How do I get karma

You get "karma" if you post an interesting article or comment and people upvote it.

Please read the Guidelines and FAQ (links at the bottom of the page) to see what's on-topic for this site and how the community works.

Post interesting/helpful comments/posts. Please read the rules to make sure you do it the propper way, for example, your post's title should have started with "Ask HN:"

Thank you for joining, I hope you learn and share interesting things!

Gotta figure out why you want the karma in the first place. It's more fun if you don't worry about the karma. That way you can actually be interesting. Because to gain karma you have to align yourself with the dominant voices instead of being unique. Alignment makes for ideological echo chambers. So chasing karma will make you like the people that upvote your content and comment on your posts.

If you look at the front page right now you should be able to see what kind of content is popular and you can submit similar content to gain karma.

People enjoy debating the finer points of programming languages so that's usually a popular topic. Similarly, JavaScript frameworks and drama around that stuff is also a good bet.

Then there is science and physics. That usually does well. Evolutionary psychology and neuroscience is a good set of categories to pick from. Usually articles around intelligence in either category do well.

Then you have your typical startup stuff and economics/politics related topics. Those topics also do pretty well especially when there is a libertarian slant or anti-libertarian slant (because people enjoy debating the finer points of the political philosophy involved and how it helps or hinders the entrepreneurial stuff people are involved in).

Be genuinely helpful, earn karma.

For example:

* Post insightful articles or comments that others have not posted

* Respond to questions from others

Welcome and good luck!

A friend of mine used a power leveling karma service. He picked a tech stack and general attitude (contrarian or positive-energy) and they they hooked him up with appropriate Medium blog posts to submit, and appropriate comments.

I actually don’t believe such a service exists, but apparently your entire identity can be purchased if you go for the full package (GitHub repo with projects, blog posts, HN posts, stackoverflow answers).

You can even add extra stuff to fill out the identity like blog posts about sourdough bread baking to round out the full geek identity, introspections on math and stuff.

It’s all out there apparently, Identity as a Service.

As a general suggestion, avoid one line comments. Try to write something longer and more "substantial". It's very easy to get downvotes with onliners.

Honest answer - submit a lot of stuff you think would be popular on HN. If you see something on a tech subreddit super interesting, and it's not here yet, cross post it. If something new from rachelbythebay.com comes up in your RSS reader - submit that ;-). But genuinely interesting news (as in reported in the media) that is aimed at this audience is best, if you get there first.

Or do what I do, submit odd stuff I think is really cool, but lose out on karma because it's cool but not popular.

Why do you want karma?

I suggest that you just try to have interesting interactions.

Karma is just a number anyway.

I’ve been here since 2008 and I have accrued less than one karma point/day. Big deal. I still have had many interesting discussions and I’ve learned a lot.