Comment by llamageddon01 on 19/10/2021 at 17:14 UTC*

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies (showing 0)

View submission: The NewToReddit Encyclopaedia Redditica v2

Karma

If this is your first time reading about Reddit Karma, you should read this first: **Reddit and Karma Explained**[1].

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/p8t966/reddit_and_karma_explained/

Very simplistically, Karma is an approximation of the upvotes you get on your Posts and Comments minus the downvotes. The exact algorithm isn't known, but, as I said in our introduction Reddit Karma - Your Reddit XP[2], there isn’t a 1:1 relationship between votes and karma[3] despite initial appearances, and both negative and positive karma are capped on individual posts and comments. Because both are cumulative, the maximum amount of negative karma you can have has been set at -100 (for comments; posts can’t go below 0) and positive karma is capped at 5k[4].

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/p8t966/reddit_and_karma_explained/h9sqcti/

3: https://www.reddit.com/r/karma/wiki/index/faq/#wiki_footnotes

4: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/f8y9nx/spring_forward_into_reddits_2019_transparency/fioadnb/

**Roughly, Reddit Karma works like this:**

Reddit will never reveal the specific algorithm behind Karma, and all the following is given only as a very simplistic way of understanding a very complex set of equations.

If a comment has 1 upvote and gets another, the commenter gets 1 karma.
The more votes a comment or post gets, the less each individual vote is worth.
Therefore, if a comment has, say, 5,000 upvotes (again, this is an example as the actual threshold is unknown) and 5 people upvote it (again, vague numbers), the commenter gets 1 karma.
We don't know exactly how the scaling works, but we do know that each upvote counts less towards one's karma score as the post/comment score goes up.
Therefore, if a comment has, say, 10,000 upvotes and 20 people upvote it, the commenter gets 1 karma.
The amount of karma you can receive (or lose) on an individual comment is capped as above. Again, don’t confuse this figure with the number of upvotes or downvotes received.
You can also get negative karma if you get enough downvotes. Try to avoid this as it is very hard to come back from.

This is only about new karma acquisition after a certain number of points; someone with a comment with 5,000 upvotes obviously gets more than 1 karma, but the total amount gained would be less than 5,000.

A Redditor made a visualisation of the relationship between karma and upvotes[5] which is complex and beautiful, and marvel at some of the statistics at the Karma Leaderboard[6]. Input your own username to see how you compare[7] with everyone else, and remind yourself that the only karma you actually NEED is enough to get you into the subreddits you want to be in.

5: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/f1jszx/oc_the_relationship_between_karma_and_upvotes/

6: https://www.karmalb.com

7: https://www.karmalb.com/user/llamageddon01

**What does Reddit itself say about Karma?**

The official Reddit information about karma is here[8]. There are four kinds of Karma: Post, Comment, Awarder and Awardee and you can find your personal amount of earned Karma by clicking on your Profile in the top right hand corner or by clicking the blue link of your username on one of your own posts. You can also check your Karma breakdown here: http://old.reddit.com/u/me/overview[9].

8: https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204511829-What-is-karma-

9: http://old.reddit.com/u/me/overview

Another unofficial but quite comprehensive guide to Karma can be found here[10], and there is another detailed explanation of Karma here, with other useful links too[11].

10: https://www.reddit.com/r/karma/wiki/index/faq

11: https://www.reddit.com/r/karma/comments/kkis5i/read_this_before_posting_weve_noticed_that_the/

**Types of Karma**

*Comment Karma** comes from the votes given on that comment, and it comes from both Parent and Child comments. Reddit will automatically give you one upvote for each and every comment you make which you should regard as a “thank you” for participating. This will not earn you Comment Karma but will stop your comment from appearing as if it has already been downvoted.

As a new Redditor, this is what you should be concentrating on right now, and our guide to Participating on Reddit: Commenting[12] will give you more details, hints and tips on growing this count.

*Post Karma** is earned by making or crossposting posts. When you submit a Post, all votes on that post will be converted to Karma[13]. Reddit will automatically give you one upvote for each and every post you make which you should regard as a “thank you” for participating. This will not earn you Post Karma but will stop your post from appearing as if it has already been downvoted.

12: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/p8t966/reddit_and_karma_explained/h9sr5e0/

13: https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204511829-What-is-karma-

As a new Redditor, this is what you should be concentrating on next, and our guide to Participating on Reddit: Posting[14] will give you more details, hints and tips on growing this count.

*Award Karma / Awardee Karma** are recent additions to Reddit[15] where you get karma for giving Awards (Awarder Karma) and for being given Awards (Awardee Karma). Receiving an award is a signal of recognition from another Redditor, so it was decided it should earn a nominal amount of Karma, and that the recipient should get more Karma when the award costs more. These two factors make up the Awardee Karma calculation.

14: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/p8t966/reddit_and_karma_explained/h9ss4vt/

15: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/iz7nnb/award_karma/

As a new Redditor, Award Karma is not helpful to you at all in getting to the point where you can post and comment freely across Reddit without restrictions.

Awarder Karma can earn you a Trophy on your profile showing how generous with giving out Gold & Platinum (Gilding Level Trophy) Argentium (Argentium Club) and Ternion (Ternion Club) you are. Giving smaller awards counts towards Award karma. Award/Awardee Karma like normal Karma is not given at a 1:1 ratio, and again, the figures are shown on your Profile.

Something else you should know is that individual subreddits have the option to hide vote visibility for up to a day, as a method of encouraging legitimate voting and discouraging the “bandwagon effect”. Upvotes, downvotes and the ensuing karma are still being counted and will eventually become visible. These posts may have the word *vote* instead of displaying the number[16].

16: https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204511579-Why-can-t-I-see-how-many-upvotes-a-post-or-comment-has-sometimes-

*Because there is a Subreddit for everything:**

r/karma is another place to learn about Reddit Karma, but read their rules[17] before participating as they are not a free karma pity party. However, the intrepid Redditor u/PorkyPain has one of the best breakdowns ever there on how to get 1 million karma[18] and is very much worth your while to read.

17: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnToReddit/comments/pjsazs/finding_a_subreddits_rules/

18: https://www.reddit.com/r/karma/comments/ib5oas/tips_and_tricks_to_get_karma_in_reddit/

*See Also:**

Award Karma / Awardee Karma[19]
Crosspost[20]
Downvote[21]
Gilding Level Trophies[22]
Insights[23]
Parent / Child Comment[24]
Reddit Karma - Your Reddit XP[25]
Trophies[26]
Upvote[27]
Vote Arrows hidden or greyed-out on Posts[28]
Vote Fuzzing[29]

19: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhhjil5/

20: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhiax1m/

21: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhifjl5/

22: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hh8wshb/

23: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/i75fo99/

24: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhck1r2/

25: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/p8t966/reddit_and_karma_explained/h9sqcti/

Comment by llamageddon01 on 19/10/2021 at 17:14 UTC*

Karma

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