How about this solution to improve the readability of HN threads, without degrading the quality of comments/discussion?
1. Show comment-ranges. (1-, 0, 1, 2-10, 10-50 etc.), instead of absolute values. This indicates the quality of a comment, without promoting/prompting voting, based on existing votes (that much.)
2. Do not show username (use a placeholder for profile link). This will solve the problem of "instinctive" up(/down?)voting from commenter's fan base.
3. Any related changes required in the UX, to bubble the better comments more visibility.
Usernames can be very valuable though. If it's a story about Delicious, I'd like to see joshu's comments. If it's about Google search, I'll be looking for Matt Cuts.
I do like the first idea though. It would be a loose indicator of quality without giving too much away.
Well, It is true, but they are exceptions, not the rule.
Potential solutions
1. If the author feels like he is the authority and/or is the important part of the comment, he can always declare it in the comment itself. (The profile-link can always be verified by the users, to ensure that any such claim is correct.)
2. or you can click the links of the comments.
3. or even there might a functionality implemented to show all the usernames on the thread (by default, the author names would not be shown). Later PG can see, if default off makes sense, based on the data captured and user trends (eg. if 99% people are always want to see the commenter name) .
I agree with point #2. I use karma points when scanning comments and read a selection of "pre-filtered" comments. ...user names don't provide much value and I am always slightly disappointed when the most popular comment was made by a popular user.
1. Show comment-ranges. (1-, 0, 1, 2-10, 10-50 etc.), instead of absolute values. This indicates the quality of a comment, without promoting/prompting voting, based on existing votes (that much.)
2. Do not show username (use a placeholder for profile link). This will solve the problem of "instinctive" up(/down?)voting from commenter's fan base.
3. Any related changes required in the UX, to bubble the better comments more visibility.