I support the decision to downplay karma within comments; I would even experiment with removing that data from the article listings view. This is a data driven group of people who are simultaneously very competitive. It's likely that the majority of readers aren't maliciously competitive regarding karma, but this competitive, data driven nature likely has a contributing factor to some of the referenced issues.
If you notice, many of the comments themselves are about the external of the karma system, such as justification for downvotes, using karma as a currency, etc. The current iteration, using karma on the back end for page ranking purposes, will likely be the best long term solution. I will know the community's response to my own comments, but I won't be able to notice that a HN "super member" received 20+ votes and try to emulate their content. Over time, comment and article rank, the original idea behind a voting article/comment system, will become the goal, rather than earning 2 upvotes.
To put this in perspective, do a Ctrl+F for "karma" and "vote", then do the same for "quality."
If you notice, many of the comments themselves are about the external of the karma system, such as justification for downvotes, using karma as a currency, etc. The current iteration, using karma on the back end for page ranking purposes, will likely be the best long term solution. I will know the community's response to my own comments, but I won't be able to notice that a HN "super member" received 20+ votes and try to emulate their content. Over time, comment and article rank, the original idea behind a voting article/comment system, will become the goal, rather than earning 2 upvotes.
To put this in perspective, do a Ctrl+F for "karma" and "vote", then do the same for "quality."