But you are showing that with points shown you have two tiers of users: -Those who read every post & up/down-vote each one on its merit. -Those who scan the p

But you are showing that with points shown you have two tiers of users: -Those who read every post & up/down-vote each one on its merit. -Those who scan the page quickly & read the comments with the highest votes. The problems is, how do you tell which kind of user is voting when comes to ranking a comment? I would argue that a vote from someone who just scans the top rated comments is less useful than a vote from someone who has read the whole thread. The chance of gems being left languishing in a corner decreases with many eyes hunting for good content. By being the second type of user you are essentially out-sourcing your opinion of a comment to the crowd and assuming everyone else is not doing the same thing.