Perhaps instead of point totals, put a comment into a limited set of categories or some such. Popular - >= 10 votes Interesting - 3-9 votes Contributor

Perhaps instead of point totals, put a comment into a limited set of categories or some such. Popular - >= 10 votes Interesting - 3-9 votes Contributor - 1-3 votes Neutral - no votes Unpopular - -1 votes Detractive - <= -2 votes And show those instead of points or votes. Karma could still be calculated normally, and the votes could be used internally for thread sorting.