Ask HN: What is the average karma points of HN users?
2 EPendragon 8 7/27/2025, 1:44:41 AM
Out of curiosity, how many karma points does the average HN user generally get to? I understand that the question should likely be timeframed, I.e. within a year or two. I found there is a top list, but no statistic on the average values. Also would be curious to know how long would it take on average to get to that point. I assume we are talking in years, but I could be wrong.
I have to assume the karma ends up falling into a pareto distribution, so averages will be heavily skewed and kind of useless. Something like quantiles may be more useful.
Any sample of users who actually post is going to have higher karma than the universe of HN users, many of whom haven't logged in for years.
Somewhere between the time I had karma 35,000 and 60,000 I had a script that I ran sort-of-daily which captured the top 100 users including the ones who don't have a number posted on that list. I was planning to make a chart of how top user's karma was growing over time but I guess I was never competitive enough to actually make the chart.
You can use the API to find some of these answers.