Paul, thanks very much for answering my question! I think that the gradual degradation of comments is a fascinating problem to think about. The existing disin

Paul, thanks very much for answering my question! I think that the gradual degradation of comments is a fascinating problem to think about. The existing disincentives are pretty clear (over time: topics no longer link to the first page, new comments have a harder time standing out). There's the usual ways to deal with these issues (hot topics section, more clearly distinguishing between old and new comments, ordering discussions by time and not by points) but I'm not sure any of those necessarily promote quality; they just promote the number of comments.