5 ms·
Some headline numbers: I've been on Hacker News for well over 5 years (I joined on July 2, 2007) Ha! when I wrote that it was 5 years... now it's > 8 years. I
by jgrahamc 11y ago
Some headline numbers: I've been on Hacker News for well over 5 years (I joined on July 2, 2007)
Ha! when I wrote that it was 5 years... now it's > 8 years. I think the same conclusion still applies: "So, to answer my original question about how I ended up with that much karma: slowly, consistently, over years by submitting things that people like."
- solaris999 11y agoNothing groundbreaking, but good analysis rarely is. I'd be interested to see the relationship between comment karma and age of post though - do earlier comments always get more attention?
- jacquesm 11y agoHN Karma functions much like the odometer on a car. Use the car more frequently and for longer distances and the odometer will advance more rapidly.
- joosters 11y agoSooooo tempted to downvote you just to try and prove you wrong :)
- DanBC 11y agoI suspect your single downvote would be have been countered by several people supplying corrective upvotes, so they could have ended up with more upvotes than they would have done without the initial downvote.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoUnless we all decide to take part in this prank :). Coordination isn't that hard, right? ;).
- jacquesm 11y agoDidn't you post a nice link about that recently?
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI did. But isn't science about trying to prove yourself wrong? :).
- JupiterMoon 11y agoThat's called a voting ring and the mods with come down like a ton of soft fluffy teddy bears.
- KineticLensman 11y agoSomeone downstream said "A good trick is to post a solid counterpoint as a reply to the currently topmost comment: people are more likely to vote on comments near the top" So I'm looking for a counterpoint except that this is actually quite a good analogy (ignoring the quibble that a good driver can move to a new car with a fresh odometer but retain a good driving record. Or that there is no legal odometer equivalent to being downvoted) Edit: grammar
- ksherlock 11y agoCounterpoint: The Cuckoo's Calling, by Robert Galbraith, sold 500 copies. The Cuckoo's Calling, by JK Rowling, sold a 100,000+ copies.
- coderdude 11y agoA hundred people are looking at this like "ok." "How did I succeed? I just followed the rules." First hand, everyone sees that as bullshit. I like your contributions to this community. Don't be ashamed to say, "cuz I'm awesome like that."
- austenallred 11y agoHoly shit, 55,000 HN karma? And I thought I had a problem.
- jgrahamc 11y agoMe? A problem? It's tptacek you should be worried about... he's got 226,754 karma.
- austenallred 11y agoHe's in his own league
- baby 11y agoI'm really wondering how you can reach such a number... Thomas?
- patio11 11y agoI will take the liberty of answering for Thomas here. Most importantly, write a lot of comments, over years. Karma is primarily an odometer. I get 2X the karma per comment, but Thomas writes 4X the comments. Develop a beat on which you are known as a source of expert, reliable knowledge. There are other security people on HN, but Thomas is fairly reliably stapled to the top of any thread about security. That is not not justified. Write well. Have a voice. You can pick out most of Thomas' comments, and virtually all of his value-adding comments, immediately by his writing style. He's one of the five best writers on the site, without question. (Honest opinion rather than playing praise-my-friend-and-cofounder. It's not a close call.) You could ask him "Thomas, I am going to name one item in your kitchen. Write about it for two minutes. Ready? Parsnip, go." and it would be one of the ~10 best written comments on HN that day. There exists an observation I can make here about choosing which threads to participate in, which would have the effect of increasing one's karma but which is not necessarily something HN wants to encourage. I have 100% confidence that "Boosting my karma score" is not the reason why Thomas chooses threads to engage in, but be that as it may, I'll add it for completeness: the high-heat low-light threads about nerd politics result in getting lots of upvotes for fairly little effort, regardless of whether you conform with HN's community norms or whether you are the designated contrary voice. (Designated contrary voice is worth a lot of upvotes if you do it well.) Not related, but worth mentioning in case it isn't obvious: he really, really doesn't care about his karma score. Profoundly does not care. It happens to reward him for being "message board nerd" (his favored phrasing for this psychograph) but Thomas would play message board nerd for free and, indeed, at substantial cost.
- lifeisstillgood 11y agoWhat strikes me is I hardly ever submit. I mostly comment (outside the tent pissing in). When I do submit I often get surprisingly nice amounts of karma. I just rarely discover something not already been submitted.
- steveklabnik 11y agoI distinctly remember saying "I'm not going to post any more when I hit 2000 karma." Then it was 3000. I even set noprocrast to something like 100 years, and quit cold turkey for a while... And then got pg to reset it for me.
- atrust 11y agowhat is your most upvoted comment?
- DanBC 11y ago830 points Submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5450410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5450410 201 points comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4073309#up_4073928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4073309#up_4073928
- z3t4 11y ago> consistency over a long period That's the secret to all success!