Other than downvoting and flagging, HN does not provide users with editorial powers. While there are moderators who can edit headlines, they are selected by Y-Combinator [the company].<p>The amount of gamification is minimal and has actually been reduced in the last couple of years when individual comment scores were hidden from public view. This is because, unlike Reddit, HN is not the end product. It is a marketing tool for Y-Combinator [the program], and to some degree a data stream useful for evaluating and filtering some of the applications into it.<p>To put it into perspective, historically, PG has been very much hands on to the point of rebooting the server, troubleshooting errors, and, of course, writing the code.<p>Let karma be its own reward, and to the degree you choose to pursue it let it drive you toward better writing things of interest to hackers.
I'm at 153, and I do not have downvote privileges. The problem is while I do read a lot of HN and actively upvote when it's appropriate, I do not comment much. I suppose I just have to wait to find an awesomely relevant article and post to get upvotes that way. Though to me, it doesn't matter much to downvote. I would like to occasionally when I see inappropriate comments, but I just usually flag inappropriate submissions.
I've read it's relative to the amount of total karma in existence.<p>It's not 300, as said in another comment, because I'm over 400 and cannot downvote.