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Ask HN: Any proved observations about how HN karma works?
I have two:
1. HN does not let to downvote to more than "-4 points" (anyone who can log into my account can observe this).
2. There is a topic [1] which has 245 points right now, and the author who has none of other contributions (other topics/comments), but its author [2] has only 114 points.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36009774
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=notjoemartinez
- mikequinlan 3y agohttps://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
- jzombie 3y agoNo docs, just an obseevation: It appears that karma for submissions doesn't add to the tally, only comments. I was literally just thinking about this as well when I had observed that on my own account and noticed this thread.
- pmontra 3y agoUpvoted submissions do contribute to karma, unless they changed that recently. AFAIK from observing my own submissions, the first few votes are weighted 1 to 1, then it decreases 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 and maybe less. There could be some hardcoded thresholds or some continuous function rounded to integers.
- ksaj 3y agoInteresting. Those numbers have changed now, but your observation is still correct. I wonder if there are weights on upvoted objects (post, initial comment, reply-to-a-comment) that bring the total to a lower number for the user. In the same way that (I think?) ASK HN: posts don't raise your karma at all.
- cinntaile 3y agoI think 2 submission upvotes are counted as 1 karma? Karma is not updated in real time, there is a slight delay.