I do have to agree. Traditionally HN has given token upvotes to cynical quips, jokes, etc, but the bulk of upvotes have always gone to really insightful comment

I do have to agree. Traditionally HN has given token upvotes to cynical quips, jokes, etc, but the bulk of upvotes have always gone to really insightful comments. It's one of the things I enjoy about this community. With the karma removed from comments, though, "witty joke with 7 upvotes" is now completely indistinguishable at a glance from "extreme insight with 100 upvotes". I don't think it's realistic to expect people to stop joking about topic X, or making short quips about things... logically it makes sense to bring back some kind of way to differentiate these posts.