I think one of the flaws with the points system is this: A comment that has been down-voted 50 times and up-voted 55 times is not the same as a comment that ha

I think one of the flaws with the points system is this: A comment that has been down-voted 50 times and up-voted 55 times is not the same as a comment that has been up-voted 5 times. Up-vote and down-vote are not opposites. They are just two flavors of passion; the opposite of up-vote and down-vote is indifference. If a comment is only getting up or down votes, it's a pretty good chance that the person is saying something insightful or everyone likes or there's something wrong with their delivery, or it's a universally unpopular idea. Also, some people say you shouldn't use points to censor an unpopular idea, but not everyone is doing that. It only takes a few people going around doing that to make the community start to suck. Here's a rage-quit by a guy feeling that he was being censored: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1054044 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1054044 There should be a way for that guy to see that nobody agrees with him without feeling like he's losing something personal. And people do take their points personally. The ideas of "I agree" and "I disagree" are conflated with the idea of "I think this is a good discussion". Perhaps if you have a back and forth going on, you can show people's votes without affecting karma. The discussion itself might be interesting even if one person is playing devils advocate.