Not every upvote increases your karma. There are algorithms for detecting voting rings, and some users have managed to get themselves on a list that means their

Not every upvote increases your karma. There are algorithms for detecting voting rings, and some users have managed to get themselves on a list that means their votes appear to be registered, but actually ignored. As a result, it's not as simple or transparent as you might hope. The best advice is simply not to bother about it to much, behave well, upvote good stuff, downvote stuff that's of negative value, flag stuff that really shouldn't be here, and submit things that are potentially of interest to hackers. In short, don't worry about karma. 10K points of karma and $5.70 will get you a coffee.