An interesting analogy. It would be nice, however, if the volume knob applied to the user and not to a specific comment. Say the user starts with a karma of 500

An interesting analogy. It would be nice, however, if the volume knob applied to the user and not to a specific comment. Say the user starts with a karma of 500, based on his comments, I can either turn his volume down to zero or up to 1000. (His volume for me that is). It works similarly in a real conversation, wherein folks will automatically tune out someone (based on their preferences) after a while. This has the downside of ignoring potentially interesting comments by someone having bad karma. But then again that's why its a reputation system - you make/break a reputation over a period of time.