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Ask HN: Why dont my upvotes work?

281 points by ressaid1 ↗ HN
I've read about dead users on HN that but I thought being dead also meant you cant post comments at all. It seems like I can post comments, its just my upvotes dont count. Did I do something wrong or do I just not understand the system?

116 comments

[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 256 ms ] thread
sambeau
We can test your theory here if you like.

Upvote this comment and I'll tell you if it counted.

If you leave a comment I'll upvote it so you can see if you get upvotes.

I'd be surprised if either of these didn't just work.

sambeau
I've turned showdead off and I can still see you so I don't think you're banned, either.
verroq
I tossed a coin and upvoted/downvoted you and your children depending on the toss.
ijontichy
Done and done. This system is /really/ weird.
digitalengineer
Weird or in need of some updating? (Mobile-fist, mail if someone responds and stuff). I know there are third pary's to do this but still...
izietto
I love this comment, it is like a poetry!
Yhippa
Are there thresholds to see post and comment scores?
Peroni
Post scores are visible to all. PG removed the comment scores a while back. Only the person who posted the comment can see its score.
lmm
I upvoted you and was able to tell by checking your karma score before and after; aren't those visible to everyone?
ressaid1
I pressed upvote. did it work?
mck-
Wouldn't this trigger a voting-ring? :p
jaachan
Do you refresh the page after upvoting?
spindritf
I lost flagging privileges, it's not binary. You can lose some ability without getting (shadow)banned.

How do you know your upvotes don't count? Who knows, maybe there's a karma threshold for that too now.

gbog
> too

Do you mean there if a karma threshold on something else? Is it new? I have noticed a marked improvement in HN content in the last two weeks.

spindritf
> Do you mean there if a karma threshold on something else?

There's a karma threshold for downvoting and flagging. Those are not new but I ventured a guess that there may now be a similar threshold for upvoting.

e12e
I thought it was "common knowledge" that there's a 500 karma threshold to upvote? However, I couldn't find anything "official" right now, other than a reference under:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2242385

(I thought it was in the faq? Did I miss it?)

iambateman
I have <500 karma and can upvote. Unless it's not actually doing anything.
ressaid1
I have other friends that have low Karma points and can upvote. Its definitely not a Karma threshold.
Suitov
I see an upvote arrow next to comments and stories, and I'm a very infrequent poster with next to zero karma.

No idea how to tell if my upvotes 'count' or not.

GrinningFool
That threshold is for downvoting. Upvoting - at least for me - has been available since I created my account 3-4 months ago.
e12e
Oh, of course.
simias
Given that most people in this thread complaining about their upvotes not registering seem to have a karma below 500 it might well be that. If that's the case I'm surprised they didn't make it explicit by removing the arrow altogether (like the down arrow is not displayed when you don't have enough karma for it). Seems a bit deceitful.

That being said it might just be a bug somewhere.

kybernetyk
> I lost flagging privileges, it's not binary. You can lose some ability without getting (shadow)banned.

How do you find out about that? Doesn't the 'flag' link show up anymore?

dchest
Same here. Yep, there's no flag link anymore.
pvnick
I can still flag things - both posts and comments. Could your flagging history be perceived as excessive?
dchest
I guess so. I think it disappeared after I flagged a lot of comments in one thread, but I'm not really sure (and it happened a few years ago).
ch0wn
I lost my flag privileges for posts a long time ago. Is there a separate one for comments, ie. a different action than downvoting?
frogpelt
It seems like a monthly quota of flags would make more sense than a lifetime quota.

There again, this is not my site.

simias
AFAIK there's no "flag" on comments, just stories (conversely, there's no downvotes for stories, just comments). Or maybe I just don't have enough karma to see it (or I lost it long ago).

An other weird thing about HN: sometimes I can't see the "reply" link on a comment for a while, even if I reload.

Like, I wanted to reply to your post earlier but I couldn't even though ch0wn had already posted his own. I don't understand what triggers that behaviour.

dchest
AFAIK there's no "flag" on comments, just stories (conversely, there's no downvotes for stories, just comments). Or maybe I just don't have enough karma to see it (or I lost it long ago).

There were flag links on both comments and stories before they disappeared for me.

An other weird thing about HN: sometimes I can't see the "reply" link on a comment for a while, even if I reload.

It's a feature to help prevent long flamewar threads.

ColinWright
There is flag on both submissions and comments. There is downvote on comments, but not on submissions. The "Reply" link is deliberately delayed on deep threads to help mitigate flame wars. These are all well-known features.
dhimes
well-known

in the scholarly sense, not in the everyday sense.

While we're at it, for fun: http://io9.com/5880128/what-scientists-say-in-research-paper...

