What the old system did was to provide a numeric indicator of other readers' emotive participation in the discussion. It wasn't a popularity contest (although it could be for some) and it wasn't an agree/disagree rank (although it could be for some)
These "bad" uses of the score caused the system to get out of whack as more and more people participated. The problem is, there are "good" uses of the score, which is to use it as a way to filter the site. After all, there are thousands of comments added per hour and it's crazy to think that I'm going to have time to read every single one. I need an indicator of those comments that seem to affect the most number of readers because that's where I want to add my limited amount of effort.
I am not on a treasure hunt for good comments. I am not here to please PG or the other readers. Some might be but I am not. I am not jumping onboard to upvote things already upvoted -- the sad fact is that I can't read everything, so some things will have to have higher priority than others. If you take away the numeric system, I'll find some other way to filter -- perhaps by comment author or by scanning the front page for buzzwords that interest me.
I, the user, have a need to skim. Now the system can either easily provide that for me, or I'll probably go somewhere else. I don't mean that as a threat or anything -- I'm sure nobody gives a hoot where I read on the net or not -- but as an indication of the type of reaction the general public is going to have.
The sort order is what gives you exactly that, and that is still there, so the 'good' stuff is still at the top (and even better than before now with the improved sorting algorithm). It's just 'relative' now, instead of 'absolute'.
But right now I look at this thread and all I see is a bunch of jumbled-up comments. I don't know if the one at the top is worth-while for me to read or just matches some arcane criteria established by the programmer.
I'm forced to use "threads" to see where I've commented before and to use the new comments page to see where people are currently commenting. Any semblance of being able to apply my own sort criteria is gone.
And I think it gets to my ability to sort by my own criteria and the nested nature of the comments. Do I want to find highly-ranked comments under a lowly ranked parent? Sometimes those are the best ones.
What the old system did was to provide a numeric indicator of other readers' emotive participation in the discussion. It wasn't a popularity contest (although it could be for some) and it wasn't an agree/disagree rank (although it could be for some)
These "bad" uses of the score caused the system to get out of whack as more and more people participated. The problem is, there are "good" uses of the score, which is to use it as a way to filter the site. After all, there are thousands of comments added per hour and it's crazy to think that I'm going to have time to read every single one. I need an indicator of those comments that seem to affect the most number of readers because that's where I want to add my limited amount of effort.
I am not on a treasure hunt for good comments. I am not here to please PG or the other readers. Some might be but I am not. I am not jumping onboard to upvote things already upvoted -- the sad fact is that I can't read everything, so some things will have to have higher priority than others. If you take away the numeric system, I'll find some other way to filter -- perhaps by comment author or by scanning the front page for buzzwords that interest me.
I, the user, have a need to skim. Now the system can either easily provide that for me, or I'll probably go somewhere else. I don't mean that as a threat or anything -- I'm sure nobody gives a hoot where I read on the net or not -- but as an indication of the type of reaction the general public is going to have.