One thing which is not clear to me: I just recently had a submission which had more than twice of upvotes than had been added to my Karma. As far as I understand voting rings may be responsible for that. I am however much too lazy for engaging that way (I also have no social media accounts), I spent my time rather on HN ;-). Does someone has an explanation for this? Do others engage in those rings to get favorable submissions onto the fron page?