I think there could be a solution. When a article is first submitted, the focus and the criteria for voting is based on the quality of the article (well actual

I think there could be a solution. When a article is first submitted, the focus and the criteria for voting is based on the quality of the article (well actually, just the article name). If the article is viewed and looked upon favorably, it garners a vote. Over time, two things increase as the submission gets more popular: points and comments. Number of points perpetuate the quality of the article. Number of comments demonstrate the quality of the discussion. Well, actually it doesn't. When comments are off-topic, stupid, or mean, they still add to the comment count and portray the increasing quantity/quality of discussion. So should these comments be included in the comment count? Another issue with the degradation of comments is the display order of comments and their related threads. When a new comment is submitted, it is favored by being displayed in its own area and not tabbed in. Replies and subsequent threads are included under the original comment. This is pretty much standard practice. However, the issue is that new comments and ideas are unnecessarily displayed below the fold in favor of lower quality replies to more popular comments. This is favoring lower quality discussions to newer ideas that may never be displayed to the first-time viewer of the article discussion. So should children of parent comments be displayed automatically by default given this issue?