What I find interesting is that users voting on other's comments seems to have become the assumed best way of organizing user-generated content. In my mind, I t

What I find interesting is that users voting on other's comments seems to have become the assumed best way of organizing user-generated content. In my mind, I think the question isn't "do we allow or disallow down votes," but "should we even let users vote?" My impression is that voting systems ultimately end up as popularity counters, and that in and of itself can skew the motivations of participants. Additionally, there's motivation to maliciously hide opposing viewpoints, late-comers rarely get to meaningfully participate due to their "score" starting lower than longer lived and thus higher scored content, and well-intentioned discussion about contentious or nuanced topics can easily get buried. What the "best" way of sorting user content is will surely depend on the goals of the platform, but if deep, informative discussion is the goal, maybe using a popularity contest isn't the right strategy? Perhaps giving the users choices of sorting by new/old, most/least discussion, most/fewest replies, etc... might be a better option? And/or some other non-vote driven method? Of course you'll still need good moderation and a way to flag inappropriate content where a user's ability to flag is kept in check by some combination of the length of time that user has been active, his/her level of participation with the platform, and the number flags said user has received, but overall I suspect this would keep the general user's focus on having actually productive discussion instead of trying to get that dopamine hit from making a well-liked comment. I should also say that I've been mostly pretty pleased with the quality of discussions on HN and I appreciate the good moderation and the general populace's desire to share quality information/opinions/thoughts. But I do wonder what will happen if it becomes "too" popular and if there are things that could be done to keep that focus on quality discussions even in the face of a massive influx of users.