What kids learn from the 10-day, 100-karma posting rule for online communities
I was folding my 13-year-old Javi’s soccer uniforms last Tuesday when he slammed his phone face down on the kitchen table hard enough to rattle his half-empty apple juice box. “Stupid stupid stupid,” he muttered, kicking the leg of the chair lightly. I’d seen this mood before: it’s the pre-teen online frustration that comes from a bad game loss, a comment that got no likes, or a server ban for accidental spam. This time, it was different.
He flipped the phone back over so I could see the bright text on the screen: “In order to post your account must be older than 10 days and have 100 positive karma.” Javi had made a new Reddit account that morning, he explained, because he didn’t want his regular Minecraft-builds username linked to the surprise base he was building for his best friend’s birthday. He’d spent three weeks on the build, and just wanted to ask the subreddit for quick feedback on the redstone door. Instead, he got locked out.
“This is total garbage,” he said. “I’m not a bot or a scammer. Why do I have to jump through hoops just to ask a question?” He was already typing a text to his online friend who has an older account, ready to ask him to post the link for him.
I almost said sure, go ahead. I get wanting to help your kid avoid frustration. But I remembered hitting that exact same rule five years ago, when I joined a local house plant seed swap group. I’d thought it was ridiculous back then too, until the mods relaxed the rule for a weekend to test a new policy, and I woke up to 300 new posts for fake crypto giveaways and knockoff seed scams that clogged up the whole group. So I closed my laundry basket, sat down next to him, and asked him to hold off on texting his friend for five minutes. I asked him what he thought the rule was actually for.
We talked for a bit, and he got it pretty quick: bots and scammers make new accounts every day, so locking new accounts out of posting cuts down on 90% of the garbage before it even hits the feed. He still thought it was unfair that he had to wait, but he agreed not to cheat the system. He just had 10 days to get 100 karma, which meant commenting on other people’s posts enough to get upvotes.
That’s when the unexpected stuff started happening. For 10 days, after he finished homework and before he started building, he spent 15 minutes scrolling through the new posts on the Minecraft sub, instead of just jumping to post his own stuff. At first, he left generic comments like “cool build” that got one or two upvotes max. After a couple days, he figured out that specific comments got more traction. He told a new kid how to fix a common lighting glitch that had stumped him a few months back. He pointed out that he loved how one builder hid a creeper spawner with azalea leaves, a trick he’d never seen before. He asked a question about how someone made their custom terrain look so smooth.
By day 9, he had 118 positive karma. He was more excited about that 12-upvote comment he left for the new kid than he’d ever been about any upvotes on his own posts. That comment, he told me, made the kid’s whole day because no one else had answered his question.
This is the part that I don’t think a lot of parents or even teachers talk about when we talk about kids online. Most digital literacy lessons focus on what not to do: don’t share personal info, don’t be mean, don’t talk to strangers. They never talk about how to be a good community member, and that’s exactly what this silly little 10-day, 100-karma rule taught Javi.
If you’re a parent whose kid just hit this rule and is frustrated, there are three small things I’ve found work, instead of just letting them cheat or brushing off their frustration. First, don’t help them bypass the rule right away. It’s fine to let them sit with the frustration for a little while, and work through it. If they really need to post immediately, you can talk through options together, but jumping in to fix it for them takes away the learning opportunity. Second, help them brainstorm specific, useful comments instead of generic ones. Tell them to think about what they’d want someone to say to them if they posted their own work, and suggest they leave that kind of comment for others. Third, point out that the rule isn’t there to punish them—it’s there to protect the community they want to be part of, so the people who already care about the same things can keep enjoying it.
On day 10, Javi posted his build. He got 42 upvotes, a couple of great suggestions for the redstone door, and he adjusted the build just in time for his friend’s birthday. It went over perfectly. A week later, I saw him comment on a new post from a 12-year-old who was complaining about the same 10-day rule. Javi wrote, “I thought it was dumb too, but just comment on a few people’s builds, you’ll hit 100 karma fast. It’s worth the wait.”
The system isn’t perfect. Sometimes a really great post from a new user gets held up for no reason, and it’s frustrating. It doesn’t fix all spam or all toxic behavior online. But it’s done more to teach Javi about contributing to a community before you take from it than any lecture I’ve ever given. Last week, he joined a new retro game cheat sub, and when he saw the 7-day 50-karma rule there, he didn’t slam his phone. He just opened the new posts tab and started scrolling, looking for someone he could help.
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