1 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: The NewToReddit Encyclopaedia Redditica v2
Comment by llamageddon01 at 19/10/2021 at 17:16 UTC*
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Also known as “Karma Whoring”. Basically asking - or begging - for upvotes and / or karma without being engaged in conversation. Posts asking for or even talking about Karma or awards (e.g. “Upvote all my comments and I’ll upvote yours” or “What’s an award?”) will be at best downvoted or may even earn you a ban. There are very few exceptions to this; your Cakeday being the only legitimate time you can ask for Karma in certain places, or in subs with the specific purpose of talking about (but not asking for) Karma such as r/Karma or, of course, r/NewToReddit.
You will no doubt come across Subreddits which offer upvotes or karma for no or little effort. They don’t hide their intentions of promising you upvotes (or karma) in return for your giving upvotes to their posts with no other interaction. These places are known as “karmafarms” and you should avoid them. They are easy enough to spot from their names, and DO NOT be tempted by them no matter what you might read there. They can be easy traps to fall into because some of those upvote scores on older posts look amazing to a new user, but those scores have been manipulated[1] which is very much against the Reddit rules[2].
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhujb0m/
2: https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043066412
The few upvotes you’ll get in a karmafarm as a genuine user aren’t worth the risk to the integrity of your account. Even if you aren’t caught by Reddit itself, posting in subreddits meant for “gaming” the Reddit system can and will get you banned from participating in some major subreddits that you may want - or need - to use in the future because a lot of moderators see them as a way of circumventing karma requirements to post or comment in their community. You can read more about this in User-History Based Moderation[3].
3: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhui9rj/
As I said above, most new users don’t actually get that many upvotes from those subs and there’s a reason for that: those subs aren’t used by regular new people looking for early Karma at the start of their Reddit journey. Karma farms are mostly populated by fake accounts: Bots and their Alts with no real intention of engaging at all on Reddit. They exist solely to farm karma for their other Bot Alts, widely used by marketers and political groups with things to promote illicitly on Reddit. They are only there to collect upvotes in a “voting-go-round” with each other to increase their karma to pass the minimum requirements that exist on most big subs.
Spambots are a very real problem on Reddit. They’re not hard to spot once you do a little digging as the comments they make are usually generic and the pictures they post (when they do) are just quickly farmed from Google pretending to be from an actual person. But they rely on the fact that most of us don’t check everyone’s profile or history before responding to them. With enough votes, a fake profile can appear real enough to trick people, and apparently this is causing some mayhem and a real problem in the subs that deal with stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Simple: there is real life money involved. Promotional companies that want to do "organic advertising" or political astroturfing need older accounts with lots of karma to appear legitimate, and so do the sketchy companies who want you to go to their malware, dodgy advertisement, dropship, phishing or credit-card scam sites. Gaining karma will increase their ability to post items such as T-Shirts, prints, mugs or other ephemerals with an innocuous caption saying things like “Got this for a friend” or “This arrived today”. Fall for one of those posts at your peril.
These farmed profiles are also being sold to people who want to seem legitimate or to have credibility in Reddit, especially in subs with real-life money or influence involved. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this experiment[4] and realise why most subs have an anti-spambot filter and mods with a heavy banhammer. That Redditor just used one of the grey market sites out there. There is a lot more information and discussion here[5] about this issue, and not just in Reddit[6].
6: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2016/12/14/how-we-bought-reddit-for-200/?sh=410b00f444a8
That’s a very good question[7] and one that has been asked[8] many times with plenty of debate[9] but no official conclusion[10].
8: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/cpe06f/why_are_give_me_karma_subreddits_allowed/
10: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/jmohns/why_are_free_karma_subreddits_still_allowed/
In February 2020, the Reddit CEO made a statement about Karma farming[11] saying: *The answer is right now we’re in between a rock and a hard place. We want new users to be able to discover Reddit, but aggressive karma rules, which mods set up when Reddit had very limited tools, make it very hard for first-time users to contribute. Karma farms are a bad solution to this, which is why we’re working on tools like Crowd Control that limit the damage bad actors can cause without overly punishing well-meaning new users. I've been proposing an idea around karma reciprocity - letting communities take into account a user's karma in other communities.* There has been no official statement since.
