I believe pg felt that people shouldn't have access to that information. The idea being, I think, that people should decide entirely independently, based on the

I believe pg felt that people shouldn't have access to that information. The idea being, I think, that people should decide entirely independently, based on the merits of the comment judged in isolation, whether to upvote or not. As opposed to, say, a situation where a bunch of people upvote a comment for no other reason than "a bunch of other people already upvoted it." Not saying I agree or disagree with that one way or the other, and my memory of all of this could be a bit off by now. But that's approximately the way I remember the discussion going years ago.