To be totally honest with you I haven't noticed much of a change in the overall thread quality at all, except that I feel like I'm missing half the picture. The community has definitely felt some growing pains, but it is absolutely not clear that hiding comment scores has helped.
Looking at the best comments page, no I don't think it looks particularly better (or worse) than it did a few months ago.
On that best comments page, look at how many of them are on threads (including this one) asking to bring scores back.
When pg put it to a vote, more people wanted to see them than not.
Since the community was the backbone and validity of the voting system, by taking away the visibility voting system we are taking away quite a bit of faith in the community. If we don't think the voting system is valuable for viewable scores, why is it valuable for sorting the threads? Adding to the fact that a significant majority wanted them shown, it doesn't really seem like we've got a lot of faith in the community as a whole. And if we don't have faith in the community, doesn't that mean HN is kind of dead and we just don't know it yet?
I don't think it is, and I think the upvote system is imperfect but worked much better than nothing. And maybe exact scores aren't what we need, but just sorting the comments isn't enough.
Looking at the best comments page, no I don't think it looks particularly better (or worse) than it did a few months ago.
On that best comments page, look at how many of them are on threads (including this one) asking to bring scores back.
When pg put it to a vote, more people wanted to see them than not.
Since the community was the backbone and validity of the voting system, by taking away the visibility voting system we are taking away quite a bit of faith in the community. If we don't think the voting system is valuable for viewable scores, why is it valuable for sorting the threads? Adding to the fact that a significant majority wanted them shown, it doesn't really seem like we've got a lot of faith in the community as a whole. And if we don't have faith in the community, doesn't that mean HN is kind of dead and we just don't know it yet?
I don't think it is, and I think the upvote system is imperfect but worked much better than nothing. And maybe exact scores aren't what we need, but just sorting the comments isn't enough.