|The most important aspect of the comment scores was that they let me know what the HN community thought of a particular point or argument. I'm capable of making up my own mind about any topic. I find it interesting and useful to see what other people think
That seems like cognitive dissonance to me and a rationalization. If you truly make up your own mind about something then why would you care so granularly about how much/little HN likes a comment. The ordering of the comments allows you to know where the comments all compare, so I don't see what you're really missing other than the exactness.
|I believe we are all here because we respect the opinions of the people here.
What does that even mean? That by not showing the comments we're somehow disrespecting those opinions?
|Sometimes the best reply is to a no-so-great parent comment.
And even then those replies are sorted again... what is your concern? Time? If you were saying hey, I only have so much time, I could maybe understand. But... I think it would be better for HN as a community to train people for more thought out discussions, fewer flame wars, and more of a focus on actually reading the comments and evaluating them based on their own content and not just on what others have said.
As someone in this thread also pointed out, it also ends the perception that an argument can be won by popularity or upvotes-- I believe this has been especially beneficial at preventing/reducing typical fan-boy flaming. I think HN has already begun to benefit for the changes. Also, I would rather read fewer threads with better comments, than more threads with worse comments.
Note: Better subjectively being defined as more thought out, less antagonistic, more discussion based, more logic, and more citations/sources.
| What does that even mean? That by not showing the comments we're somehow disrespecting those opinions?
What I was trying to say is that I value the votes of the community. The culture at HN is that "+1" type comments are noise, but 73 upvotes gives me an indication that the comment resonates with this community (whose collective opinion means alot to me).
That seems like cognitive dissonance to me and a rationalization. If you truly make up your own mind about something then why would you care so granularly about how much/little HN likes a comment. The ordering of the comments allows you to know where the comments all compare, so I don't see what you're really missing other than the exactness.