Question: how do you see downvotes (or any votes) on a comment? I use news.ycombinator.com but all I see is when the downvotes are large enough to gray out the comment. I often see people talking about upvotes and downvotes as though they can see a number. I’m just wondering if I may be “doing it wrong”.
When I commented the comment was grayed out. That was the only indication I had that there were downvotes.
Ah, thanks.
You are not doing anything wrong, you can't see points for comments that are not your own.
Thanks for the confirmation.
> It’s weird to see downvotes on this comment.
I saw it stand at 0 (i.e. 1 downvote) shortly after I posted it; I don't know if it went lower than that, but probably not. A single person downvoting something shortly after it was posted can make something appear "as if it's downvoted", but more often than not it's just a single person. I wouldn't put too much stock in it.
At a higher level I think the issue is overpopulation combined with ease of travel. We cause too much damage.