> In 10 years of reading hacker news I never thought to press the [-] until this moment.

I thought you had to click the [-]. How do I press the [-]?

I don’t understand if I should click or press [-] What does it do?

Don't do it! If I understand it correctly, every time you use it, it takes away one of your valuable internet points.

A friend of mine did this too many times. He is in rehab now. His wife left him, his liberal left kids commited suicide etc. Harsh times.

How can you click OR press something?

> I thought you had to click the [-].

I cannot click anything on my phone.

They didn't have that feature here ten years ago; it's a relatively recent addition (and [next]/[prev] are newer still).

I always assumed [-] subtracted a point from that comment.

Doesn’t [-] set it to zero?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

[-] collapses the replies so that you can easily see what's next. On reddit the equivalent functionality is a button literally called "hide child comments."

But as another comment mentioned, you can click root | parent | prev | next to get navigated through the thread. Personally, I prefer the collapse, though, as having the top of my screen move without my direct control is a bit jarring, but there's more functionality from these buttons.

Important fact: The [-] does not remove a point. After you get 500 points, you earn the privilege of down voting, you will get a "down triangle" underneath the "up vote up triangle" that you can click on.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1053/