The typical LWN reader is a heavy mailing list consumer. Emails have subject lines so having subject lines for comments is very familiar. Many people take the

The typical LWN reader is a heavy mailing list consumer. Emails have subject lines so having subject lines for comments is very familiar. Many people take the default subject heading because they are making an on-topic comment. I think outsiders aren't used to seeing so many on-topic comments so it throws them off. Using a line break between meta data and content is also a familiar paradigm. Spend 20 years reading your email with mutt or mailx and you'll catch on. ;)