What Is Karma Farming? Everything To Know About The Reddit Karma Farming

Reddit has become one of the most popular and long-lasting social media sites since it started in San Francisco in 2005. It sort of grew up at the same time as memes did.

In order to understand Reddit karma farming, you need to understand the concept of Karma first. A user’s Reddit karma is like a score. It is the number of upvotes plus the number of downvotes. You can start your own subreddit and join some exclusive groups, but most of the time, it is about your reputation.

If a user’s karma score is high, it means that people like their posts and comments, so the community sees them as more of an expert. If a user’s karma score is low or negative, it means that the user has done things that have made other people unhappy. Most of the time, this means that the user is a bot, a spammer, or a troll. Post-Karma and Comment Karma are the two parts of Karma. Both of these parts make up the whole karma score. That means you can focus on comments or posts to raise your Karma.

Now, what is karma farming? Why do people do karma farming on Reddit? How do they it? And finally, how do Reddit prevent Karma farming? Read further to understand this whole concept of karma farming.

So, What Is Karma Farming?

Karma farming is the practice of making posts and comments with the intention of increasing one’s karma score as quickly as possible. You can alternatively define it as “upvote spam,” in which users repeatedly post the same plea in various Subreddits in the hopes of receiving an upvote.

Spambots and fake accounts are common in these communities. Changing votes and gaining Karma for doing nothing are both violations of the rules of engagement. You may have seen a lot of people shitposting only to get upvotes. That’s what you call the concept of karma farming on Reddit.

Why Do People Do Karma Farming On Reddit?

There are many reasons why people do karma farming on Reddit.

Firstly, the number of karmas decides your ability to post and comment. Therefore, people engage in such activities. When you sign up for Reddit for the first time, you can’t post and comment whenever you want. Once you have a certain number of Karma points on Reddit, though, you can post as many comments as you wish.

Secondly, it allows you to explore exclusive subreddits. Not only do you have access to the most popular posts on Reddit when you have a significant amount of Karma points, but you also have the option to view exclusive subreddits. In order to participate in specific subreddits and post on them, you are required to have a certain number of Karma points under your belt.

Also, a lot of people engage in Karma farming when they want their accounts to look reliable. When you have a lot of Karma points on Reddit, it makes other users think that the content you post is reliable and of high quality. For instance, when someone unknown sends you a request on instagram, you often open the account in order to see if the account is real or fake. How do you even decide if that account is fake or real? Obviously, you rely on their images and activities in order to determine. You check if the number of followers and likes on their pictures match. This is how you spot a reliable account. In the same way, people involve in karma farming so that their accounts can appear trustworthy and authentic.

Furthermore, it also helps them to promote themselves or their interest in general. Even though self-promotion in any form is generally prohibited on Reddit, you still have a much greater ability to do so when you have a higher Reddit Karma score.

Karma farming is something that people do for a variety of reasons, one of which is to sell their accounts. You may have seen people selling their Instagram profiles or YouTube channels with a significant number of subscribers. Alternatively, you may have seen people selling their YouTube channels. In the same manner, users will make their Reddit account appear authentic before selling it to third parties. You might be surprised to learn that people really buy Reddit accounts. However, do you know what? There are a lot of marketing firms who buy accounts like these in order to promote their products. Reddit accounts with huge karma points can be sold for a minimum of $40 to $200 or even more.

How Do Redditors Do Karma Farming? The 2 Reddit karma farming Bots

1. Repost Bots:

This is the most popular kind of karma farming bot on Reddit. It’s a simple idea: if something got a lot of upvotes in the past, and then a new group of users saw it for the first time, it may get a lot of upvotes in the future as well. Most of the time, this is how people try to “farm” Karma to earn points.

Generally, the bots are set up to choose posts based on factors like age, score, subreddit, etc. They would then copy the whole post, including the title and the content, and then repost it as if it were brand new.

When a new question is posted, other bot accounts copy the most popular comments from the prior one. If everything goes well, this latest post and the bot comments will earn a large number of upvotes. This whole process of karma farming allows people to succeed.

If a bot reaches a particular number of slow and consistent points or Karma, it will either spam continuously or enter a passive state where it will stop posting. Nowadays, many repost bots have begun making minute changes to the content of the headline, such as correcting typos or switching to an entirely different language.

