Ask HN: Does HN Karma do anything, other than give me dopamine? (in algorithm) - danschumann
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gus_massa
There are some thresholds to unlock additional abilities. For example, with
200 you can make polls and with 500 you can downvote comments. (The numbers
may change.)

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forkLding
How does one make polls?

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kaybe
I'm not sure whether I've ever seen a poll. Is there a list or something?

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quickthrower2
I sometimes get dopamine from downvotes. Weird. It's like someone cares enough
to say "that's shit".

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laurentl
I was totally going to give you a dopamine hit but I don't have enough karma
to downvote :(

Maybe if people like this comment enough ?

(/s, if you must ask)

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jason_slack
I think at a certain Karma you can also change your: top bar color. I have
mine set to: 9794b6. I think it was at 500 points that I could do this.

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jeanlucas
For real? I'm mostly a lurker, now I wanna hit 500 points.

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jason_slack
A post above thinks it might be 256!

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labster
At 1000 karma you unlock the ability to post an occasional /.-worthy +2 Funny
comment without worrying about the inevitable downvotes.

But really, I do look at people's karma to see if I should take a comment
seriously if I'm feeling uncertain about it. People with 2000+ karma are
usually worth listening to, even if you don't agree with them.

~~~
veddox
Yes, karma is a good indicator of standing in the HN community :-) High karma
shows somebody has been around for a while and is known for substantive
comments.

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blahblahblahw
It's great for reinforcing group-think and confirming certain trendy biases.

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LinuxBender
Here are the lesser documented features [1] of HN.

[1] - [https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-
undocumented](https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented)

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partycoder
If anything, karma reflects how many users like your post or comment. They can
like it for various reasons, not necessarily support it.

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stephengillie
This is true for individual comments. But do we need the "score box" next to
our login name?

I don't see an option in the settings to make that disappear, and adblocking
the div removes a useful link.

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jacob019
It give feedback as to whether people feel that your comments contribute
positively to the discussion. Not algo but useful.

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yasp
Exposes the ability to downvote comments at >500\. Seems to give flags and
possibly votes more weight.

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mrgreenfur
I'm opening a hn karma for karma trade marketplace to help us unionize
commenting.

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_blrj
It suppresses opinions that are not widely accepted or favorable and deters
irritable tones of voice among other things.

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opan
This is one reason I'm not a big fan of these sorts of karma systems. It's
like when social media sites try to re-order the news instead of just showing
it in chronological order. This post was popular, so maybe you'll like it too.
Just a bit irritating. I think I prefer more traditional forums where the new
posts are at the end.

