can be counted on to do with admirable regularity, it’s judge other people: we just can’t get enough of that judging thing, it seems. Now there’s a new social network, Karmafied,com, which is devoted to judging the deeds of individuals, good and bad, and assigning them -- you guessed it -- a score.

Ross Bays, managing director for Karmafied.com, explained: “We have launched a revolutionary new social network oriented around the concept of Karma, what goes around, comes around. On what is being called The Karma Network, users create a profile for free, connect with their friends, and then begin granting good or bad karma to everyone they interact with. Good Karma has a value of +1, Bad Karma has a value of -1. The user's Karma Score is the sum of all Karma they have received.”

The Karmafied.com homepage invites users to “rate your friends and find out what they really think of you,” which makes it sound a little like Formspring. But just as in real life, your judgments aren’t limited to your friends: in keeping with Karmafied’s mission to be a “universal reputation database,” you can also dish out judgments anonymously to people you don’t even know (think: rude waiters, DMV employees, plumbers, etc.).

Like its influence-focused precursor, Klout, Karmafied.com is also easily adapted to professional uses: the homepage also invites you to “Track your personal or professional reputation.” And of course there’s a game element to keep users engaged as they “compete for the highest karma score” in a particular area.