HN Explorer

How is HN karma calculated?

8 points by grease ↗ HN
I understand how HN calculates top posts (roughly, points divided by age to the power gravity) - but how is a user's karma calculated? I looked at the points in the threads/comments link on the top of HN, but the sum of the points there do not add up to my karma.

I'm guessing the answer to this is pretty simple and it bugs me no end that I don't know it :(

PS: Are all votes equal (when it comes to deciding the rank of a post), or does it depend on the karma of the voter?

16 comments

[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 37.8 ms ] thread
makecheck
It seems to be the sum of upvotes for anything you submitted, plus (or minus) any points from comments you've made; and a comment score of 1 is not counted.
grease
Yeah, I thought that would be the case, but some how it doesn't seem to add up in my case ... But wait, the "threads" link does not show the posts I made - only comments ... So I might be missing upvotes on the posts ... hmm, how do I see all th posts I made?
makecheck
Click your name to see your profile page, which has links to submissions and comments.
grease
I seem to get points from the entire comment thread (who commented at any deeper level to my comment). Hmm..
lhnn
Just something to note: I lost 40 karma points in a day when I was only downvoted 20 points... some of which I deserved, but still, something didn't work as expected.
Udo
I believe if a comment reaches -4 it doesn't go any lower, but every additional downvote is still subtracted from your Karma.
[dead] bhiggins
I don't know, but apparently if you leave a snarky comment and someone notices, they make all your subsequent comments auto-dead...
Udo
I would like to know how the average is calculated. When I was a noob below 100 Karma, the average was regularly updated to reflect the actual average karma of all my comments. However, this stopped around the time I reached 100. Now, my avg remains fixed at 2.17, a value that I'm sure has nothing to do with my actual ($karma_total/$comments_count) ratio anymore. Does anyone know how this works?
msbmsb
Ask HN: How is the avg in my HN profile calculated? -> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648811
Udo
Thanks! So it would appear that my hunch was right, only the first comments are used for avg, after that it never changes again:

"So it takes your comments numbered 6-50, throws out the highest-scoring one, and averages them."

ig1
Comment 1 is the most recent comment, not your oldest one.
Udo
In this case, I believe there might be a bug. Not that it matters. Just saying.