I think people should get points for sparking discussions. So since you generate a lot of replies you should get some points for that. You can have a 1 point thread that has 10+ comments on it.

Since we're getting meta here - I've always thought voting should be based on whether a comment contributes meaningfully to the conversation. Maybe if it's blatantly wrong and misleading it should get a downvote (unless a follow-up comment sets this straight and would get buried if the parent gets nuked) but otherwise I really don't like the "downvote = disagree" trend I've seen recently.

Agreed. Been wanting to post this comment for some time now:

When comments are downvoted, sometimes to oblivion, yet have many and deep set of replies, doesn't that indicate something wrong with the downvotes? The point is to have a substantive discussion and in the case (which is common) I'm noting, the downvoted comment has done just that.

I think any comment should get implied/automatic upvotes for each reply, on a power scale. Say a floor of 2 or maybe 3, then after that 1 or more points for each child comment increasing as the number of comments increase.

I realize that system is subject to abuse, but does it really matter? Whereas OTOH it prevents the echo chamber for hot button topics.

At this time, the now actually dead GP comment has 30 children! It is by definition a worthy comment.

Not all discussion is good discussion. Quality over quantity, as 'dang has said in the past.

That only makes sense in this case if the parent comment is a troll comment but there are cases which clearly are not.

A parent comment can be a bad comment without being trolling, which is important to remember.

I think you'd get 1/2^n for replies, where n is the level depth.

Good point, I removed it.

It's not obvious that an 11 year old comment from somebody who's not really involved in the community anymore should be taken as gospel.

It's natural though. Consensus is that votes are for both post quality and agreement. HN seems to be generally good at focusing on the former.

It has been regularly reinforced by dang.