Ask HN: I Just Lost All My Karma On HN. What Happened? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I Just Lost All My Karma On HN. What Happened?

11 pointsjnardiello10 comments

All the Karma i collected (which was 13 btw, not a big deal, just wondering why it was resetted to 1) just "vanished" together with my email and personal profile data. Any idea about what happened? Thanks

Update: Just noticed that all my submissions and comments were deleted as well.

View on HN

Could your comments have been on posts later marked dead? I see one comment from you still available from 90 days ago (I have showdead on so I'd be able to see if you were hellbanned).

I'd wager it's either that many of your comments were on a thread voted down / flagged dead, or it's simply a temporary bug as others have guessed.

Hellbann wouldn't make any sense. I also doubt the voted down option for threads/comments. As many suggested i think it's a bug or anything similar. If doesn't happen again i simply won't bother, otherwise i'll investigate.

Most of the time i'm a ghost reader on HN and i don't really pretend to understand all the dynamics on this community. This is why i asked pubblicly what the cause could be as maybe there was some very obvious reason i just wasn't aware of.

Thanks a lot for your help, much appreciated :)

... I still don't know what HN Karma is for or how it's gained.

ditto

You get karma for every time someone upvotes you.

When you have 500 or so, you get the privilege of downvoting.

It's more of a curse than a privilege, I find myself hitting downvote now instead of replying with a well thought out answer to tell them why they are wrong.

The downvote should require a comment.

It lets people show appreciation for a post even if they have nothing to say.

It has legitimate benefits. Aside from the ability to downvote comments after 500 karma, your karma score affects the positioning of your comments in threads. The highest comment or reply isn't always the most upvoted, there's a ratio of upvotes to cumulative karma that dictates where your comment sits in a thread and in turn, its visibility to other users.

It's probably just a temporary bug.

You are reborn in the next life

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