
Ask HN: How many karma do I need to downvote? - RivieraKid
I heard that after you reach 500 karma, you&#x27;ll be able to downvote comments. I&#x27;ve been looking forward that moment for a long time. Unfortunately, I have 502 karma now but see no downvote buttons :(
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ColinWright
The threshold is periodically increased to allow for karma inflation, but
usually that gets announced, and I've not seen anything recently. As far as
I'm aware the threshold is still at 500 - nothing has turned up in my search
of HN to suggest otherwise, but search is poor at finding this sort of detail.

Are you confusing this with topic downvotes? They don't exist. Do you know
where to look for the comment downvote link? It's a small gray arrow under the
upvote arrow just to the left of the name of the commenter.

If none of this applies then I can't help you.

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nealabq
When I first crossed 500 I noticed I could downvote replies but not top-level
comments. Not sure when it happened, but now I can downvote top-levels too.

I wish I could turn off the downvote arrow. I never use it, and I have to be
careful not to click it by mistake when upvoting.

~~~
ColinWright
You can't downvote comments over 48 hours old - perhaps that's the effect
you're seeing.

I usually find that even here on HN, the symptoms people report are not
actually what's happening, but are filtered through their incorrect
assumptions. It is important to report what you see, not what you think is
happening underneath. It's so easy to fall into the trap of reporting what you
think must be happening.

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brudgers
I saw similar reports in a thread a few months ago. I came away with the
impression that granting access to downvotes is like calculating average karma
- it doesn't happen in real time, but does happen eventually.

Congratulations on completing karma level five hundred. From now on, it's just
karma for karma's sake.

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benjamincburns
Downvotes turned on for me a little after 500. I'd imagine it's a flag in your
profile that's flipped in a batch operation once to a few times a day. Either
way, you're not missing much - like another commenter here I wish I could just
turn them off.

