Hacker News Reader

You're likely being downvoted simply because the comment adds nothing to the discussion. Up/down votes (points) help the most relevant and useful comments rise to the top of the page so users down't need to scroll through to find useful content.

View on HN

Side question: what does it take to be able to down vote a post? I'm guessing it's some sort of reputation threshold, but whatever the value is it's higher than 140

There is no downvote for submissions; only flagging. There is a karma threshold for flagging: I think it's 200, but don't hold me to it.

Edit to add: Sorry, I misread post to mean submission, not comment. Sibling is correct: downvoting for comments is enabled when you earn your 501st point.

I got the privilege to downvote when I passed 500 a few months ago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com