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Comment by foulmouthboy | Hacker News Reader

Any complex system that is useful when only provided the most basic functionality could "take a lesson from video games". It's essentially building the learning curve of the system into the functionality. It's really not unlike HN's system of disabling downvoting until certain karma is reached.

IT professionals I've worked with do this kind of stuff all the time to keep employees from breaking stuff until it's shown that the employees can handle the added functionality.

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Progressive learning for apps in general is definitely an improvement. That being said, I don't agree that roping off functionaltiy is the best way for advanced text editors to lower the learning curve. Contextual hints are a better way to introduce shortcuts for those sort of apps.

I also disagree that HN's downvoting feature is an example of progressive learning. It's more about controlling trolls and setting expectations in the community. You have to earn your keep before you can negatively affect change. It's a feature of the meritocracy, not of the usability.

I agree with you that the downvoting is a meritocracy, but that's my point. A user has to earn the right to use that particular function. The difference in learning how a piece of functionality is used and why or in when it should be used is two sides of the same coin.

A user has to earn the right to use that particular function

Not to detract from the discussion, but this isn't an actual feature on YC. AFAIK, nobody can down-vote (although editors can [dead]).

You have to reach a certain karma score to be able to downvote individual comments. I can't remember what the score is, but its fairly low.

50 or so in my case. But the person who thinks the feature doesn't exist has a karma of 2053. Maybe it's not conditioned just on karma?

no, it's that you're talking about two different things.

you can downvote comments once your karma goes over a certain score. but nobody can downvote submissions. no doubt that's what andreyf was talking about.

also, the karma numbers keep changing, which is why nobody seems to know for sure where the thresholds are. back when i got the right to downvote comments, you only needed about 20 points.

Thanks for the clarification!

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