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I think it's time to stop awarding karma for submitting stories. It really doesn't make sense to do so in the first place, but I suppose it might have helped back when the site was young.

Now, since pretty much every good story is going to end up here anyway, I don't see any reason to reward people for posting them.

Karma for comments makes sense, since it's an actual contribution by you. Karma for posting something you didn't even write just leads to people gaming the system.

Another thing to consider is to have Categories for new post. so easy to scroll through and does not get lost on 2nd page.

YOU can have the categories in the drop down of "New" post link. You can a have "view all" as an option as well.

You can have the category fields as a requirement when filling out the submission form.

I hope the PTB of HN consider this.

wow even this post is getting voted down already. HMMM

Are you sure you are being voted down like you claim ?

In my experience HN'ers are quite restrained in their downvotes. Apart from a few of your comments in this thread that got downvoted I don't see any major downvoting trend going on.

And about those comments: I do not have the karma to downvote anyone and I haven't till before this thread felt the need for such rights. But some of your comments did come off as immature and needlessly argumentative, to the point of refusing to listen to what everyone is saying to you and blaming everything on being a newbie.

Just my thoughts.

when you have zeros next to your post and when you are watching your karma go up and down as much as 5 points, depending on when you posted, then your are being voted. down. Only reason I am being voted down if because someone or a few think I am here for other reason beside just wanting to get may startup going and just trying to figure it all out. Just leave me alone already.
I would not go so far as stop awarding those karma. It gives people the incentive to post those stories and its not that just by posting one gets some karma. It has to be liked by the community. But the quantum of karma per post should ideally be less than that for a comment.

Karma seems more sought after than I thought. It seems there is almost a viable market for it. Shudder

Indeed, people are here seeking karma for its own sake. That's the problem.

It's also the reason why every single techcrunch article get submitted here. There was a time where you'd see maybe one TC article a week come through, usually with discussion as to whether it was really worth being here.

Realistically, maybe half a dozen articles per day are high enough quality to even be submitted here. The fact that we're seeing thousands each day is a sign that standards have fallen drastically. Removing the incentive to post things unless they're really good would go a long way toward improving the signal to noise ratio.

Your comment made me think of a scheme where a post automatically incurs a tiny negative karma, which can be compensated and exceeded by the karma awarded by the community. Right now we do not have any dis-incentive for posting noise. It will make posters think twice.

However karma has to be made a float as opposed to an integer. I am curious, do downvoters get a tiny hit for downvoting ?

I'm seeing a lot of cases where someone writes a small post to their site and posts it as a story (or even a comment!) on HN just to get publicity for the site. So it might not always be purely for karma.

Though I'm pretty new here, so this might be 'normal'.

Extra karma for early upvoters of stories that later take off and get high up the front page would be good too.
Wouldn't that just lead to some people upvoting everything?
The system would have to take that into account, for example by considering the proportion of stories upvoted that have led to such success.
Great Idea! And I do spend time making sure that people who submit about the same time I do have up voted points. Also try and leave a comment on one that are worth wile that may be a few pages back just so it is seen. I think more people should do this as well.
Couldn't help but notice that a while ago the user submitting those links asked for the benefits of having a higher karma on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051403).

While this is a perfectly valid question that many people have or had, it may also indicate an interest in getting a higher karma for the sake of it, instead of thinking about the benefits of his/her contributions to the community.

I am a newbie and only trying to figure it ALL out. should be able to do this without being called out for asking a newbie question.
should be able to do this without being called out for asking a newbie question.

Nope, sorry. Participating in the community means taking the good with the bad and vice versa. You may not like being "called out" and the OP may or may not be justified in doing so, but it's part of the nature of things. You don't have to like it, but it will happen.

so even my question about being a newbie get voted down. NICE!
Unless you're trying to collect karma for its own sake, why would you even care if it gets voted down, other than to consider why the community might be disagreeing with the sentiments you're expressing? Complaining about it in a petulant way like this isn't likely to change how the community feels.

Anyway, average karma is probably more important, and you can't game that by submitting lots of links/comments - you need to focus on submitting meaningful content instead.

..Or having every thing I have posted in days past being voted down, by a few individuals in the last 1 hour? No matter how worthwhile it is. NOt right, and I have no recourse. I just get to watch my "Karma" drop non stop. NICE.

I appreciate those who are becoming aware of this and are voting some back up. Thanks

This is very unwelcoming and an attack to the individual. Not taking any sides really but the way how you worded the post.

"20 in 20" sounds like you wanted a winning headline (which I guess is the case)

Please stop scolding the user for trying something out of the norm. It just means one will have to take a bit more effort to go back the first page of http://news.ycombinator.com/newest (click the more link... some more).

You can also tell the user that comments hold more value for a person than posting links.

It is like twitter for some people at first you try to mimic the big guys as fast and as abundant as possible but after a while you "get" the system.

Give the user some time o0. These guidelines are taken as advice no? After all this is just an experiment. Stop smothering the small guys, we are people too :)

HN is not like Twitter in that, here, you're generally expected to actually know what you're doing/what's going on. The problem with this "experiment" is that it was (and still is) disruptive to the intended use of HN ("[gratifying] one's intellectual curiousity").

Also, I don't think the regulars would've jumped on 10smom the way they have if it were obviously a newbie mistake. Personally, what galls (enough to pull me out of lurk-mode) is how this could probably have gone away early on if 10smom actually tried to make amends. Instead, additional comments were posted that point to someone who was aware that what she was doing pretty much amounts to gaming HN's karma system.

