Ask HN: Has your HN karma score helped you in any way?

I know the main purpose of being on HN is not obtaining karma, but I was wondering whether users with relatively high karma have found it useful/helpful in any way.

13 points | by behnamoh 1628 days ago

12 comments

  • wallflower 1628 days ago
    While I no longer post as frequently as I did in the past, I like to think of my karma score as X other people thought that a story I shared or, to a much lesser degree, a comment that I wrote had a tiny unit of value or interest to them.

    I lurked for many, many months before I started contributing, and I encourage all of you out there to share what you like and what you know.

    I’d also be lying if I said secretly knowing my karma score was high when the topic of HN came up didn’t cause me to smile mentally. Even if if the topic revolved around how “HN is toxic, brogrammers” etc because I felt that these people can’t see beyond their own biases to see the real community that dang and scbt actively take no small part in taking care of.

    Being a tiny part of the HN community is something I am thankful and grateful for. I wrote about it earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18509717

  • agentgt 1628 days ago
    I hope not. Not for me for sure.

    Every time someone downvotes me it literally makes me feel like shit for like a day.

    This includes reddit as well.

    I’m not saying I’m looking for upvotes and I’m not on Facebook so it’s not about being “liked”.

    When I’m downvoted I’m so afraid I have offended someone or I said something extremely fallacious.

    It has gotten to the point where I have contemplated not ever participating again which is a shame because I’m nervous (assuming I’m not an extreme fringe case) there is some sort of convergent sheep opinion when there should be diversity in thought.

    So if someone came to me and said hire me and look I have xyz karma on xyz platform I might even be less inclined to hire given how much I feel it has poisoned my own thought.

    • breck 1628 days ago
      Don't sweat the downvotes! Often it means you are right but ahead of your time.

      I think there should be rewards for getting highly downvoted comments that aren't mean (but are constructive but express an unpopular opinion).

      • m11a 1628 days ago
        Or you could be incredibly wrong. And it can be hard to differentiate between the whether you're ahead of your time, or just wrong.

        > I think there should be rewards for getting highly downvoted comments that aren't mean (but are constructive but express an unpopular opinion).

        It's just as easy to express a viewpoint that sounds smart but is absolutely ridiculous. Some unpopular opinions are actually nonsensical, others have merit but people just don't want to accept the ideas. That's the issue with the karma system: people decide the merit, and people can't differentiate between the two unless they're incredibly open minded - most people aren't.

        • breck 1628 days ago
          Lobste.rs has an interesting system where downvoted need to be accompanied by a reason.
    • CameronBarre 1628 days ago
      I think it's pretty clear by now there are both incredibly rude people and incredibly generous people on HN - despite that I understand how you feel, because this is a community, after all, and there is an inherent desire to be accepted when participating.
    • simonblack 1628 days ago
      Karma scores are really, really irrelevant. To paraphrase an old saying, "90,000 karma and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee."

      You know that when you get downvoted 200-300 points and you laugh, you have discarded for good the very idea of karma points having value. I did.

      When I left left Reddit at the start of this year, I had something like 50,000 karma. To say it like that means I only remember the value to somewhere within 10,000. So that means my actual karma was somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000. 20,000 karma is quite a big range if karma has any value at all, and yet it is just a meaningless and irrelevant number.

      Now repeat after me: "Karma is just a random number that has no meaning at all in real life."

      • m11a 1628 days ago
        The only issue with this mindset is posting restrictions (e.g. on reddit) if your overall karma score drops too low.

        Karma systems work great if everyone used them as intended, for quality of content or thought, but they're more often used for how much you agree with the sentiment of a comment and if it agrees with the philosophy of the person voting, regardless of the merit of the comment.

        For that reason, I'm sure there must be a better way to do karma for a site that is made to be productive, and not just an echo chamber.

