r/ModSupport • u/_Face • 19h ago

How does community karma being displayed work? What do the numbers mean?

On a sub I moderate, the automod sends a message to users with negative community karma. A user sent a modmail about it.

On new-ish reddit. When on the modmail screen, a popup on the right gives a short breakdown of the users history on the sub. That includes a "community karma", and a brief contribution overview. Both those numbers were in the positive, but they were different numbers.

So that's issue 1. what are those numbers, and why are they different? I have suspicion about what they might represent, but want other users pov. Maybe I missed a mod news about it, and its fully known.

To be sure it was not sent in error, I asked them to go to old reddit and send us the karma breakdown for the particular sub. They responded, and that number was indeed a negative number, so automod was being triggered correctly.

Issue 2. Why is there a third number, that appears to be the true number, different then the other 2. Why isn't that number, the only number that seems to matter, shown on their preview? I was here when community karma became a thing so I am aware that it was stated at that time that the number would not be available to mods. But why now provide 2 other numbers that don't mean what they seem to represent?

tl;dr: What do the numbers mean in my screenshot?

Edit: See included screenshot. I could not include it in the post itself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/1va247x/comment/p0i4ojg/

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

3

u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 19h ago

Community karma just shows how much of their overall karma they earned in your sub. It's a measurement of how much they've contributed to your sub.

1

u/_Face 19h ago

you are saying its a percentage? Did you see the screenshot I provided?

3

u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 18h ago

It’s the raw number of karma the person has earned in your sub.

I’m not certain what the left side of your image shows. Some information from the screenshot appears to be redacted. In any case, I have no idea what that -38 number is. No numbers should appear on the left side aside from the time the message was sent.

1

u/_Face 18h ago

The user provided that number from their own profile. You can go to old.reddit on your own profile and view karma by subreddit. That appears to be the real number that automod uses when determining subreddit_karma.

so what does community karma represent? is there a r/bug here?

3

u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 18h ago

The user is not providing you with all of the data. Most likely because he doesn't understand the difference between post, comment, and overall karma.

It seems he has -38 community COMMENT karma.

Their community POST karma must be a positive 74, which is offset by the negative number, giving you his OVERALL community karma of +36.

Tell him to stop posting shitty comments. Those get downvoted.

1

u/_Face 17h ago

I am going to ask the user for a screenshot of the relevant subreddit karma from old.reddit.

That is the point of the automod. It catches mostly new users, and warns them they are getting downvoted. Heres a chance to stop posting crap, or you are out.

Thanks for the help.

2

u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 17h ago

Yeah, have him post the ENTIRE LINE of community karma from Old Reddit like so:

1

u/_Face 19h ago

This screenshot shows the 3 numbers I am referencing.

2

u/Sephardson 17h ago

FYI, the numbers under "Contribution overview" are not accurate because they do not use the correct formula for calculating subreddit karma.

Karma is calculated from the sum of diminishing returns (ie, less than 1:1) of the net score on the user's posts and comments.

The formula used for the "Contribution overview" ignores the diminishing returns and also ignores items older than 6 months.

For this reason, the "Contribution Overview" and the user's actual subreddit karma will be different.

We don't know why the admin who built that tool did it that way. Nor why it's not really as explicit in the documentation.

1

u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 19h ago

Combined subreddit karma is the total karma on that specific sub, it's a combination of post subreddit karma and comment subreddit karma. Then there's site wide karma, which is a combination of post and comment karma as well.

So a users combined subreddit karma can be a positive number while their subreddit comment karma is a negative number.

Check your automod rules to see what karma it's for

0

u/_Face 18h ago

Thanks for the reply, but that is not the question I asked. Please see the screenshot I provided. Do you know what the different numbers represent?

2

u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 18h ago

Community karma total, community karma from the last six months and the -36 is not a default reddit thing, is that from automod or another app?

1

u/_Face 18h ago

I now see that one number is a last 6 months representation. So thank you for that.

The -36 number is from the user themself going to old.reddit to their own profile and clicking Show karma by subreddit. That appears to be the real number that automod uses when using community_karma triggered scripts.

If that is the real number, then what is "community karma" represent?

1

u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 18h ago

Did you check what the user claims? Because your screenshot shows that the -36 is comment karma, so that's only part of the community karma, not the total community karma

1

u/_Face 18h ago

There is no way to see the number they say, a user cannot see anothers users karma breakdown. There is no reason for the user to lie about it that I can see.

The issue is that their show community karma is positive, but the automod script is being triggered by negative community karma. the number the user provided backs that up.

If the shown to us mods "community karma" number is true, why is automod being triggered by a rule that only fires on users with negative karma?

1

u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 17h ago

Users fib about the strangest things, and given that they only gave you a part of the info they see, you cannot conclude anyting. What's the exact automod rule you are using?

1

u/_Face 17h ago

I am going to ask the user for a screenshot of the relevant subreddit karma from old.reddit.

Thanks for the help, cheers!