How does karma work?

4 pointschmac4 comments

How does the karma and points system on this site work? I can't figure it out. Do people with more karma generate more points per vote? How are the points generated, I've seen some comments which are worth 17 points, where does that number come from?

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As far as I can tell, it's just [total submission points] + [total comment points]. Each vote is one point, each downvote is -1 point. And no, people with more karma do not have their votes weighted more heavily; my votes still count for 1 point like anyone elses. (There appears to be a karma threshold for downvoting comments, though.)

How does one vote? I can't see anything about voting or about downvoting. Is it based on some external voting?

For example, this item has 24 points, but the user is brand new and has only posted 1 item which has no comments. Where does that karma come from? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49785

I get it, you can click the teeny weeny up arrow next to the item and that votes it up! Ok, simple.

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