

Ask YC: How do the Karma points work? - senthil_rajasek

How are some comment points negative?<p>What is the difference between new and newest?
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brlewis
When you get more karma you can vote comments down. That's how they go
negative.

New (in the title bar) and newest (in the URL) are the same.

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senthil_rajasek
Does anyone know what algorithm the karma point system follows?

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aston
If you're asking about front page ranking. it's been released with arc2, and
looks like this:

    
    
      (= gravity* 1.4 timebase* 120 front-threshold* 1)
    
      (def frontpage-rank (s (o gravity gravity*))
        (/ (- (realscore s) 1)
           (expt (/ (+ (item-age s) timebase*) 60) gravity)))
    
      (def realscore (i) (- i!score i!sockvotes))
    
      (def item-age (i) (hours-since i!time))
    

Which is summarized, also in the code, as "[net] Votes divided by the age in
hours to the gravityth power."

