“Post Karma” on Reddit — Explained!

Sharing is caring!

These days, social media websites and apps are a dime a dozen. It seems like every year, an old social media platform fizzles out, but two more somehow manage pop up in its place.

For this reason, the social media platforms that have withstood the test of time are exceptionally notable.

When compared to the few other longstanding social media platforms, Reddit is unique in a ton of ways.

Reddit has been steadily growing since its inception in 2005, and it has largely retained the same basic formula.

This marks it as one of the oldest extant social media websites. Profiles lack pictures or much notable information, and most people don’t even use their real names.

The main purpose of Reddit is to aggregate links, images, and text posts in a format that encourages active discovery and conversation about a wide variety of topics.

Like Facebook and Twitter, Reddit has a way to show your approval of a post, but in comparison to other platforms, it’s very unique.

While you can “like” images, posts, and comments on many other social media platforms, Reddit is one of the few popular platforms that will allow you to “dislike” another user’s content.

However, instead of liking a post or comment, you can give it an “upvote.” Instead of giving a dislike, you can slap the “downvote” button. These actions contribute to a user’s “Reddit Karma.”

Reddit Karma is further subdivided into comment karma and post karma.

 

What Is “Post Karma” on Reddit?

Reddit karma is the sum of all of the upvotes and downvotes on a person’s post, comment, or Reddit profile. Intuitively, the cumulative karma points of all of your comments go towards your overall comment karma score, and the cumulative karma points of all of your posts go towards your post karma score. Generally, if a comment or post is controversial, off-topic, or unkind, then it will receive many downvotes. Similarly, helpful, thought-provoking, or generally interesting content will usually receive upvotes. Of course, this all depends on which community the content is shared to. The same post may receive a vastly different karma score on two different subreddits.

 

What Is a Subreddit?

A subreddit is a community on Reddit that is organized around a particular topic. Subreddits are referred to in the format of “r/subredditname,” and the name usually gives a very good indication of the subreddit’s purpose. F

For example, r/Toronto is a place for people to discuss the city of Toronto, and r/catbellies is a place to share pictures of cats showing off their soft bellies.

 

How Does Someone Accumulate Reddit Post Karma?

To accumulate post karma, you need to post an image, link, or block of text on a subreddit. Your comment karma does not count towards your post karma, but both comment karma and post karma contribute to your overall karma.

Each subreddit has its own rules, moderators, and social norms, so you want to make sure that you’re following a subreddit’s posted guidelines before making a post.

Each subreddit has a varying set of rules and norms. Some subreddits don’t allow you to post links or text, but other subreddits may not have such limits.

While you may act silly and sarcastic on a meme-centric subreddit, such behavior might not be appropriate on r/techsupport.

Different subreddits have widely differing criteria for what should be considered quality content, and your posts and comments will be upvoted or downvoted according to each subreddit’s culture.

Even if you follow all of the rules, a low-effort post that doesn’t provide any valuable information or questions will likely be downvoted.

Repetitive topics are also likely to receive a downvote. For example, if you post the same theory on r/StarWars that people have been posting about for years, then nobody will be interested in your content.

Thus, you should look up the general idea of your post within the subreddit before making a post of your own. There’s a good chance that somebody has already posted about the same topic, and valuable information may be found in the comment section.

When posting or commenting, you should observe proper “reddiquette.” This term encompasses the general etiquette and social expectations of all users.

To practice good reddiquette, you should be pleasant to other users, refrain from spamming and phishing, and avoid downvoting posts or comments solely because you disagree with them.

In short, you should try to feel some empathy for your fellow users.

While it is fine to downvote low-effort content and opinions that are mean-spirited or deplorable, you shouldn’t necessarily downvote a thoughtful post that doesn’t align with your worldview.

Many users ignore this core principle of proper reddiquette, but most people try to do their best to observe it.

By following good reddiquette, you can avoid toxic environments and useless echo chambers.

If reddiquette is routinely ignored on a subreddit, then it will quickly devolve into an unpleasant and useless place.

 

What Can You Do With Reddit Karma?

Karma is very limited in its usefulness. It can’t be exchanged for goods or services, and it’s not really something to brag about. In fact, people will probably laugh at you if you gloat about your Reddit karma score.

However, some subreddits require users to have a certain amount of post karma or comment karma before they can post or comment.

These requirements are often put in place to prevent spam and other malicious actions. Furthermore, a user’s karma score may indicate how reliable and useful their input is.

A higher karma rating means that more people agree with a comment or post, and a lower rating may mean that the comment or post is unhelpful or inaccurate.

Therefore, if you ask a question about your computer on a subreddit like r/technsupport, then you’ll likely gain useful information from the comments with the most karma.

Likewise, you should probably ignore the comments with negative karma. Naturally, karma scores may be less relevant on subreddits that explore politics, art, and more subjective topics.