ColinWright
I agree it is not obvious to those who first come across these things. However, it is very well-known to anyone who searches for the countless threads about this very issue. Sadly, most people just ask the question without first researching the issue, and that then prompts several demonstrably incorrect answers.
dhimes
It's also in the FAQ and the guidelines if you read hard enough, but some of the subtleties of the questions are not explained there (probably because they were fluid for a while).
egeozcan
You can change the id in the reply link from another comment. It works for me.
ximeng
You need to click on the comment's "link" before you see the "flag" for the comment.
pyre
"One weird trick" to comment on a comment with no "reply" link:

  There's (almost) always a reply box when you click the
  comment's permalink. So if you click "link" instead of
  "reply," you're still good.
(Site admins hate him!)
lmm
Strangely enough I can flag posts but not comments.
andyhmltn
I'm pretty sure you could never flag comments. May be wrong.

EDIT: Flag only appears when you go to reply to a comment. Corrected :)

lmm
Oh, so it does. Did that change a few months ago?
galaktor
ditto. "flag" is gone. thought they might have changed something...
Fuxy
I can't down vote. Only the up arrow shows for me. Not that i mind I wouldn't down vote anyway. Ignoring is down voting in my book.
ma2rten
You don't have enough karma to downvote.
huhtenberg
Same here. Lost it on the day when Jobs died trying to get at least something different on the front page.

Also I've been long suspecting that my downvotes don't work either. I have the arrows and they are clickable, but they seem to do anything. Pretty annoying actually.

ressaid1
I dont see a downvote, but same thing happens with me on an upvote.
Zoomla
I noticed that with a new user account the upvote arrow disappears when I click it, but if I refresh the page it comes back and you can see that it didn't really upvote.
jonnathanson
Are you sure you lost them? Scanning through the posts here, it seems a lot of people just don't know where to look. You have to click "link" on a comment, or reply to the comment to be taken to the text editor screen. From either of these screens, the "flag" option appears.

Now, whether this is good or bad UX is up to the admins to decide. I assume "flag" is buried a little bit to prevent abuses of it, just as replying to someone's replies to yourself is delayed a little bit to prevent rapidfire back-and-forths.

waterlesscloud
I lost my flagging ability long ago. I habitually flagged political stories that others upvoted. Apparently going against the crowd flagged me for flagging. Heh.

Not the way I'd design it to work, but then it's not my site.

acheron
Yeah I've wondered about that. I've flagged some BS political stories too and wondered if I was endangering my flagging privileges by disagreeing. I don't really care, but interesting to know.
[dead] lymie
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sbierwagen
Me too.

Fun fact: if you downvote too many people, your downvote button is invisibly disabled for a short time.

avree
I often wonder how badly my personal data set is skewed due to mis-tapping (or clicking) the downvote arrow when I'm trying to get the upvote one.
T-hawk
I have flagging, in the ~1000 karma range, so it still exists. I've hardly ever used it.

I'm not sure that flagging is meant for shooting down topic matter you'd rather not see on HN. And that's why the ability is removed from those who overuse it. Flagging is for blatant spam or personal attacks or other abuses, it's not a content-selection mechanism. Upvotes select content.

ressaid1
The reason I know is that I click upvote and it never assigns any points
nodata
I can't see any comments on this thread from ressaid1 at the time of this comment.
petercooper
Your comments page - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ressaid1 - shows no comments posted in the past 39 days. If you were 'dead' I'd see them but as dead so it seems something unusual is going on here if you have posted a comment in the past 39 days.
ye
One of my older accounts comments stopped showing up for everyone else. Only I could see them. So I made a new account.
himanshuy
Happened with me too. Thanks for asking this.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
bolder88
You probably posted something slightly critical of startups, or a YC company at some point in the past.
alive-or-not
Or of the US or UK governments ...
lotsofcows
Or any conversation that intersects the "two countries separated by a common language" thing.

Or any sort of joke.

grault
My upvote doesn't work either. Never did (tried a few times) -> I just don't upvote.
danielweber
How can you tell? I click upvote, the buttons disappear, and I have to move on with my life.
grault
I go to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6547669, vote to e.g. 0, button disappears, reload page, I get the same points (and buttons) back.
grault
Hereby I report that it started working on that post! Yeeha.

Edit: it seems to work in general.

danielweber
Oh, on posts/polls I can see scores. I cannot see any scores on comments.
frigg
Try to upvote then refresh the page. You will see (or not) that the upvote icon re-appears and the vote count decrements by one.
kybernetyk
Hmm, I guess that 1 upvote does not always equal 1.0 karma. Maybe you could find out more about that by reading through the HN source code ...

Also maybe your voting behavior tripped off some heuristic. If I was trying to prevent spam I'd probably disable voting privileges for accounts that regularly upvote submissions that get flagged/banned.

Peroni
I guess that 1 upvote does not always equal 1.0 karma.

It definitely doesn't when it comes to posts. I believe it does for comments however.

PG's always been exceptionally protective and elusive when it comes to how karma is handled. I assume it's to deter people/organisations from gaming the system.

