

Ask HN: What is the point of karma? - GreekOphion

I have 11 karma on Hacker News and I have no idea how I got it or what I can do with it.<p>Can I buy stuff with it?<p>Can I use it to make my posts go up?<p>Or is it just for show?
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tobiasSoftware
It's just for show. I got into it after I finally went from lurker to poster
and gained 10 karma overnight. Then I went from 10 to 20 from contributing to
the community. However, then I went from 20 to 12 after I made a few posts
about personal languages choices on a thread and someone got ticked and
downvoted all six posts I made to the thread no matter how relevant they were.
Since then I haven't tried to take it too seriously.

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jambo
It's mostly for show. You can't buy anything with it, and you can't elect to
use it for visibility (though reputation, which it's a proxy for, can achieve
this effect). Others can see it on your user page if they click through from a
comment you made. You gain karma when a comment or submission is voted up, and
lose it when it's voted down. Voted down? When you cross a certain threshold
(500?), you're trusted with the ability to down moderate comments that don't
contribute: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

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beagle3
You can downvote once you have enough karma (the karma you need for downvotes
changes with time; not sure how much it is these days)

Also, it's a function of how long, how active and how agreeable with the
groupthink the user is.

In the distant past, it was common for people to upvote comments they disagree
with if they made a good point, but give a counter argument. In the last 6
months or so, it has become much more common to disagree by downvoting without
giving a counter argument. I liked the old convention better.

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te_platt
It is to give some feedback on how other people react to your submissions and
comments. When you click on the up triangle next to a comment the person who
made the comment gets one karma point. The down triangle takes one away.

Up-voting can mean: I hope more people see this story. I agree with the
comment. I enjoyed the comment. Thank you. I think your comment helped this
discussion. Yes, lisp is wonderful - Or Apple products.

Down-voting can mean: I disagree. Please go somewhere else. You aren't helping
the discussion. You suck. You hurt my feelings. I can't believe anyone could
say something that stupid. Microsoft sucks.

Basically, don't be a jerk and don't take the karma too seriously.

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cd34
At 500 karma you can disagree with people.

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grovulent
The way I've always thought about it is as the application of game mechanics
to the problem of sustaining a community that links to quality content and
produces quality discussion.

Karma - particularly on Hacker news - is not useless - it's a concrete measure
of the value you have added to the community. It's not a perfect measure - but
I think it's pretty good.

I'll very often follow through on looking up users with high Karma - finding
out who they are if they declare it - subscribing to their blogs and things
like that.

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a_a_r_o_n
It's feedback from the community, to help you be more useful to the community.
You get more karma when someone upvotes your comments and submissions; you get
less karma when someone downvotes you. Downvotes tell you "this comment did
not help the discussion."

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cgag
When someone upvotes your post, you get a karma. It's supposed to get you high
and encourage good posting. You can't buy anything with it.