Thanks so much. I needed to read this after the not stop down votes I have been getting. NO matter what I post.
Perhaps you should consider changing what you post, then? Most of the comments you've left have exactly the same style/tone, and it's a very self-serving and self-entitled one.

It might be better to listen for a while and stop posting more comments complaining about down-voting - the more of those you post the worse your average score will be (because you can be sure that a comment complaining about down-voting will never be voted up much).

The suite guide would indicate that this is considered "bad form".
I do ... one of the nice things about HN is the quality of its human filter!

But to address the cumulative comments made by 10smom below, here's the snippet from her profile - "I am a Female, self funded, Startup Entrepreneur". From what I've seen lurking around here for a year or so, you're best bet is to ask for feedback on your start-up. You'll either get accolades or at least constructive criticism but I strongly doubt you'll get into an argument like this one.

If you're thick-skinned enough to be an entrepreneur, I'm sure you can forget about this thread ... let's just start over as though we'd never met you.

And if you're worthy of karma, people will realize that over time and you'll get it. I started following patio11 a long time before he was a rising karma star, but if you read his comments here and his blog at http://www.kalzumeus.com, you'll realize why he has (and deserves) so much respect.

Pleased to meet you 10smom!

Or take a look here

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=10smom

I wouldn't say that there are spam in the submissions, probably the vast majority of HNers does not go to new page, so it really does not affect the vast majority. Even though it does ignored the last recommendation on submission guidelines[1], but even then I do not see much problems about that.

[1]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> it really does not affect the vast majority

It does affect the majority, because worthy submissions get lost in this flood and are not promoted to the front page.

Y combinator encourage posting news by their rating system. Nothing wrong here by doing exactly what YC encourages. Why not post if I find good news? They even make it extremely easy by their bookmarklet. Also it gives me a great way to keep good news in one place: my profile! :)
Generally the unspoken rule here is that if you are taking up most of /newest you are posting too much. Sorry that's unintuitive; it's quite weird that Hacker News has lots of secret rules.
"Y combinator encourage posting news by their rating system. Nothing wrong here by doing exactly what YC encourages. Why not post if I find good news? They even make it extremely easy by their bookmarklet."

There is absolutely no question that you're abusing the system. You're purposefully degrading the experience of everyone, and of course you're aware of it. Whether there's a rule about this sort of thing is completely irrelevant and stating that "Y combinator encourage" this behavior by not implementing functionality to stop it is simply disingenious.

Any system can be gamed or abused if you just make an effort. In the end it comes down to your (missing) sense of honor. Do you want to contribute or would you rather like to corrupt the world? Corrosion is always easier of course, and may even reward you in the short run. And I guess we already are rewarding you by talking about you, so I guess the strategy paid off. HN wouldn't be the first site to die like this, but I'm guessing this is not the time yet.

The thing that I do not like about it is that it floods out other submissions from the "New" page. Surely there are better and less disruptive ways of keeping track of news you find interesting.

Maybe something like a cool-off period, similar to what is used for deeply nested threads, will be good.

This is ridiculous This is amy inteial reply to this post and because of all the replies under it It get -pts. I just replied to the guys post directed . Why am I being penalized by answering his question?
Whoah, the whole of newest is this guy. Moreso, what on earth is web-citation? Apart from a tad annoying!
Think Google Cache. He used it since that page is always changing.
Ahh I see. Makes sense, very clever. HN should have the same sort of thing that Techmeme has. Clever stuff, that.
If you notice most of the news is CES 2011 and thought it was worth while info to post. LOts of news coming out right now from CES. Do a search you too will find a ton of new stuff since I posted. Feel free to post! I promise I will not call you out. :)
If you want to post something about CES 2011 that you think would be of interest to hackers, do it, but pick ONE item that you think is the best and submit that.

If that one item doesn't make it to the front page, then you confirm that others don't have interest in the other not-as-good items, so don't submit those.

Again I have pts bing taking away from just responding. OH MY! I have gone down 20 pts by just responding. And I can not take pts away in kind for responses to me. HOw fair is this? PLease not this was a comment from 20 minute ago. It is fair to reply to it, but it is not fair to give move down when all I am doing is responding to something that is directed at me. PLease give a newbie a break already and stop bringing down everything a I post.
OK so, Now I am getting the system: Flame A person for being a newbie, Collect as many up points as you can by doing so then, follow that newbie around and down vote everything they post? Do I have that straight? I just want to be sure.
Careful... You are bordering on being inflammatory with your sarcastic questions. Having read all of your posts/replies, you are close to what people would call a troll.

From wikipedia - In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

As I am sure this is not the intention you have, please be a bit more careful. We are all friends here. No need for sarcastic questions or inflammatory messages.

The problem is that we are (mostly) programmers and the temptation to automate this sort of thing is quite overwhelming :)

Well we use tools to automate the reading of this site, why not the posting too?

Sure I can bulk dump entries from my feed reader to HN, but that doesn't mean I should, right ?
> why not the posting too?

I'd prefer readers to be human filters, submitting only the best of the best out of their RSS feeds, such that the overall submission rate stays at a rate that I can read.

Definitely. And regarding karma, for me the only karma that "counts" is the messages one, the ones who only dump links on HN without commenting further are on the wrong site, imho.
This probably results from a collision of the submission bookmarklet and an RSS reader, perhaps combined with someone's massive morning cup of coffee.
"Please don't submit so many links at once that the new page is dominated by your submissions"

PG