As far as comment-scores are used to filter one's reading, there is an inherent contradiction in the system:
* the reader wants some filtering, so they can just read the good stuff
* the filtering is done by the readers, which requires they read more than just the good stuff
So the filtering can never be extremely effective, i.e. showing everyone only the good stuff, because then the filtering would not get done at all. I suppose it is a weakness in all public-contribution-based systems.
The work has to be done by someone. Perhaps there are other, better ways of allocating that work. A first thought: lower scored items appear stochastically -- lower score, less frequent random appearance. That might help by making it seem like there is less 'work' to do . . .
It seems the whole subject would warrant a fair amount of pondering and experiment (although it looks basically economic) . . .
* the reader wants some filtering, so they can just read the good stuff
* the filtering is done by the readers, which requires they read more than just the good stuff
So the filtering can never be extremely effective, i.e. showing everyone only the good stuff, because then the filtering would not get done at all. I suppose it is a weakness in all public-contribution-based systems.
The work has to be done by someone. Perhaps there are other, better ways of allocating that work. A first thought: lower scored items appear stochastically -- lower score, less frequent random appearance. That might help by making it seem like there is less 'work' to do . . .
It seems the whole subject would warrant a fair amount of pondering and experiment (although it looks basically economic) . . .