Deciphered the mechanism of karma

In my study of the habrakarma mechanism conducted during March of this year, I used 75 virtual characters. The power of the cluster consisting of 45 characters involved in the preliminary experiment was not enough 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 administration of Habrahabr blocked 7 characters, but the nature and scale of the experiment, it seems, did not solve. In this connection, I apologize to the administration in advance and look forward to understanding: if worlds are being created, then isn't it to investigate them?

During the experiment, 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 weed out the statistical “noise” (in this case, the subjective evaluations of other users), and to identify the patterns of automatic correction of karma laid down by the creators in its very mechanism.

It turned out, in particular, that the automatic adjustment occurs as a result of certain actions and reactions of the user (which I will speak about below). But it is launched - not immediately after the action, but only after the user has published the next topic, and is embodied in parts in a chaotic manner within a few days. For many years, this simple trick helped the creators of Habrahabr to disguise the true mechanism of karma, hiding it behind the smoke screen of users' voting (voting itself, of course, is also important - but automatic corrections are no less important, as it turns out).
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So, here are the main patterns found (I’ll make a reservation once again to not repeat many times: any of the following points only works after another topic and is “smeared” for several days):

1. If, after lowering the user's karma, he writes a new topic earlier than in a day, his karma is automatically reduced by 7 additional units. If later than 10 days - is reduced by 5 units. The logic, in general, is clear: no need to be hysterical or depressed. Need a little bit to think about their failures.
2. If the user after the topic has dropped karma, then for each unit of lowering karma to his commentators, he receives 2 units of an additional decrease in his own karma.
3. Karma users who refrain from revenge on real and imaginary enemies for five days, automatically increases by 7 units.
4. A user who only increases or only lowers 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 reduction of karma (and for topics in collective blogs - by 10 units).
6. The user who starts a search on the topic of publication in front of each topic is encouraged by 15 units of karma.
7. Each search by topics “boobs”, “crack” and “enlarge penis” is fraught with an automatic two-week lead of the user to “minus” regardless of the reaction of other users to his topics.
8. By not responding to comments — as well as commenting only on friends from the first round — you lower your karma by one point every day.
9. If you give a hand to someone else's comments with an unwavering hand, while your topic is minus - you will be rewarded (a point of karma - in exchange for every plus for a comment).

While all - not counting the funny bug I discovered in the mechanism of karma. If you consistently raise the karma of seven users, whose nicknames consist, respectively, of 7, 4, 3, 8, 5, 4, 6 letters - then within three days your own karma will rise by 25 units (in 10 sessions, 2–3 units in a row)!

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

Ah, these lovelovers are web programmers! Probably, he kept the phone of a young intern in the first working window - but forgot to transfer it to your organizer! With me often this happened in his youth. But do not hope that over the years I have become hardened, and now I am ready to sell the romantic code I discovered to the first person I met. In the study of the mechanism of karma, I am attracted to the spiritual, not the material. And in this case, the most fascinating spiritual conflict is that:

1. The creators of Habrakarma clearly sought to lay in it the principle: "Do not harm your neighbor," and wanted to push the people of the portal to knowledge, creativity, mutual understanding;
2. The creators of Habrakarma surrounded her true mechanism with complete silence (I would not be surprised if absolute silence is the answer to this topic). Consequently, we can only believe that the main principles of life on this portal are really: “Do not harm your neighbor, learn, create, understand.” Perhaps we stand at the origins of the new religion - after all, religions are created precisely by silence and faith.

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

Ps. Thanks, Habrahabr, that helped me get rid of karmozavisimosti. Farewell, Habrahabr: your eagles are already pecking my liver ...