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I have never seen a downvote button on my account and always assumed it was a privilege attached to a certain level of Karma.

Someone enlighten me please

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You are correct. However even users who should see downvote arrows did not see up or down arrows this morning. But a force-refresh fixed this.

Who are the users who should see downvote arrows?

I don't know the exact rules, but it looks like it's a certain quantity of karma points. If so, it's more than 200, and less than 1200.

I got my downvote arrows at 500 karma

when I had karma above about 800 or 900, downvote arrows appeared. This was recently. the exact number changes to allow for "karma inflation".

Karma inflation, eh? How does that come about?

Is it the result of HN becoming more popular? More readers and same size front page means more readers per post, so more votes per post, so an individual accumulates karma more quickly?

yes

You need 500 karma for the downvote button AFAIR.

Been sitting just below the threshold forever...I really should make a point of commenting more rather than just reading.

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