Thanks. To be honest, one of the things i liked most about HN was the lack of downvoting (I never realised it was possible...i thought the grey posts were caused by mods or something). I know in effect there's no real difference...but the whole place felt more 'community' like. Ah well.
The min threshhold I think is now 500 karma. It's a way to ensure that only people who have been around for a while and understand the community have the ability to downvote, and the rule is only downvote contentless posts (like memes, "+1"'s, etc).
