Ask HN/PG: Possible HN bug?

18 points by ajkirwin ↗ HN
I've noticed this happening to me the last few days and I am wondering if it's happening to anyone else.. and how to get it fixed.

For some reason, any comment I make is starting off at 0, instead of the usual 1.

14 comments

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I think you just get down-voted shortly after posting on some comments. Are you sure it's all comments?
Yes.

Infact, this post itself started at 0!

Did your karma decrease when you posted it?
Nope.
They appear to be 1 to me... Did anyone upvote it?
Probably. They were at 0 earlier.
A bug? Maybe. Worth a post to HN? Definitely not.

Just email pg if you're concerned about it, it's pointless to post it here.

Actually, if there is indeed an off-by-one bug that's affecting only one poster, then I'm very curious what the bug is.
For me, it starts off at 1, but it does not immediately update my total karma.
Looking at your other comments there seems to be the typical number of 1's - are you sure it's not just showing for you? Try logging out and finding one of your comments.
It only started a few days ago.

And of course, when people see a 0 for no reason, they throw it an upvote, which then makes it look normal.

I've no idea why this was downvoted, but ok. Perhaps pg can review logs to check whether it's someone targeting you (sounds unlikely) or a bug then.

Edit: above comment was -1 before I upvoted.

Yes, this was a bug. Should be fixed now.
And it is fixed!

What was causing it?