

Ask HN: How many of you post just to gain karma? - adamilardi

I'm wondering if people are becoming karma obsessed. Karma ratings forces you to think before posting but up mods and down mods are so opinionated. Often a snappy response to a good point gets up modded more than the good point. It goes back to my question are we posting just for karma?
======
spooneybarger
I only care about having enough karma to upvote and downvote. Now that I have
that, I don't really care what happens with it.

EDIT: there is something ironic to come back and see i've picked up karma for
saying I don't care about it.

~~~
jsharpe
I'm basically the same, except I haven't achieved it yet.

I want to get to 100 karma in order to be able to downvote (almost there!),
but past that I don't really care.

That said, I'm trying to restrain myself from posting _just_ for the sake of
karma. I'd rather that I get there somewhat naturally.

~~~
metachris
I think you'll need 250 to be able to downvote.

------
mindcrime
Nah, I usually just post if I have something to contribute. And like others
have pointed out, there's no point worrying about Karma past a certain level
anyway... it's not like the stuff really buys you anything.

Then again, maybe there's a micro-currency / digital cash based startup
waiting to be had here... "Spend your HN Karma Points Now!" LOL.

------
Rhapso
Karma, I admit is a bit of a game mechanic to me. I get really excited when I
pick up a point or two. However, I am also new around here, and thus have not
accumulated enough to make it not exciting.

~~~
Rhapso
interesting, commenting about not having much karma got me a karma point!
-does a happy game mechanic induced dance-

I had been reading HN for about a year before making an account, and honestly
I think it is one of the "nicest" communities online I have yet to find, and I
think the self-regulating ability of 'karma' is part of that.

~~~
sqrt17
Karma is really a "black swan" thing: sometimes you get one or two points,
sometimes you lose a point because people don't agree with you and downvote
you, and once in a while you post something totally innocuous (but potentially
well-informed) and suddenly they're all over your post and you get as more
upvotes than for all these carefully-formulated snippets of distilled thought.

The community quality is, IMO, helped by the fact that there are dictatorial
interventions to prune the few trolls that can survive in a karma-based
community. (The legend is that some people are made to live in their own
editorial padded cell where their HN posts can only ever be seen by
themselves).

~~~
winthrowe
The legend is true. I've seen them. You can choose to 'showdead' in your
options.

------
jff
I mostly comment because I like to get a bit snarky. Karma is a scorekeeper--
did I annoy people, or strike a chord?

I also like to share my views on things, but generally I post about things
that I don't feel too deeply about. Several times I've gotten very angry and
composed a detailed, thorough rebuttal, only to delete it because I don't want
to get so involved.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> I mostly comment because I like to get a bit snarky.

Come to reddit, they'll love you there.

~~~
ElbertF
What a snarky thing to say.

------
davidw
Karma here is completely useless beyond a certain fairly low threshold that
lets you do things like downvote. I wish I could sell some of it off :-)

------
spyrosk
In my case karma has the opposite effect on commenting. In fear of getting
down voted I tend to avoid making comments. In reality this is just my fear of
failure/getting rejected manifestating, but unless my
eagerness/curiosity/certainty threshold is high enough I avoid the risk
altogether.

The problem is that until I get over this exact sentiment/mindset I will just
keep enriching my personal collection of thoughts or proof of concept
applications and never, really, release anything. _Sigh_

On the other hand, I did not create an account on HN as a means to popularity,
and since getting a new one is so easy I shouldn't care, but alas I do.

------
bradendouglass
Are any of us really super concerned about our karma rating? Don't get me
wrong, it is a great little perk; however, I doubt the community at large is
biting their nails in concern over their rating. Although, I did learn in this
thread that there is a threshold where you can start down voting items
depending on karma? Completely unaware of this.

------
ElbertF
I'm posting this with the intention to get a bit closer to 200 points. After
that I won't care.

------
josefresco
Karma wouldn't be karma if it didn't cause you to stop and think first about
how your comments will be received in the discussion.

------
kevinskii
What, you actually think I would illuminate you all with my brilliance for
nothing in return?

