Ask HN: What's the point of HN Karma?

Others can still see your karma (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kolinko), just not the points on individual posts.

Comments and stories with high scores will stay higher on the page than equally-old stories with fewer points. Also there are some other lists like "best stories" and "most active" https://news.ycombinator.com/lists

We can see your karma. Downvoting and flagging are enabled at sufficient karma. I also understand that high average karma has a small but real effect on comment rankings.

Also, it keeps people participating.

An individual post's karma is shown if you access that post through search.