Decrypted Karma Mechanism

    In my study of the mechanism of habrakarma, conducted during March of this year, I used 75 virtual characters. The power of the cluster of 45 characters involved in the preliminary experiment was insufficient to draw reliable conclusions from the statistics obtained. Today, I estimate the error of the research results as 1.3%.

    By the end of the experiment, the Habrahabr administration blocked 7 characters, but the nature and scale of the experiment did not seem to be unraveled. In this connection, I apologize in advance to the administration and look forward to understanding: if the worlds are created, then is it not in order to explore them?

    During the experiment, the automated activity of virtual characters in relation to each other was recorded in the database and compared with the dynamics of their karma. The final analysis of the database made it possible to sift out the statistical “noise” (in this case, subjective assessments of other users), and to reveal the patterns of automatic karma correction laid down by the creators in its mechanism.

    It turned out, in particular, that automatic adjustment occurs as a result of certain actions and reactions of the user (which I will talk about below). But it starts - not immediately after the action, but only after the user posts the next topic, and is implemented in parts in a chaotic order for several days. For many years, this simple trick helped the creators of Habrahabr mask the true mechanism of karma, hiding it behind the "smoke screen" of users ’votes (the voting itself, of course, is also important - but automatic adjustments are also just as important).

    So, here are the main identified patterns (I’ll make a reservation once again so as not to be repeated many times: any of the items listed below only works after the next topic and is “spread out” for several days):

    1. If, after lowering the user's karma, he writes a new topic earlier than in a day - his karma automatically decreases by 7 additional units. If later than after 10 days - decreases by 5 units. The logic, in general, is understandable: you do not need to fall into either hysteria or depression. We need to ponder our failures a little bit.
    2. If the user has lost karma after the topic, then for each unit of lowering karma to his commentators he gets 2 units of additional reduction of his own karma.
    3. The karma of users who refrain from revenge on real and imaginary enemies for five days is automatically increased by 7 units.
    4. A user who only increases or only decreases karma to other users is punished with a weekly decrease in karma by 5 units.
    5. A user who does not read the main feed, but only writes to his blog, is punished for each topic by 5 units of karma reduction (and for topics in collective blogs - by 10 units).
    6. A user who starts a search on a publication topic before each topic is encouraged by 15 units of karma.
    7. Each search on the topics “boobs”, “crack” and “enlarge penis” is fraught with automatic two-week removal of the user to “minus”, regardless of the reaction of other users to his topics.
    8. By not responding to comments - just like commenting only friends from the first round - you lower your karma by one point every day.
    9. If you use your unwavering hand to put pluses on other people's comments, while your topic is minus - you will be rewarded (karma point - in exchange for each plus for the comment).

    So far, everything - apart from the funny bug that I discovered in the mechanism of karma. If you consistently raise karma to seven users whose nicknames consist of 7, 4, 3, 8, 5, 4, 6 letters, respectively, then within three days your own karma will rise by 25 units (for 10 sessions in 2-3 units in a row)!

    This sequence - 7438546 - reminded me a lot of the telephone number (for ethical reasons, as you understand, I changed the real sequence of numbers to a fictitious one). When I called at random, a gentle girlish voice answered me.

    Ah, these lovelace web programmers! I suppose I saved the phone of the young trainee in the first pop-up working window - but I forgot to transfer it to my organizer! This often happened to me in my youth. But do not hope that over the years I have hardened, and now I am ready to sell the romantic code that I discovered to the first person I meet. In the study of the mechanism of karma, I am attracted to the spiritual, not the material. And in this case, a fascinating spiritual conflict is that:

    1. The creators of the habra-karma clearly sought to lay the principle in it: “Do no harm to the neighbor”, and wanted to push the inhabitants of the portal to knowledge, creativity, and mutual understanding;
    2. The creators of the habrakarma surrounded its true mechanism with complete silence (I won’t be surprised if absolute silence is the answer to this topic). Therefore, we can only believe that the main principles of life on this portal are: “Do not harm your neighbor, know, create, understand.” Perhaps we are at the forefront of the new religion - for religions are created precisely by silence and faith.

    I have no doubt, however, that automatic karma correction algorithms are constantly changing (how Google and Yandex change their search algorithms). It is unlikely that all the one-to-one patterns tracked in March will be valid in April. But I hope that they will serve as a good starting point for further research. They will also become an inspiring stimulus for everyone who is not satisfied with the size of their own karma.

    PS. Thank you, Habrahabr, for helping me get rid of karmozavisimost. Goodbye, Habrahabr: your eagles are already pecking my liver ...

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