Votes, karma and upvotes: the platforms' own rules
How votes, upvotes and karma work on server lists, Reddit, Product Hunt, Hacker News and other boards, and what each board's rules allow.
Index card
- Guides listed26
- Boards covered12
- Latest check2 October 2026
BuyingVotes editorial desk
- Essential points
- Cited sources
- Editorial standards
- What this page does not cover
Platform guides
Reddit karma and upvotes: what a vote does and what Reddit's rules forbid
Product Hunt launch explained: how upvotes count and what the rules forbid
Quora upvote history: what it records, what the rules bar and what follows
Votifier for Minecraft servers: how vote delivery works and what the rules allow
Hacker News karma does not raise a post's rank, and its rules forbid asking for upvotes
How a Disboard bump works, who runs it and what the guidelines forbid
IMDb ratings: the weighted average, your own history and the safeguards
MC server voting: how Minecraft server lists count a vote and what their rules forbid
Stack Overflow downvote: who can cast one, what it signals and what the rules forbid
Top.gg Vote API: How Voting Works on the Discord Bot List
Vote exchange: what platform and contest rules say about groups that trade votes
Wattpad vote history: limits, author counts and contest penalties
The terms are stated in plain words
Before anything is agreed, the terms of the board or contest are read and set out in plain words: what they bar and what follows a breach.
Consequences are named in advance
Reddit bans accounts, Product Hunt removes products and Hyvote may reset vote counts when their terms are broken. The consequence for the board in question is stated before an agreement.
No ranking or result is promised
Product Hunt says asking or incentivizing people to upvote may lower a product's ranking, and Hacker News says its anti-abuse software drops some votes. No count or rank is promised.
Refusals are given in writing
Boards whose terms bar paid votes and contests whose rules void them are refused, and the refusal is given in writing.
A refund follows delivery only
Votes ordered for a board or contest that never reach its published count are refunded. A removal, reset or ban applied by the platform is outside the refund.
State the board and the rule page
Send the name or address of the board or contest, the page where its terms are published and what you need to know.
The terms are read and summarised
Each clause on payment, automation, vote exchange and penalty is summarised in plain words, quoting the platform or organiser and no one else.
A written statement follows
The statement sets out what the terms bar and what the platform does on a breach, and it says what cannot be promised. A refusal is stated the same way.
Delivery is measured on the count
Where the terms allow it, votes are measured against the count the board or contest publishes. A gap between the order and that count is the only thing a refund can address.
Reddit prohibits vote manipulation and counts using voting services, or asking people to vote on specific posts for personal gain, as manipulation. Product Hunt prohibits asking for upvotes, using bots and incentivizing upvotes. The Search for a Champion rules void votes from commercial contest subscriptions and vote-swapping sites, and the organiser may disqualify the entrant.
support.reddithelp.com help.producthunt.com championautoparts.com
Hacker News says it uses software to detect and protect against voting rings, and that its anti-abuse software drops some votes. IMDb says it may apply a different weighting calculation when it detects unusual rating activity. Ordinary participation is a spread of unconnected people voting at different times, which is the baseline these systems measure against, and this describes their checks without offering any way past them.
The documents cited here are platform terms, so the consequences they state are contractual: removal, vote resets, suspension, delisting or account termination. Hyvote prohibits vote manipulation, including buying or selling votes for a server listing. Whether a payment for votes is also lawful in a given country is outside these sources and belongs to a lawyer. Boards whose terms bar paid votes, contests that void them and political ballots are refused.
Once voting closes, an order for a board or contest that has not reached its published count is refunded for the part not delivered. Nothing is refunded for action by the platform: Hytale Servers says servers found manipulating votes face vote resets, suspension, delisting or account termination, and TopG may reset votes and freeze a listing when it catches cheating. No rank or result is promised.
Practice differs by list. Hytale Servers prohibits purchasing votes or vote-manipulation services, and Hyvote prohibits buying or selling votes for a server listing. TopG, by contrast, offers bonus votes with a purchased Premium Membership. Each list's own terms decide.
Each platform sets its own response. Reddit reports a warning, then three-day and seven-day bans and finally a permanent ban for continued vote manipulation. Hacker News penalizes or bans submissions, accounts and sites that break its rule against soliciting upvotes. Stack Overflow's moderation team says that in cases of upvotes for hire it issued warnings and suspensions and reverted reputation gains.
Within limits. Hyvote permits server owners to offer in-game voting rewards through legitimate Votifier or similar systems, while Product Hunt advises against offering rewards in exchange for upvotes. Each board states its own limit, so the terms are read first.
Not on the boards cited here. Coinvote forbids trading or selling votes between different coins, Quora prohibits offering to trade upvotes, and the New England Patriots' contest rules say users of vote-swapping or vote-trading websites may be disqualified.
No. Product Hunt says asking or incentivizing people to upvote may cause its algorithm to lower a product's ranking, and Hacker News says its anti-abuse software drops some votes. IMDb says weighted averages neutralize attempts to inflate a title's rating.
Boards whose terms bar paid votes and contests whose rules void them. The refusal is given in writing, and no order is accepted for a target that the terms rule out.
The name or address of the board or contest, the page where its terms are published and what the buyer needs to know. Where no terms are published, the written statement says so, and that is treated as a reason for caution, not permission.
No. A refund addresses undelivered votes only. Hyvote reserves the right to invalidate votes, reset vote counts or remove server listings involved in vote manipulation, and a reset of that kind is the platform's act, not a failure of delivery.
A question about a platform's rules?
Send it to ledger@buyingvotes.com
- the platform or board
- the rule or page in question
- what you need to know