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Ask HN: How many of you post just to gain karma?

9 points by adamilardi ↗ HN
I'm wondering if people are becoming karma obsessed. Karma ratings forces you to think before posting but up mods and down mods are so opinionated. Often a snappy response to a good point gets up modded more than the good point. It goes back to my question are we posting just for karma?

22 comments

[ 71.4 ms ] story [ 1149 ms ] thread
davidw
Karma here is completely useless beyond a certain fairly low threshold that lets you do things like downvote. I wish I could sell some of it off :-)
spooneybarger
I only care about having enough karma to upvote and downvote. Now that I have that, I don't really care what happens with it.

EDIT: there is something ironic to come back and see i've picked up karma for saying I don't care about it.

jessor
I second that. Though I have to confess, as I'm not quite there yet, I sometimes have to resist the tempation to post karmabait comments.
maqr
Achievement Unlocked!
jsharpe
I'm basically the same, except I haven't achieved it yet.

I want to get to 100 karma in order to be able to downvote (almost there!), but past that I don't really care.

That said, I'm trying to restrain myself from posting just for the sake of karma. I'd rather that I get there somewhat naturally.

metachris
I think you'll need 250 to be able to downvote.
fburnaby
... so you care about other peoples' karma!
mindcrime
Nah, I usually just post if I have something to contribute. And like others have pointed out, there's no point worrying about Karma past a certain level anyway... it's not like the stuff really buys you anything.

Then again, maybe there's a micro-currency / digital cash based startup waiting to be had here... "Spend your HN Karma Points Now!" LOL.

Rhapso
Karma, I admit is a bit of a game mechanic to me. I get really excited when I pick up a point or two. However, I am also new around here, and thus have not accumulated enough to make it not exciting.
Rhapso
interesting, commenting about not having much karma got me a karma point! -does a happy game mechanic induced dance-

I had been reading HN for about a year before making an account, and honestly I think it is one of the "nicest" communities online I have yet to find, and I think the self-regulating ability of 'karma' is part of that.

sqrt17
Karma is really a "black swan" thing: sometimes you get one or two points, sometimes you lose a point because people don't agree with you and downvote you, and once in a while you post something totally innocuous (but potentially well-informed) and suddenly they're all over your post and you get as more upvotes than for all these carefully-formulated snippets of distilled thought.

The community quality is, IMO, helped by the fact that there are dictatorial interventions to prune the few trolls that can survive in a karma-based community. (The legend is that some people are made to live in their own editorial padded cell where their HN posts can only ever be seen by themselves).

winthrowe
The legend is true. I've seen them. You can choose to 'showdead' in your options.
jff
I mostly comment because I like to get a bit snarky. Karma is a scorekeeper--did I annoy people, or strike a chord?

I also like to share my views on things, but generally I post about things that I don't feel too deeply about. Several times I've gotten very angry and composed a detailed, thorough rebuttal, only to delete it because I don't want to get so involved.

pavel_lishin
> I mostly comment because I like to get a bit snarky.

Come to reddit, they'll love you there.

ElbertF
What a snarky thing to say.
ElbertF
I'm posting this with the intention to get a bit closer to 200 points. After that I won't care.
spyrosk
In my case karma has the opposite effect on commenting. In fear of getting down voted I tend to avoid making comments. In reality this is just my fear of failure/getting rejected manifestating, but unless my eagerness/curiosity/certainty threshold is high enough I avoid the risk altogether.

The problem is that until I get over this exact sentiment/mindset I will just keep enriching my personal collection of thoughts or proof of concept applications and never, really, release anything. Sigh

On the other hand, I did not create an account on HN as a means to popularity, and since getting a new one is so easy I shouldn't care, but alas I do.

kevinskii
What, you actually think I would illuminate you all with my brilliance for nothing in return?
bradendouglass
Are any of us really super concerned about our karma rating? Don't get me wrong, it is a great little perk; however, I doubt the community at large is biting their nails in concern over their rating. Although, I did learn in this thread that there is a threshold where you can start down voting items depending on karma? Completely unaware of this.
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josefresco
Karma wouldn't be karma if it didn't cause you to stop and think first about how your comments will be received in the discussion.