    • luckylion 1628 days ago
      I sometimes react similarly to downvotes, especially when I believe I'm saying something that isn't controversial. My solution is to just hide scores, I don't need to know when lots of people generally agree, and I'm hoping that people will comment if they believe I'm very much wrong/have missed something important. It's similar to all this "dance as if nobody's watching" self-help stuff: comment as if nobody is voting.
    • croo 1626 days ago
      Step out of your comfort zone.

      Create a new account and make its goal to gather as much negative karma on HN as possible. This process may help you outgrow the fear and to grow as a person.

      What's the worst that can happen? Your handle gets banned from the site? Nobody will miss a sleep over that.

      • freehunter 1625 days ago
        As someone who might be a consumer of content written by that negative karma farming account, please do not do this. One of the most annoying things on Internet forums is trolls intentionally seeking downvotes.

        There have to be ways to boost your self esteem without pissing off the rest of the world.

    • badrabbit 1627 days ago
      I especially hate downvotes with no comment replies. Leaves me wondering which part of my comment was not good and why. I always thought it would be a good idea to require a reply for any downvote.
    • sunstone 1628 days ago
      HN is not fond of humour or dry wit. But sometimes you just have to post it and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous down votes.
      • CameronBarre 1628 days ago
        So true, humor is essential to (my) life though.
    • freehunter 1625 days ago
      I have a similar reaction. There are times I post a bunch of comments in a row just to push a thread off my user page so I can check replies to other comments without having to see that thread that's making me upset.

      If I'm wrong, I feel bad that I was wrong but I'm happy other people have let the general public know I was wrong by downvoting my comment. More often though, I'm right and people just don't want to hear it.

      The fastest way to get downvoted is by saying "I like typing on Apple's new keyboard, the Esc key on the Touchbar works just fine for me, and their Pro lineup fits my needs perfectly as a professional". Every statement in there might be true but there is a group of HN users who cannot stand the thought that any of those statements might be true and will absolutely destroy your karma for it.

      Without any penalty for downvoting unpopular opinions, it's just something we have to deal with. And if it starts to get too much, I jump ship to Lobste.rs for a bit where the community is less toxic overall and downvoting is substantially harder.

  • mindcrime 1628 days ago
    No, not in the slightest. Well, aside from fluffing up my ego a little bit I guess, and I'm not sure that that is a good thing.
  • sfgweilr4f 1628 days ago
    HN karma has helped with one place I worked but that was after I had already been there. They noticed on my private computer and said "cool" and it was a form of social credit.

    Other than that, the karma is essentially "interesting" but ultimately irrelevant. HN upvotes seem to be only used by people who align and agree with you. Not whether you've added something substantial to the discussion.

    On the flip side, I've found that HN downvotes are used by people disagreeing with you without them needing to explain exactly why. I've even had people say I've broken the rules but upon examination I can't actually see the transgression. (So it was useless feedback on their part).

    In some cases I've been accused of various things and had people demand to know where I work or to not use a throwaway account ("man up and use your real account" or similarly useless statements). They clearly intended to dox me and were thwarted in their attempt. Then they got angry.

  • quickthrower2 1628 days ago
    The downvoting power is sort of 'useful'. I reserve it for the worst comments, not just stuff I disagree with. But you don't need super high karma for that.

    The good thing about a downvote is a single DV in a busy thread makes the comment a lot less visible. So if it's spammy or offensive it quickly sorts it out. I'll do a downvote + flag.

  • franferri 1626 days ago
    It works for keybase.io :D enables you to identify yourself in the platform. I need karma 2, +1 this comment :D Thanks
  • btkramer9 1626 days ago
    I've been here for over 7 years and I still can't downvote. I like it this way
  • Aperocky 1628 days ago
    SO karma would be much more helpful. And Once you reach a certain critical mass they grow by themselves.
  • Vicfred 1627 days ago
    Black mirror future is here already
  • bradknowles 1628 days ago
    What do you call “high karma”?
  • Soapwort 1628 days ago
    I think not
  • moocowtruck 1628 days ago
    nope