
Ask HN: Do HN upvotes really start at 0 instead of 1? - provost
I&#x27;ve noticed that a user&#x27;s karma increments by 1, starting when the comment reaches 2 upvotes. So the first upvote doesn&#x27;t count, and is essentially 0. Is this correct, or am I missing something?
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bobwaycott
Pretty sure every comment starts at 1. A downvote puts you to 0, or lose 1
karma. An upvote brings you to 2, or gain 1 karma. Also, I believe there's
some additional karma earned for replies to your comments/submissions.

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CarolineW
Not every upvote increases your karma. There are algorithms for detecting
voting rings, and some users have managed to get themselves on a list that
means their votes appear to be registered, but actually ignored. As a result,
it's not as simple or transparent as you might hope.

The best advice is simply not to bother about it to much, behave well, upvote
good stuff, downvote stuff that's of negative value, flag stuff that really
shouldn't be here, and submit things that are potentially of interest to
hackers.

In short, don't worry about karma. 10K points of karma and $5.70 will get you
a coffee.

