
Ask HN: Has your HN karma score helped you in any way? - behnamoh
I know the main purpose of being on HN is not obtaining karma, but I was wondering whether users with relatively high karma have found it useful&#x2F;helpful in any way.
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wallflower
While I no longer post as frequently as I did in the past, I like to think of
my karma score as X other people thought that a story I shared or, to a much
lesser degree, a comment that I wrote had a tiny unit of value or interest to
them.

I lurked for many, many months before I started contributing, and I encourage
all of you out there to share what you like and what you know.

I’d also be lying if I said secretly knowing my karma score was high when the
topic of HN came up didn’t cause me to smile mentally. Even if if the topic
revolved around how “HN is toxic, brogrammers” etc because I felt that these
people can’t see beyond their own biases to see the real community that dang
and scbt actively take no small part in taking care of.

Being a tiny part of the HN community is something I am thankful and grateful
for. I wrote about it earlier this year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18509717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18509717)

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agentgt
I hope not. Not for me for sure.

Every time someone downvotes me it literally makes me feel like shit for like
a day.

This includes reddit as well.

I’m not saying I’m looking for upvotes and I’m not on Facebook so it’s not
about being “liked”.

When I’m downvoted I’m so afraid I have offended someone or I said something
extremely fallacious.

It has gotten to the point where I have contemplated not ever participating
again which is a shame because I’m nervous (assuming I’m not an extreme fringe
case) there is some sort of convergent sheep opinion when there should be
diversity in thought.

So if someone came to me and said hire me and look I have xyz karma on xyz
platform I might even be less inclined to hire given how much I feel it has
poisoned my own thought.

~~~
sunstone
HN is not fond of humour or dry wit. But sometimes you just have to post it
and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous down votes.

~~~
CameronBarre
So true, humor is essential to (my) life though.

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mindcrime
No, not in the slightest. Well, aside from fluffing up my ego a little bit I
guess, and I'm not sure that _that_ is a good thing.

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sfgweilr4f
HN karma has helped with one place I worked but that was after I had already
been there. They noticed on my private computer and said "cool" and it was a
form of social credit.

Other than that, the karma is essentially "interesting" but ultimately
irrelevant. HN upvotes seem to be only used by people who align and agree with
you. Not whether you've added something substantial to the discussion.

On the flip side, I've found that HN downvotes are used by people disagreeing
with you without them needing to explain exactly why. I've even had people say
I've broken the rules but upon examination I can't actually see the
transgression. (So it was useless feedback on their part).

In some cases I've been accused of various things and had people demand to
know where I work or to not use a throwaway account ("man up and use your real
account" or similarly useless statements). They clearly intended to dox me and
were thwarted in their attempt. Then they got angry.

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quickthrower2
The downvoting power is sort of 'useful'. I reserve it for the worst comments,
not just stuff I disagree with. But you don't need super high karma for that.

The good thing about a downvote is a single DV in a busy thread makes the
comment a lot less visible. So if it's spammy or offensive it quickly sorts it
out. I'll do a downvote + flag.

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franferri
It works for keybase.io :D enables you to identify yourself in the platform. I
need karma 2, +1 this comment :D Thanks

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btkramer9
I've been here for over 7 years and I still can't downvote. I like it this way

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Aperocky
SO karma would be much more helpful. And Once you reach a certain critical
mass they grow by themselves.

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Vicfred
Black mirror future is here already

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bradknowles
What do you call “high karma”?

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Soapwort
I think not

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moocowtruck
nope

