
Ask HN: What's the value of Hacker News points/karma? - aaronchall
I finally got over 500 points a while back (earning the ability to downvote comments), and more recently posted a few things (I&#x27;m on vacation, if that explains it). It&#x27;s neat when stuff gets on the front page (or that kind of upvote velocity). I like that. I also like getting points. It&#x27;s a way of keeping score. I can look at someone&#x27;s profile and think, &quot;Wow, they have contributed 10 times the value that I have.&quot; and get the sense that they&#x27;re an old pro, while others might seem more like peers or new to the site.<p>But aside from that, what&#x27;s the value in the points? Does anyone care? If anything, I&#x27;ve seen myself get over-confident and think that what works on one site works on another, or that my reputation or credentials mean anything to another site - and so it might even hurt me elsewhere. Is there any privileges you get beyond the ability to downvote comments with enough points?<p>TL;DR - What&#x27;s the value of Hacker News points?
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DrScump
I'm just 3 points away from having enough to redeem for the giant stuffed
panda -- please upvote me!

But seriously, I think it's meant as a sort of credibility metric and/or a
disincentive to create troll accounts (e.g. if new accounts had the same
"powers" as existing accounts).

I think it would be more meaningful if it included a time metric (e.g. 503
points, 37 in last 30 days), since there is a wide spread of time since
account creation.

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chris_wot
I find it helps me gauge how much people appreciate (or for that matter -
don't appreciate!) my comments.

