I did not know that you could make polls on HN and I’m also 5 karma points short of being able to make them. Besides that, I don’t think that I would make polls here, I value the good story links posted and the insightful replies, and often when I see polls in other places it just seems to ignite flame wars and low value discussions. It’s a good thing that it is obscure, long may it be rarely used!

omg, I did not even know we have "karma" here (never looked at my "profile") I actually read HN to get away from stuff like that. Funny, perhaps people come to HN as most people here do not pay attention to those items.

HN tries to curb the karma addiction by not showing the karma of comments (other than your own), while still keeping it as a proxy for reputation (both in the profile and to gate certain features, most notably the ability to downvote).

Not being able to easily compare yourself to others certainly helps, even if it isn't perfect.

How much karma do we need to downvote?

if i recall correctly, 500