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Karma observations: if you reply in the early morning, before everyone gets up and reads HN, you'll get more karma than if you reply in the middle of the night when no-one will see it. Same goes for replying to threads that don't have many comments yet. More comments = old news, less new viewers, less karma.

Also, the other day, I replied to someone, got downvoted to negative something, and then, as an experiment, I copied the comment, deleted it, and pasted it into a reply to the parent of the comment I originally replied to, and got upvoted +8.

It's science.

"Karma observations: if you reply in the early morning, before everyone gets up and reads HN, you'll get more karma than if you reply in the middle of the night when no-one will see it."

This goes double for being an early riser on the East Coast!

Until recently I commented early in the morning for a few months. I fared well - I usually got the top comment in the thread, unless a power user struck first. I don't think my comments were particularly insightful, but the timing worked - they would stay above the fold long enough to pick up an upvote.

The "shape" of a comment also seems to affect the rating. A quick summary followed by several reasonable-sized paragraphs is a local maximum for gathering karma.

"Why the downvotes", while usually legitimate, also guarantees a slew of upvotes.
Although, presumably this effect will get arbitraged away as people become more aware of it. There will be a rush hour at the optimum time, negating its advantage somewhat.
One thing I hate about reddit is user's obsession over karma to the point that on most of the major sub-reddits highest rated comments are boiled down to puns and memes. I hope that type of obsession doesn't spill over here.

I rather have no public karma score or leader board. It adds zero value other than comparing e-penis.

Karma doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of comments. More often than not it reflects how much time you spend and how popular you are here (people will often blindly upvote users who adds nothing interesting to the discussion but is a popular user at HN) and how fast you can submit TC article.

One thing I hate about HN is users' obsession over karma to the point that many of the highest-rated comments boil down to bashing on reddit.
On the one hand, I try really hard to ignore karma and remind myself that I post here to participate in conversation, not to rack up karma points. On the other hand, obsessively checking if my karma has changed is one of the most harmless things I have done while feeling like crap and being unable to sleep.

All communities have some means to keep track of pecking order. I really have no idea if karma is better or worse than other methodologies. <shrug>

>>All communities have some means to keep track of pecking order. I really have no idea if karma is better or worse than other methodologies. <shrug>

It's definitely better than simply listing the user's post count next to their name, which a lot of fora still do.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a particular lever that I need to go and push...

I agree but I'm happy with the ambivalence. People who outright dismiss points/karma remind me of people who think money is "evil."

I have just shy of 13k karma and I'll admit that my rise from around 3k->10k was driven entirely by, first, trying to get on the /leaders page, and then into the 10K club ;-) A pointless, egotistic goal but good things came out of it. Firstly, most of my comments and posts weren't frivolous so people appreciated them at some level. Second, spending so effort here made me feel more a part of "the community" and has led to some interesting extracurricular discussions and opportunities.

Not everyone needs numbers, scores, or money as motivators, but some of us find it a handy metric. Being a points scorer doesn't mean the outcome for third parties is necessarily negative and I certainly wouldn't do "anything" just to score a few points, that's for sure - just like not all rich people are evil money grabbers.

I am unlikely to get on the leader board. I am very much an "outsider" here -- not a programmer and not male. Former homemaker in fact. This is the first place I have ever posted where a) I can't keep up with all the traffic (historically, I have been known to read every single thing posted to forums I belonged to -- not so here) and b) no one has ever remarked on my posts being too long or there being too many of them (a common complaint about me in most forums I have participated in). Many of my posts do not get upvoted and I may never figure out how to pursue such an achievement here. I have mixed feelings about that: Slightly bruised ego because I so very often attract the spotlight without meaning to (whereas I am being "overlooked" here) but also relief at not attracting so much negative attention just for being me.

I will note that many of the benefits you cite could have occurred even if karma were not the means by which pecking order is tracked here. So I don't think it really says much about karma per se.

But thanks for sharing.

I am very much an "outsider" here -- not a programmer and not male.

My take is that if you identify with HN and many of the "hacker" standpoints and pursuits, you're not an outsider here. At least, I would hope one wouldn't feel that way. More than most other communities I've experienced online, HN isn't very cliquey nor very focused on one's vital stats - there are people from all corners, all genders, and all races here but it's already anonymous enough that it's hard to tell. Being a geek and taking an interest in new things are probably the only prerequisites to be "in" here. I think that's a great thing.

I will note that many of the benefits you cite could have occurred even if karma were not the means by which pecking order is tracked here.

Sure, but from different people. Without my side goals, I probably wouldn't have spent as much time on my comments or "contributing" here generally. Of course, I wouldn't dare to suggest HN would be any better off with more people like me ;-)

My only point (in mentioning that I am an "outsider") is that I don't expect to make it on to the leader board. I think the fact that I am not a programmer is definitely relevant to that expectation (or lack thereof). (If you really think I'm wrong in that regard, perhaps you can list several people on the leader board who are not programmers? Or even people on the leader board who are openly female?)
It would be nice if people just posted because they had something worth saying instead of worrying about all this nonsense. Karma: some people should lose it when it matters, but most of the time, too many people care about it when it doesn't mean anything except a number.
I would like to take this time to send a huge "thank you" to all of these "power" posters for spending their time to contribute thoughtful incites on the topics we love here at HN. Happy Holidays!
+1

I'm a little disappointed to see that some of the top replies in this discussion right now are people who've obviously put some thought (and presumably effort) into working out how to post in ways that maximise HM karma.

It feels a bit to me like the old problem of not having the right metrics to measure and encourage the goals. If people are deciding when to post based on how it'll affect their karma, presumably that means sometimes they're choosing _not_ to contribute to the discussion "cause the karma payoff is too small". That's a bit sad.

(Which I guess is an easier to hold view from a lowly ~300 karma account...)

I don't know that it's anything to worry about. When you throw a bunch of analytical people into a rating system, it's only natural that they'll be searching out its weak points. A lot of us have probably noticed various weaknesses in the karma system, but I don't think it's because we're all scrambling to game that system. HN is just full of the types of people who can't help but notice.
Maybe we should make it easier to find out where people are located so we can work out whether they are being sarcastic or not. ;-)
(2009)
This makes me wonder if it would be more useful to display the (weighted) first or second derivative of your karma score instead of the raw point total. The people who were most obviously "rising" in the graph are the ones everyone knows and recognizes around here.
Hypithesis: membership of an online community becomes a major distraction/problem once you pass the threshold of recognising many posters. There's only a few names I recognise at the moment, mostly due to these leader board features. I'm pretty sure my name is not recognised at all. But I've been involved with a few forums in the past and often I wish I could have all the hours back that I spent on them.

HN is a bit different though as it's more of a meritocracy and the 'top posters' aren't just people who never log off.

Interesting.

@edw519 get more karma in a day than me in some 388 days.

Yet the rate of growth seems to be more or less linear. At least within this time frame.
There is no nickb on the current leader board any longer.
Only because he hasn't posted recently. He'd be in 7th place if he started posting again.