You need a certain amount of karma to downvote. I think it's 500, but I'm not sure because I don't have that much yet. :)

Edit: it's confirmed at 501: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12074198

Just 5400 more days and I'll be able to downvote! What a time to be alive!

I just upvoted you there because I'm nice like that.

Thanks! Only three more votes before I get superpowers. :)

I upvoted you. With great power comes yadda yadda yadda.

Edited to add: PSYCH!! Now it's going to take 4 upvotes to get super powers. BWAHAHAHA!!

Edited to add #2: Just kidding! You're 2 upvotes away again!

P.S. Dear friends, I'm sorry. I won't abuse my vast and terrible ability to grant or deny imaginary Internet points ever again. -xf

With imaginary power comes imaginary responsibility, and don't you forget it!

And down vote arrows do not appear on aging posts.

I was confused as to why I have a downvote button now, I just realized I barely passed 500 few days ago, woo.

You need to have a certain amount of karma before you can downvote comments. I'm not sure what the threshold is these days.

You get it after 500

There is a karma limit (of ~500) to get downvote privileges.

you need to have a certain amount of karma (number next to your account) for the downvote function to be available.

A few weeks ago I recently obtained the downvote ability at 500 karma.

I suspect you mean 501. I reached 500 a few weeks ago, and left it there for a while... it was such a nice, round number.

Can I suggest 512 for an even nicer round number.

Sorry upvoted you, onwards to the next round number.

^ This is correct. I was equally confused when mine hit 500 and downvote wasn't there.

More likely (> karma downvote-threshold) since news.arc is written in, well, arc.

Good guess: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606467.

Sure. I should have disclaimed my pseudo-code I guess. Point was just that I expect there's a > and a 500, as opposed to a 501.

What did you do to get to 500? I am still at 84 and feels like it will be forever.

You need a certain Troll Level.

No, you generally don't get to downvote in HN until your karma is above some threshold that changes occasionally.