How difficult would it be to add/display an additional user attribute?

[wfsaxton]

Let's say I want to create something like a "karma" attribute which is a number that can go up and down based on yet-to-be-determined functionality. For right now, I just want to be able to display it on a user's profile and I want the administrator to be able to add to/subtract from it (basic CRUD operations).

Is something like this doable? I've never written a plugin before but I'm just wondering how difficult a task this is.

[PitaJ]

It's doable, but most of the changes have to be done in the theme.

[julian]

@wfsaxton Any particular reason you can't just rename a user's reputation into "karma"? It's exactly the same mechanic.

[wfsaxton]

@julian There didn't appear to be a way of managing this number plus I assumed there are already lots of things node already does to modify this number.

I wanted completely control of it, including the ability to "spend" it on things down the road.