[Rainymood]

The comments on Hacker News are high quality because there are only certain people with downvoting privileges. And trust me: they downvote ruthlessly. Which is imo a good thing. Just take a peek at Reddit: subreddits with a high moderator count (which actively moderate) are high quality. /r/AskHistorians and /r/AskScience spring to mind. They do not allow any jokes in the comments.

[engi_nerd]

I've been lurking for a lot longer than my account has been active (probably a good 5 years now); have never seen what the criteria are for being able to downvote. Could you please enlighten me?

[Rainymood]

It 'used to be' 500 karma. But I've heard it goes up over time. I've heard people talk about having ~2k karma without the privilege. So I don't really know to be honest. I wish somebody could answer your question more precisly.

[Balgair]

Honestly, I'm a bit curious too, bu kinda do not want to know, as I may be then tempted to 'go for it' and obtain that ability.

[taylorling]

It's enabled exactly when you have 500 karma. One of my colleague just got that.

[Retric]

~500 Karma

[needacig]

It has to be a lot higher than that now because the commenter with the comment above yours has ~900 karma and doesn't have downvote privilege.

[seszett]

I have 600 and can downvote, though. It appeared at exactly 500.

[burger_moon]

This is why I don't visit Reddit much anymore. I appreciate the seriousness of this discussion board even with controversial topics not related to the programming sphere.