How is HN karma calculated?

8 pointsby grease16 anni fa15 comments

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

Udo16 anni fa

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?

msbmsb16 anni fa

Ask HN: How is the avg in my HN profile calculated? -> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648811

Udo16 anni fa

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."

ig116 anni fa

Comment 1 is the most recent comment, not your oldest one.

Udo16 anni fa

In this case, I believe there might be a bug. Not that it matters. Just saying.

makecheck16 anni fa

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.

grease16 anni fa

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?

makecheck16 anni fa

Click your name to see your profile page, which has links to submissions and comments.

grease16 anni fa

I seem to get points from the entire comment thread (who commented at any deeper level to my comment). Hmm..

grease16 anni fa

Sorry, got it

lhnn16 anni fa

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.

Udo16 anni fa

I believe if a comment reaches -4 it doesn't go any lower, but every additional downvote is still subtracted from your Karma.

bpourriahi16 anni fa

Can someone explain how to downvote something? I only see an up arrow next to posts.

kingsidharth16 anni fa

You can down-vote after reaching a particular karma threshold.

zdw16 anni fa

At this point, you need 500 karma to downvote, per pg:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1853529

bhiggins16 anni fa