Ask HN: Why can I only downvote select comments?

[socalgal2]

It's obvious that you can not downvote a reply to your own comments but, today I noticed, in a topic I had no comments in, I was only allowed to downvote about 20% of the comments. The rest presented to downvote button. The conspiracy voice in me thought I was only allowed to downvote things the staff at HN wanted downvoted.

What's the actual rule? Why were most comments off limits to downvote?

[optionalsquid]

You might enjoy this list of undocumented HN features, which includes an answer to your question:

https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m...

[philipportner → optionalsquid]

Wasn't aware of all of those, thanks for sharing.

[krapp]

You can email the staff using the contact link at the bottom of the page.

[BoorishBears]

I don't think HN staff would ever do that, but what was the topic?

[ThrowawayR2]

Comments posted more than 24 hours ago cannot be downvoted.

[socalgal2 → ThrowawayR2]

Thanks! I think this is it. Even though it was on the front page I think I didn't realize the topic was old enough to have 24hr old comments as it was not on the front page 10hrs earlier

[gus_massa → socalgal2]

You can go to https://news.ycombinator.com/news and find recent posts. I like when the discussion is still small.

[BLKNSLVR]

I can't answer the question, but I've seen it where some comments I can't downvote, but others in the same thread I can. Additionally, some I can't reply to either.

I would lean towards there being a good reason. It also doesn't particularly bother me if I can't register my displeasure. Can be a good thing to be forced not to.

[akerl_]

This would be way easier to clarify if you’d provided context on which comments you were looking at.

The conspiracy voice in me thought maybe you know this is a benign thing and you’re just hunting for something to be outraged about.