How do down votes work?
jacquesm: > Is it once your karma level hits a certain level?yes, 200 points.> Are you ever able to down vote submissions?No, but you can 'flag' them and if enough people flag an article it will be killed. If not enough people flag an article before it reaches 10 points it would take an editors action to kill it.> Lastly, is there a common standard that hn readers use to determine if something should be down voted?The official line is a bit blurry, but most people try to vote based on whether or not something contributes to the conversation rather than to express their agreement / disagreement, but plenty of people do that too and there are no hard rules about it. And even if there were those would not be enforceable.