I've been on HN for years and I still have absolutely no clue how upvotes are handled for posts.

BillyMaize
This happens to me with posts that are at least a year old, but new posts have no problem.
ColinWright
Upvotes on comments, or on submissions? How do you know they don't count? What tests have you done? With no more information than just "my votes don't work" it's like a user saying "the internet is broken."

HN has lots of features to help protect itself against spam, sock puppets, voting rings, and more. Maybe you inadvertently tripped something, maybe you've fallen foul of some detector, but there's no chance of working it out when all you say is "It's broken."

e12e
It would be rather trivial (if not constructive) to make a throw away account, submit something, and upvote it. It'd be pretty easy to correlate any upvote with an a personal upvote (not to mention how easy it would be to "disprove" that upvotes worked: no change on reload) ?

I'd argue this whole shadow ban idea is a bit of a dead end, and it should just list this stuff on the profile page or something.

Zoomla
new accounts with 0 karma can't upvote either... you can test it by upvoting a submission and refreshing the page.
username42
I have tested voting ring: I have upvoted a friend who has upvoted me also. Result: both of us have lost karma :-<
selmnoo
Woah, lost karma? That is something I've never heard or seen before. How much karma did you lose? Just 1 or 2 karma pts or more?
ressaid1
I know it doesnt work because I click upvote and it doesnt assign any points while a friend sitting right next to me could do the same thing and assign points. Both he and I have under 100 Karma points
ColinWright
Is this on a submission? A poll? A comment? Or something else? Did you reload the page? Can you upvote submissions? Can you vote in a poll?

In short, what have you tried? You're really not giving us much to go on ...

Do you write programs for other people to use? What do you do when they say "It doesn't work!" And give you no further information?

6ren
I have to refresh the page to see the score change (FF24, ubuntu). Also, if the page is too old (e.g. if you read the article and spent time considering it), then your vote might not register.

So, refresh (to get a fresh page), vote, and refresh again (to see your vote reflected in the score).

OTOH, HN sometimes experiments with karma thresholds and various tricks. So that might be it if the above doesn't work.

StuieK
Completely off-topic: 6ren is there a good way to send you a private message? I'd love to send you a quick note if you don't mind sharing some way to get into contact (im stukearney@gmail.com)
vacipr
Strange.I just checked my upvote doesn't count either.
jijji
its because fascism comes in many forms, some are visible, and some are hidden.
frigg
I can't upvote either but I suspect that has something to do with my karma/seniority.
nramenta
I too have lost the ability to upvote.
Peroni
You have to admire the psychology of this particular post. It reminds me of the infamous reddit post "Test post. Please ignore."

No doubt the exceptionally high score for this post is primarily down to folk upvoting to check if they have the same problem.

ressaid1
Lol, that seems to be an unintended consequence. I was just really confused.
Peroni
The beauty of it is that all these upvotes might just improve your upvoting ability in future.

*might... because no-one seems to know how it actually works.

ressaid1
Funny enough, I not have 10x more karma points than I did before I posted this and I STILL CANT UPVOTE!!!
JonnieCache
From the FAQ:

How is a user's karma calculated?

Roughly, the number of upvotes on their submissions and comments, minus the number of downvotes. (The numbers won't exactly match up, because some votes aren't counted to prevent various types of abuse.)

[dead] aaroncray
mine don't either but I'm pretty sure it's cause i'm too damn gangsta for this panzy ass site
danielhughes
Even if your upvotes are not getting counted, you may still want to consider upvoting articles that you like so that they get added to saved stories. Click your name in the upper right corner and then click saved stories. Everything that you've ever upvoted should appear there. That may explain why the arrow still appears for you.
jacquesm
Let's see, I can't flag posts, I can't post links.

Not surprised you can't upvote.

yread
You can't post links? I always considered you part of the HN elite... What happened?
jacquesm
Judge for yourself.

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jacquesm

Definitely not a part of any elite.

scott_s
You may have tripped an automatic thing. Try emailing info@ycombinator.com to get it fixed.
DougBTX
Perhaps it was the reply to the "censorship or accident?" question.
Livven
All your links submitted after the JustFab thing are dead. The two threads discussing that issue also vanished off the front page shortly after they gained traction. Seems like a case of manual censorship?
[dead] dtby
Welcome, or not, to the wonderful world of being shadow-banned. I get to keep my topcolor, which is the only demonstrable advantage of "high karma" so I keep this account.

It's really hard to actually care about what people here think about my work/life, so everything works out well.

ressaid1
I would first like to say, holy crap. I posted this early in the morning and went for a run, showered, came into work and just checked expecting only a couple of answers. I am really stoked to see so many people taking an active interest. Working on answering each post now.
nogridbag
As a relatively new user, I tried to post a job listing in the October Who's Hiring thread only to find that my comment doesn't show up when viewing the thread as an anon user. Yet, I see plenty of job postings made by brand new accounts.