(Really sorry if this is already discussed, but I don't have time to read 300+ comments in depth)
How about allowing users to set two thresholds for themselves: (1) show only comments above X; (2) begin greying out below Y
What precisely X and Y are or could be I'll leave to the experts.
But this would let everyone decide their own absolute or relative threshold of comments they want to see. Those of you with plenty of time to spend on HN can have fairly low X and Y, whereas those of us that only want to spend a little time on HN each day can have just the popular presented to us. Voluntary herd membership (or rejection), if you will.
Variant along the same lines: An absolute number account setting indicating "I want to see only the N highest-scoring comments/parents".
How about allowing users to set two thresholds for themselves: (1) show only comments above X; (2) begin greying out below Y
What precisely X and Y are or could be I'll leave to the experts.
But this would let everyone decide their own absolute or relative threshold of comments they want to see. Those of you with plenty of time to spend on HN can have fairly low X and Y, whereas those of us that only want to spend a little time on HN each day can have just the popular presented to us. Voluntary herd membership (or rejection), if you will.
Variant along the same lines: An absolute number account setting indicating "I want to see only the N highest-scoring comments/parents".