Ask HN: Any proved observations about how HN karma works?

3 points·eimrine··5 comments

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

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https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

I think 2 submission upvotes are counted as 1 karma? Karma is not updated in real time, there is a slight delay.

Interesting. 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.

No 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.

Upvoted 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.

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