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Ask HN: How Upvotes Work
I know this topic is tricky to ask (because of potential downvotes), but I would really like to better understand how upvotes work on HN. I have read some posts about it but all is still very nebulous to me. E.g. if I submit this here there will stand: 1 Point. But I never get this point.
Would really be thankful if some could give me more insights how it works without punishing me for asking this.
- ulrischa 3y agoCould it be that the points are not calculated in realtime?
- gus_massa 3y agoEach post start with "1". Imagine that it's your own vote. But that is not added to your total karma. When someone else upvote the counter says "2", and your karma should increase.
- ulrischa 3y agoNo it does not always.
- latchkey 3y agoVotes on submissions are +0.5, so it takes two upvotes to count as one. Comments get you +1
- ulrischa 3y agoComments from me to other submissions or comments to my submissions?
- latchkey 3y agoThere are two distinct ways to earn karma. 1. Submit links or things like Ask HN. Those submissions can get upvoted by others. You earn +0.5 on each upvote. 2. Comments. You earn +1 each time someone else votes up your comment. You don't get any karma for voting on someone else's thing.
- ulrischa 3y agoSo submitting alone brings no point also there stands 1 point, right?
- latchkey 3y agoCorrect
- beardyw 3y agoIf I remember you do in fact get 1 karma just for commenting if you are below a certain karma level (in the 100s). This op should get that.
- gus_massa 3y agoI never heard that and it's not in [1], so I guess it's incorrect. [1] is an unofficial collection of HN details, but minimaxir keep it up to date. [1] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
- cushpush 3y agoTangentially related: the gravity algorithm is (upvotes) / (hours-since-posted + 2)^gravity where gravity is a constant, 1.8 for HN. So, over time, kinda step-wise on the 60, 120 min mark since posting, gravity's grip increases and pulls the score back closer to zero.