Peer pressure, pure and simple. Yes, there are tons of people who talk loudly and rudely about topics they don't really understand at all. There's plenty of sta

Peer pressure, pure and simple. Yes, there are tons of people who talk loudly and rudely about topics they don't really understand at all. There's plenty of stalking and brigading that people get away with. But there are also just enough people who are informed and articulate to make it worthwhile anyway. The karma/vote/flag system is, similarly, just good enough to make their comments more visible most of the time. It's sort of the worst possible tech news/discussion site, except for all the others. It's also a bit fragile. If a key hundred or so of the top commenters (not highest karma because karma grossly overweights submissions vs. comments) stopped participating here, I and probably many others would no longer find it "just good enough" to bother. It's really only a matter of time before that happens.