Thinking of it perhaps it is the client I use that does it, voyager. I have never not been using it ever since I joined lemmy so i often forget that i might have a different experience than other users.

I have a sum total displayed in my profile which works as I described, and assumed that is what everyone gets to see.

If it is the same as for me it should be the sum of your posts and comments. What and how popular wouldn’t matter, just each submission equals one point.