2. Comment Generation Through Bots

Some bots try to make their own comments. It is pretty easy to find reposts in the long run.

People do this with the help of a variety of software techniques, ranging from simple probability-based algorithms to complex machine-learning models that imitate human speech. The most common type of these bots seems to combine many words based on certain word intersections to make a new, original comment.

The bots’ comments are often illogical because the algorithm isn’t smart enough to mimic human conversation or carry a notion through an entire comment. The automatic comments also reveal a problem with punctuation, by using a single quote mark or a parenthesis without a connecting one.

To put it another way, the bot’s actions are like tapping on the phone’s auto-suggested word over and over again. However, it does it with phrases instead of single words. These comments generally don’t make any sense or are not related to the topic they are responding to. They often make grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Such comments are highly suspicious when they follow a predictable pattern, especially when paired with previously submitted links that have perfectly formatted headlines.

Does Reddit Prevent Karma Farming?

Even though Reddit has some strict policies on paper, it still actively encourages people to make bots. In fact, bots and karma farming, in general, are an important part of the Reddit ecosystem.

Many users disagree strongly with bots because they frequently spread irrelevant advertisements, illogical information, hateful comments, or all three. Because their primary function is to increase post engagement or ad reach, they give off the impression of low-quality marketers.

The Reddit community, on the other hand, thinks very differently about bots and actually welcomes them. A lot of the bots on subreddits were made just for that community. However, there are many ways through which Reddit can stop such activities. It can just block the bot accounts as soon as they notice unusual activities or reposts.

Furthermore, selling and buying accounts are strictly against Reddit user agreement. This is due to the fact that spammers, bots, and people who engage in unethical activities are the only people who sell reliable accounts that were created by karma farming.

Some Legit Ways To Earn Karma without Karma farming

• The best way to earn Karma is to post in a natural way that doesn’t feel forced. Find some subreddits that you like to read and participate in the discussion there. Share posts that are relevant to the conversation, join the conversation yourself or tell some funny jokes to add to it. People on Reddit put a lot of value on wit, so if you try to be clever and succeed, you will usually get an upvote.

• Creating and sharing unique work is another excellent means of gaining good Karma without karma farming. Post content that is unique, high-quality that spark a debate or showcase your creativity.

• Considering that most posts have deadlines, showing up first is also a significant benefit. If you click the “rising” or “new” button, you may find a subreddit where you are the first person to comment. Being the first to post breaking news on the relevant subreddit can earn you a lot of Karma. Many accounts compete to be the first to post significant transactions and signings in sports league subreddits since doing so awards thousands of karma points.

• Even if you always leave the most thoughtful comments and posts, it’s possible that yours will be missed if there are a lot of other comments and posts. People find it hard to see all the new posts, especially in the subreddits with the most subscribers. If you just want to gain Karma, you should only read the most recent or most popular posts in the subreddits that interest you. If you know which posts are going to get a lot of Karma, you can get more Karma for your comments by leaving helpful feedback on those posts.

• Make your titles more attractive and catchy so more people will read them. You could perhaps give them something unusual. Make sure that your images, whether they are photos, movies, GIFs, or anything else, are of the best quality possible. This will make your article more interesting. No one likes the 300×300 px meme. When writing content, try to make readers feel something. Also, don’t be afraid to give your own opinion in the comments. At first, you might get some negative feedback, but over time, people will get what you are saying.

• If a discussion is thoughtful and well-balanced, be sure to upvote the comments that provide insightful points of view. There are guidelines for what constitutes a “good post” and a “poor post” in some subreddits, while others have none at all. Many online communities discourage people from doing things like reposting old content, telling the same jokes over and over again, and contributing content that doesn’t take much work, like sending one-sentence text messages. Therefore, you upvote good content and downvote bad ones.

Final Words

As we discussed, Reddit Karma is like a score based on upvotes and downvotes. However, these scores can help people in many ways, like advertising and making money.

Because of this, a lot of Reddit users have started “karma farming” in order to get more karma points. Such spamming, bots, and all other unethical activities are not legitimate ways to increase Karma. Therefore, you can indulge in all the legit ways to earn Karma.

You, as an individual, and Reddit as a whole, have the ability to put a stop to the behavior of this nature. You can do this by identifying the bots, and Reddit can do this by blocking them.