

Ask HN: Karma meter - kimfuh

Is there a way to turn off my karma meter? This might sound silly, but it makes me hesitate about commenting sometimes because it feels like i'm going to be graded. I can still be voted up, down, or sideways, I just don't want to keep track of it.
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wallflower
I'm sorry to hear that your karma is actually leading you to self-censor. I
really feel it shouldn't. Like the writer Elizabeth Gilbert said so eloquently
in her brilliant essay on writing: "Don't pre-reject yourself". Let the HN
market and community evaluate what you have to say. More frequently, however,
it's more likely the comment will just exponentially fall down the page, below
the active fold. In real life, I constipate my self expression, even with
friends. Not so much here - and it feels great - to be able to express and to
semi-anonymously connect with the HN community. And the times offline I just
spontaneously go up to a group of strangers and connect with them are the
best. Approval seeking is the opposite of sexy. Kind of like karma seeking.
And, if your karma is high enough and/or you don't care about it, it doesn't
affect you. And your karma will probably increase because you truly don't
care. Life lesson there - substitute with fears and confidence building.

Don't hold back - please unleash your voice. Submit stories. Sometimes you get
only a few upvotes and I like to think that you were able to connect someone
to something they didn't know about. And that is the power of HN. A community
of connectors. Even if it's just a link, you never know where that link may
end up. It could be passed along until it provides an insight, a technique, a
bit of value to the end receiver.

The counterpoint. I can't tell you how many times a comment being upvoted many
times has affected my mood when it's been an otherwise mundane day. Especially
when I dash off a quick comment and hours later see it's been upvoted to the
mesosphere. Nothing is black and white, I guess. But the point here is - the
higher the karma goes, the less it matters.

<http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm>

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evo_9
Haha, that's kind of funny because I was just thinking how MMO-like/addictive
this karma meter thing is. And yes, it's kind of stressful too.

