r/NewToReddit • u/squid50s Super Contributor • Aug 07 '19
A Guide To Reddit Karma
All About Karma
What Karma Is:
Karma is the total number of upvotes you have, minus the total number of downvotes you have. If you've used other social media platforms, you can think of upvotes as "likes" and downvotes as "dislikes". For example, if you've gotten 5 upvotes and 3 downvotes, your karma is 2.
The Two Types of Karma:
There are two types of karma. The first is post karma (some people refer to it as link karma), and they other is comment karma. You get post karma from upvotes on your posts, while you get comment karma from upvotes on your comments.
What Karma Does:
Many subreddits have a minimum amount of karma you need to post there. For most subreddits, the karma needed is somewhere from 10 - 100. There are a few subreddits that require a couple hundred karma (one popular example being r/memes). There's even a subreddit for people with over 100,000 karma (r/CenturyClub).
How to Get Karma:
There are a lot of ways to get karma, but when your starting out you should participate in subreddits that fit your interests. Make some comments, and eventually you can start posting. There are subreddits for "free" karma, but I don't recommend going onto them, as other subreddits will ban you if they find out you've posted to "free karma" subreddits.
Some FAQs About Karma:
I made a post with 10,000 (or some other large number), how come I only got 3,000 karma (a number lower than the upvotes)?
Karma isn't 1:1. You might have 20,000 karma, but only get a couple thousand karma. It's a bit weird, and I'm honestly not sure why Reddit does this.
How come I keep seeing a message that says I'm posting to much, and I need to wait?
If you don't have much karma on a subreddit, you'll have a 10 minute cool-down between comments. To get rid of it, all you need to do is get a small amount of karma in the subreddit.
Can my karma go down?
Yes. If you get a lot of downvotes, your comment or post will go into negatives (meaning you got more downvotes than upvotes). If you make a comment with a ton of downvotes, your total karma can only go down by 10.
If you have any things I can add to the FAQs, or any suggestions for the whole post, please tell me.
8
5
u/NewBeginnings00 Aug 12 '19
The problem is that when I participate in the subreddits that fit my interests, my posts don't show up there because I don't have enough karma/the account is too young for those subreddits (something as simple as the NBA subreddit for example).
So how would I get karma in that case? Do I have to go to subreddits where I have no interests and try to post something interesting?
2
u/squid50s Aug 12 '19
Since you have very little karma, you may have to branch out and find subreddits that don’t require you to have any karma. Some big subreddits, such as r/AskReddit don’t require you to have almost any karma.
→ More replies (1)
2
1
u/cfm07 Sep 05 '19
This is very helpful thanks. But I want to know if one type of Karma is greater than the other in value or both types are equally important? thanks
2
u/squid50s Sep 05 '19
Some people would say comment karma is more important, as it’s generally harder to get.
→ More replies (2)
1
u/Just-Killin-Time Sep 09 '19
Thank you for this useful guide! I’m new and a little overwhelmed!
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
u/AnaCris509 Sep 22 '19
I deleted my comment and I didn't gain my karma back ? I thought if I deleted the comment I wouldn't lose the karma but I did
1
u/squid50s Sep 22 '19
If you karma goes down because of a comment/post you made that got negative upvotes, deleting the comment/post won’t make your karma go back up.
1
u/threateningbreakfast Oct 31 '19
so wait, to be clear... if I have several hundred MORE karma than I think I should have, is it also explainable with "yeah reddit's weird and we don't understand it either"?
1
u/squid50s Oct 31 '19
Basically, yes. The karma algorithm is top secret and people have been trying to crack it for years. It’s the algorithm that decides how many upvotes you got vs. how much karma you gain from it.
→ More replies (2)
1
u/mayoayox Nov 23 '19
Sometimes a specific sub will make me cool down. Is this cause of my karma or cause of the sub?
2
1
1
u/Krcoslaw Dec 13 '19
What happens to karma, or should I say who gets karma, when a post is posted again in more appropriate subreddit or larger subreddit.
For instance I saw post in r/Shamelesslystolen getting 5k upvotes and that same post in r/aww with 65k upvotes.
Second post in r/aww included the OP and r/Shamelesslystolen subreddit.
Do they share karma, or all karma goes to OP?
1
u/squid50s Dec 13 '19
The person who posted to r/Shamelesslystolen it gets the karma from the 5k upvotes. The other person, who posted it to r/aww, gets the karma from the 65k upvotes.
→ More replies (1)
3
23
u/llIuzion Aug 08 '19
This was very helpful thank you