After spending ten years on Reddit, u/ActionScripter9109 compiled an excellent written guide to the growth of dishonest posting on Reddit, called The Weird World of Spam, Scams, and Manipulation on Reddit[12] with insights on how to spot such goings-on and what you can do to guard against being manipulated. The discussion about it was fascinating too[13].
Another guide to spotting these fake accounts is here[14] and there is more information in our entry on Spambot Spotting[15].
14: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/42mkxv/bots_on_reddit_that_try_to_appear_human/
15: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhu1f42/
If you are at all serious about being on Reddit, you need to build up karma in the same way we all did - slowly but with quality. Reddit is not a “race to the top”, it’s there to be enjoyed for what it is - a content sharing platform where you decide what level of interaction you want with other Redditors. Just set out to be a good person, and think of your karma as being your internet legacy.
16: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhhi2si/
17: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hh8n8nd/
18: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhle0an/3
19: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/p8t966/reddit_and_karma_explained/h9spx16
20: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhqwr1l/
21: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/p8t966/reddit_and_karma_explained/h9sqcti/
22: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhcsj0z/
23: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhu1bx6/
24: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhu1igd/
25: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhcvbfx/
26: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhui9rj/
27: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhujb0m/
Comment by llamageddon01 at 19/10/2021 at 17:14 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
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
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.
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.
7: https://www.karmalb.com/user/llamageddon01
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/
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-
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/
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].
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/
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/
26: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhu4tdu/
27: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhui1b8/
28: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhuiz8x/
29: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhuj14n/
Comment by llamageddon01 at 22/10/2021 at 09:29 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Please go to our revised entry here: Karma Farming
Comment by llamageddon01 at 05/05/2022 at 14:24 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
“kill your self”. This lower-case initialism is mostly found in teen gaming communities as a way of “trash talking” or an “edgy” way to say “fuck you”[1].
1: https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/kys/
“kys” is favoured by children and teens, most of whom argue that it’s just a joke, and when challenged on it will adopt a faux innocence, claiming their linguistic superiority in informing you that the word "kys" literally means "kiss" in Danish, or can also mean "keep yourself safe", hiding behind the phenomenon of Lexical Change (a shift in the meaning or use of a word) while meta-trolling with an unholy mixture of whitewashing, gaslighting, Brandolini’s Law and Poe’s Law to try and bullshit their way out of it.
When you're an angry person with poor impulse control, one of the ways you learn to channel your own anger is to lash out and try to hurt others. Psychologists often speak of the “online disinhibition effect”[2] - our tendency to say things on the internet that we would never dare to say in real life. Restraint and teens rarely go hand in hand, but regardless, it’s actually quite sad that we now have a commonly used shorthand to provoke, suggest or even just refer to suicide in fun.
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect
Suicide is a serious subject. This kind of language should not be taken lightly. Please report anyone who says “kys”, “kill yourself”[3] or similar phrases on Reddit. Inviting someone to commit suicide is against Reddit’s code of conduct[4] and may well incur a ban[5].
4: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy
If you see a genuine post or comment about suicidal feelings in a community, it can be overwhelming, and you may feel like you don’t know what to do. But you can help, and there are resources on Reddit available for you and the person you’re worried about[6].
When you tap the three dots in the top right corner of a user’s profile page[7] there is an option called 'get them help and support'. On selecting this, Reddit sends out an automated message with some suicide helpline phone numbers and links.
7: https://i.redd.it/jqtjfb501ox81.jpg
The moderators of r/SuicideWatch maintain a list of FAQs, information, and resources at r/SWResources and a worldwide list of hotlines[8]. If you’ve lost someone to suicide, r/SuicideBereavement is there for you.
8: https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines
There’s also a useful list of subreddits for advice or support on depression or other mental health issues here[9].
9: https://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfSubreddits/comments/dmic6o/advice_mental_health_subreddits/
10: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/i3riqtm/
11: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhhgpii/
12: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhhskbf/
13: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/i6bfarf/
14: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/i6jgeou/
15: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhll1lb/
16: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhqw4ki/
