Hacker News basics?

5 pointszachinglis3 comments

So I've used Hacker News on and off for a while but there's a questions I have long wondered.

First off, is there a guide/manual or something I should read? May answer it.

Downvoting. Is it limited to only people with good karma? If so, how good?

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The Hacker News welcome message

http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

gives an overview of the community experiment here, summarizing the site guidelines.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The Hacker News FAQ

http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

gives some additional details about how Hacker News is administered. The welcome message distills the basic rules into a simple statement: "Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads."

The The Unofficial Hacker News FAQ

http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ

by Jacques Mattheij (a high-karma veteran user here) gives his personal answers to questions that are frequently asked about the forum settings and features here.

There are Guidelines and an FAQ at the bottom of the page.

Downvoting limited to high karma, someone said 501 currently and increased periodically in a recent discussion although I have no way to verify.

Ahh. I was looking on a page where the footer didn't show. Thank you.

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