That particular thread sounds like it fell apart, but I hope you contribute to other discussions anyway (though maybe a new account is required). Losing points

That particular thread sounds like it fell apart, but I hope you contribute to other discussions anyway (though maybe a new account is required). Losing points happens occasionally, but it isn't the trend. Keep in mind that although some comments don't really deserve to be negative, most of them really do. It's reasonable for the site to set a standard for quality and save readers' time by graying out things that are probably not worth the time to read. It won't be perfect. There are also different shades of gray in comments. A comment at -3 is still a "readable" gray, and I've been known to bump comments back up if they contribute usefully to the discussion. But that's just one vote, putting it back to -2, which will still be below many people's thresholds. Sometimes not enough people bother to join in to "rescue" a reasonable comment; it happens, it's unfortunate, but that's how it goes. Really the only way to fix these things is to post in "Feature Requests" at the bottom of the page with your ideas for what would make a better critique system. For instance, maybe it should become harder to downvote and require a reason, e.g. flame/inaccurate/whatever.