How karma works

Accounts earn karma by contributing things other people accept, and lose it by wasting their time. It is a number on your profile, the sum of a ledger you can read on your account page, and it decides how much your ratings count and what you may do here. The system is kycnot.me’s, numbers included.

Earning karma

  • A review approved (+1): when a moderator publishes your review. Insiders of the service and staff earn nothing for it.
  • A review verified (+5): when a moderator marks it as verified, for a review that is unusually well founded.
  • Votes (±1): each upvote on your review is a point, each downvote costs one. One account can move at most 3 points of another’s karma this way, in either direction, and a vote on your own review moves nothing.
  • A suggestion approved (+10): when a service you suggested, or an edit you proposed to a listed one, is accepted.

Losing karma

  • Spam (-10): when a moderator marks your review as spam. Taken off again, the points come back.

What it unlocks

With karma
10% review weightYour ratings have limited impact on service scores
above −5 karma
20% review weightYour ratings count more after some account activity
5 karma
Vote on reviewsYou can vote reviews up and down
20 karma
45% review weightYour ratings count as active-user feedback
25 karma
80% review weightYour ratings count as high-karma feedback
150 karma
Display nameYou can set a display name
150 karma
Website linkYou can add a website link to your profile
175 karma
High karma badgeYou are a high karma user
500 karma
With its loss
0% review weightYour ratings do not affect service scores
-5 karma
Negative karma badgeYou are shown as a suspicious user
-10 karma
Untrusted badgeYou are shown as an untrusted user
-30 karma
Reviews disabledYou cannot post reviews
-50 karma

How ratings are weighted

A service’s community rating is not a plain average. Each rating is weighted by how much the account behind it has shown of itself, so a five-star review from an account made five minutes ago counts a tenth of one from a long-standing member. Only an account’s latest rating of a service counts; earlier ones stay visible and weigh nothing.

Verified review100%
Accepted private proof of use90%
Moderator90%
Verified account, or 150 karma80%
25 karma45%
5 karma20%
A new account, or no account10%
Karma of −5 or below, a spammer, or an insider of the service0%

Staff

Moderators and admins earn no karma; theirs reads as infinite. An admin can hand karma out, or take it, with a reason the account sees.

Your account shows where you stand. About & method explains the scores themselves, which karma never touches.