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Comment by gaika | Hacker News Reader

Easy, you just have to take time since you've joined and # of posts and comments into account:

I can see that you joined a year ago but didn't gain much karma. That means that you're an old timer, but a lurker, who doesn't post or comment often.

nickb and other top 10 karma users define this community and they lead by example.

I joined just recently, because I somebody posted a story about my startup and I had to comment. But since that I've been posting stuff that people care about.

All this is visible by looking at the profile of the user, without knowing exact posting history. This is huge time saver for everybody involved.

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So you suggest that all people who do not post often enough do not fit into the community. And that posting often is the metric to drive? And because, in our current example, you have a higher karma per day, you belong to this community as opposed to me? But if nickb was to read this comment then you and I might both be trivial?

Finally, as a supposed 'lurker', it might serve me better not to login and just read submissions instead of participating by voting. Clearly, voting and commenting are also measures of 'being in a community'. So as lurkers stop logging in they cannot vote and then voting drops making the submission rankings either volatile or static.

I do not understand your line of reasoning.

Simple: karma as a measure of your contributions to the community is not perfect, but it is much better than nothing at all. Do you know a better system?

That is not a response to the original chain of thought. Nonetheless, karma might be an unnecessary tool for the necessary effect.

Do you know a better system?

Yes, I am suggesting an alternate mechanism which uses only voting on submissions and comments while discarding individual karma.

I agree, lack of karma shouldn't say anything negative about your inclusion in the community here. The info is free, so it's not like only major contributors belong.

In fact, if it were the case that only the high karma belong, there'd be nothing to contribute to and no high karma. People like kashif and the thousands of other lurkers are why this community exists in the first place, much more so than nickb or any of the other leaders.

Speaking for myself, I have a high karma because I'm a slacker. I consider it an inverse metric of my worth.

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