Roughly, the number of upvotes on their stories and comments minus the number of downvotes. These don't match up exactly; some votes are dropped to prevent abuse.
Awesome, back to 51 points. Is it because I'm talking about karma and get automatically downvoted? I don't usually mention karma and yet still my little 1 point doesn't get added to my "score."
Thank you. So for example, and I realise this isn't a great news story, this Ask HN post of mine is showing me it has 6 points (upvotes?), but my karma is still 51.
All I did was submit this Ask HN here. I've not posted a link to it anywhere. As I write the post has 13 points and I have 51 points. Again. I'm sure my life would be much better if only I could escape from the clutches of 51. (I've been down to 49 and up to 52 since I posted.)
Looking through the number of points you've gotten from your submissions (not many, join the club) and your current amount of karma, most of your karma has come from your comments.
Well, certainly don't post questions complaining about karma. Instead, post interesting non-duplicate content that people want to read, or make useful or insightful comments in discussions.
21 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 60.3 ms ] threadsee: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
Usually, I write a short reply on some thread and although my post shows me "1 point by anthay" my karma doesn't change. I'm sure it used to.
"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
Now you're posting again hopefully you'll make interesting comments that people think are worth a click.
The system is fairly resistant to gaming. The purpose is to post useful content.