They dont matter to you or to anyone else aside from the person that you upvote. They see it. And it matters for them, as does the same if you flag a post because if youre flagged (like I often am when I post with emotions) -- they will get a "you're posting too fast" alert which prevents them from posting too quickly (although the cooldown for this punishment is BS too long @ dang ;-) ) --- Though HN is prolly one o…
I don't see an option to flag, should I? I was under the assumption that upvotes were how everything was ranked here, why have it if it truly doesn't matter? also; how do I downvote?
However the feedback you get as a dopamine input is that you can see (and only you can) how many people agree with your sentiment.
However this is a broken metric ; I rarely upvote any story or comment... so there are toons of comments and posts that many people agree with / like but they simply, as do I, not click on the arrows irrespective....
I do click up when I appreciate something, but its rare...
Also, I do not know if this is still true ; one used to have a min of 400 positive comment karma before the downvote arrow was unlocked...
The only thing outstanding as BS is the cool-down for "youre posting too fast" @dang
;-)